Bolus of Mendes

Bolus of Mendes (, "Bōlos ho Mendēsios"; fl. 3rd century BC) was a Hellenized Egyptian philosopher, a neo-Pythagorean writer of works of esoterica and medical works, who worked in Ptolemaic Egypt. The "Suda", and Eudocia after him, mention a Pythagorean philosopher of Mendes in Egypt, who wrote on marvels, potent remedies, and astronomical phenomena. The "Suda", however, also describes a Bolus who was a philosopher of the school of Democritus, who wrote "Inquiry", and "Medical Art", containing "natural medical remedies from some resources of nature." But, from a passage of Columella, it appears that Bolos of Mendes and the follower of Democritus were one and the same person; and he seems to have lived following the time of Theophrastus, whose work "On Plants" he appears to have known.