Vitae philosophorum

His goodness was proved in all ways, as Epicurus testifies in the introductions[*](Epicurus seems to have prefixed dedications or other short notices to the separate books of his larger works. Thus book xxviii. of his great work On Nature was dedicated to Hermarchus, and this has come down to us in Vol. Herc. Coll. Alt. vi. fr. 45 sqq.) to his works and in the third book of the Timocrates. Such he was: he gave his sister Batis to Idomeneus to wife, and himself took Leontion the Athenian courtesan as his concubine. He showed dauntless courage in meeting troubles and death, as Epicurus declares in the first book of his memoir. He died, we learn, seven years before Epicurus in his fiftythird year, and Epicurus himself in his will already cited clearly speaks of him as departed, and enjoins upon his executors to make provision for Metrodorus’s children. The above-mentioned Timocrates[*](This second mention of Timocrates (see § 6) may have been a marginal note, not very suitably placed, intended to distinguish the renegade Timocrates from his namesake, one of Epicurus’ executors (§ 18).)also, the brother of Metrodorus and a giddy fellow, was another of his pupils.

Metrodorus wrote the following works: