Name: Fragments
Author: Bolus of Mendes

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Bolus of Mendes was a Hellenistic writer from Egypt, associated with works on marvels, sympathies and magic, some of them circulated under the name of Democritus. His writings are lost. This small set gathers two passages collected among his fragments: Clement of Alexandria on Democritus' debt to Babylonian wisdom and his travels, and Pliny the Elder's history of magic and its spread to the Greeks.

Bolus stands at the start of the long tradition of pseudo-Democritean literature on natural magic and occult properties, which later fed into Greek alchemy. These passages show how Democritus came to be portrayed as a pupil of Eastern magi and priests, an image that shaped ancient ideas about the origins of magic and science.

About this edition. The Greek text comes from the Eulogikon open corpus of public-domain editions (standard reference: FGrHist 263 F 1–2). Every word has been analyzed with odyCy, a neural language model for Ancient Greek — click or tap any word for its dictionary form, part of speech, and complete morphology, together with the full entry from the Liddell–Scott–Jones Greek–English Lexicon (LSJ).

Ancient Greek · Science & Medicine

Fragments

Bolus of Mendes · every word parsed

F 1

CLEM. AL. Strom. 1, 69, 4: Δημόκριτος γὰρ τοὺς Βαβυλωνίους λόγους ἠθικοὺς πεποίηται· λέγεται γὰρ τὴν Ἀκικάρου στήλην ἑρμηνευθεῖσαν τοῖς ἰδίοις συντάξαι συγγράμμασι· κἄστιν ἐπισημήνασθαι παρʼ αὐτοῦ «τάδε λέγει Δημόκριτος» γράφοντος. (5) ναὶ μὴν καὶ περὶ αὑτοῦ ἧι σεμνυνόμενός φησί που ἐπὶ τῆι πολυμαθίαι· «ἐγὼ δὲ τῶν κατʼ ἐμαυτὸν ἀνθρώπων γῆν πλείστην ἐπλανησάμην ἱστορέων τὰ μήκιστα, καὶ ἀέρας τε καὶ γέας πλείστας εἶδον, καὶ λογίων ἀνθρώπων πλείστων ἐσήκουσα, καὶ γραμμέων συνθέσιος μετὰ ἀποδείξεως οὐδείς κώ με παρήλλαξεν, οὐδʼ οἱ Αἰγυπτίων καλεόμενοι ἁρπεδονάπται, σὺν τοῖς δʼ ἐπὶ πᾶσιν ἐπʼ ἔτεα πέντε ἐπὶ ξείνης ἐγενήθην». (6) ἐπῆλθε γὰρ Βαβυλῶνά τε καὶ Περσίδα καὶ Αἴγυπτον τοῖς τε μάγοις καὶ τοῖς ἱερεῦσι μαθητεύων. Ζωροάστρην δὲ τὸν μάγον τὸν Πέρσην ὁ Πυθαγόρας ἐζήλωσεν …. *[crux: ἠθικοὺς πεποίηται· λέγεται γὰρ τὴν Ἀκικάρου στήλην ἑρμηνευθεῖσαν τοῖς ἰδίοις συντάξαι συγγράμμασι· κἄστιν ἐπισημήνασθαι]*

F 2

PLIN. NH 30, 7: Orphea putarem e propinquo artem primum intulisse …., si non expers sedes eius tota Thrace magices fuisset. (8) primus, quod extet, ut equidem invenio, … Osthanes Xerxen regem Persarum bello quod is Graeciae intulit comitatus ac velut semina artis portentosae sparsit …. diligentiores paulo ante hunc ponunt Zoroastren, alium (?) Proconnensium. quod certum est, hic maxime Osthanes ad rabiem …. scientiae eius Graecorum populos egit. quamquam animadverto summam literarum claritatem gloriamque ex ea scientia antiquitus et paene semper petitam. (9) certe Pythagoras Empedocles Democritus Plato ad hanc discendam navigaver e , exiliis verius quam peregrinationibus suscepti s ; hanc reversi praedicaver e , hac in arcanis habuer e . Democritus Apollobechen Coptiten et Dardanum e Phoenice (? ) inlustravi t , voluminibus Dardani in sepulcrum eius petiti s , suis vero ex disciplina eorum editi s . quae recepta ab ullis hominum atque transisse per memoriam aeque ac nihil in vita miradum est; (10) in tantum fides istis fasque omne deest, adeo ut qui cetera in viro probant, haec opera eius esse infitientur. sed frustra. hunc enim maxime adfixisse animis eam dulcedinem constat …. (11) est et alia magices factio a Mose et Janne et Lotape ac Judaeis pendens, sed multis milibus annorum post Zoroastren. tanto recentior est Cypria. non levem et Alexandri Magni temporibus auctoritatem addidit professioni secundus Osthanes, comitatu eius exornatus, planeque (quod nemo dubitet) orbem terrarum peragravit.

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Text: Perseus Digital Library, licensed CC BY-SA. Dictionary: Liddell, Scott & Jones (Perseus, CC BY-SA). Morphology: odyCy — machine parsing, corrected against the AGDT & PROIEL treebanks and Morpheus.