Hippo (/ˈhɪpoʊ/;Ancient Greek:Ἵππων,Hippon; fl. 5th century BC) was aPre-Socratic Greek philosopher. He is variously described as coming fromRhegium,[1]Metapontum,[2]Samos,[3] andCroton,[4] and it is possible that there was more than one philosopher with this name.
Although he was anatural philosopher,Aristotle refused to place him among the other greatPre-Socratic philosophers "because of the paltriness of his thought."[5] At some point Hippo was accused ofatheism,[6] but since his works have perished, we cannot be certain why. He was accused ofimpiety by the comic poetCratinus in hisPanoptae,[7] and, according toClement of Alexandria, Hippo supposedly ordered the following couplet to be inscribed on his tomb:[8]
Behold the tomb of Hippo, whom in death
Fate made an equal of the immortal gods.
The classicalphilologist Michael Hendry has suggested an alternative translation of the epitaph that underscores the argument for Hippo's atheism:[9]
This is the tomb of Hippo,
Whom Fate made just as dead as the immortal gods.
According toHippolytus, Hippo heldwater andfire to be theprimary elements, with fire originating from water, and then developing itself by generating theuniverse.Simplicius, too, says that Hippo thought that water was the principle of all things.[10] Most of the accounts of his philosophy suggest that he was interested inbiological matters. He thought that there is an appropriate level of moisture in all living things, anddisease is caused when the moisture is out of balance.[4] He also viewed thesoul as arising from both mind and water.[1] A medievalscholium onAristophanes'The Clouds attributes to Hippo the view that theheavens were like the dome (πνιγεύς) of anoven covering theEarth.[11]
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