(Ἑρμότιμος), of Clazomenae, called by Lucian a Pythagorean, had the reputation, according to Aristotle, of being the first to suggest the idea which Anaxagorasis commonly said to have originated: that mind (νοῦς) was the cause of all things. Accordingly, Sextus Empiricus places him with Hesiod, Parmenides, and Empedocles, as belonging to that class of philosophers who held a dualistic theory of a material and an active principle being together the origin of the universe.

Other notices that remain of him represent him, like Epimenides and Aristaeus, as a mysterious person, gifted with a supernatural power, by which his soul, apart from the body, wandered from place to place, bringing tidings of distant events in incredibly short spaces of time. At length his enemies burned his body, in the absence of the soul, which put an end to his wanderings. The story is told in Pliny and Lucian. (Plin. Nat. 7.42; Lucian, Eucom. Musc. 7; Arist. Metaph. 1.3; Sext. Empir. ad v. Math. ix., ad Phys. 1.7; D. L. 8.5; Denzinger, De Hermotim. Clazomen. Commentatio, Leodii, 1825.)