A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology
William Smith, Ed.

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Ido'meneus

（Ἰδομενεύς), of Lampsacus, a friend and disciple of Epicurus, flourished about B. C. 310-270. We have no particulars of his life, save that he married Batis, the sister of Sandes, who was also a native of Lampsacus, and a pupil of Epicurus. (D. L. 10.23, 25; Strab. xiii. p.589; Athen. 7.279. f.)

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Works

Idomeneus wrote a considerable number of philosophical and historical works, and though the latter were not regarded as of very great authority (Plut. Dem. 23), still they must have been of considerable value, as they seem to have been chiefly devoted to an account of the private life of the distinguished men of Greece.

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Works for which we have titles

The titles of the following works of Idomeneus are mentioned :

1. Ἱστορία τῶν κατὰ Σαμοθρᾴκην.

(Suid. s. v.) This work is probably the one referred to by the Scholiast on Apollonius Rhodius (1.916), where for Τρωικά, we should read Σαμοθρᾳκικά.

2. Περὶ τῶν Σωκρατικῶν.

（D. L. 2.19, 20; Athen. 13.611d.)

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Untitled work

We do not know for certain the title of the work or works of Idomeneus, which contained some account of the following persons :--of the Peisistratidae (Athen. 12.532, f.), of Themistocles (Athen. 12.533d., xiii. p. 576c.; comp. Schol. ad Aristoph. Vesp. 941, where Themistocles appears to be meant, and not Thucydides, the son of Milesius, asthe Scholiast says), of Aristeides (Plut. Arist. 10), of Pericles (Plut. Per. 10, 35), of Demosthenes (Plut. Dem. 15, 23; Athen. 13.592f.), of Aeschines (Apollon. Vit. Aesch. p. 247, ed. Bekker), of Hyperides (Athen. 13.590d.), and of Phocion (Plut. Phoc. 4).

It is not improbable that all these persons were mentioned in one work, to which modern writers have assigned various conjectural titles. Ionsius (Hist. Script. Philos. 2.1. p. 118) conjectured that it was entitled Περὶ ἐνδόξων ἀνδρῶν, Heeren (De Font. Vit. Plut. p. 93) that it was a Greek history, and Luzac (Lect. Att. p. 113) that it was styled Περὶ τῆς ἐνδόξων τρυφῆς, while Sintenis (ad Plut. Pericl. p. 313, &c.) labours to show that all the passages quoted above are taken from the Σωκρατικά. The true title of the work is, however, in all probability restored by a happy emendation of Sauppe (Rheinisches Museum, p. 450, for 1843), who, in place of the corrupt passage in Bekker's Anecdota (p. 249, 27), ὡς δὲ Ἰδομένης φησὶ δημαγωγόν, reads ώς δὲ Ἰδομενεύς φησι περὶ δημαγωγῶν. The title περὶ δημαγωγῶν agrees also much better with all the above-mentioned passages than any of the other titles which have been proposed.

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Further Information

Sintenis, Fifth Excursus to Plutarch's Pericles ; Vossius, De Histor. Graec. p. 105, ed. Westermann; Clinton, Fast. Hell. vol. iii. p. 488.