Hermarchus (in Greek Eρμαρχoς), sometimes, but incorrectly, written Hermachus. He was a son of Agemarchus, a poor man of Mytilene (in insular Greece), and was at first brought up as a rhetorician, but afterwards became a faithful disciple of Epicurus, who left to him his garden, and appointed him his successor as the head of his school, about 270 BC.¹ He died in the house of Lysias at an advanced age, and left behind him the reputation of a great philosopher. Cicero² has preserved a letter of Epicurus addressed to him. Hermarchus was the author of several works, which are characterised by Diogenes Laertius³ as καλλιστα, viz. Against Empedocles (Πρoς Eμπεδoκλεα), in 22 books, On the mathematicians (Περι των μαθηματων), Against Plato (Πρoς Πλατωνα), and Against Aristotle (Πρoς Aριστoτελην); but all of them are lost, and we know nothing about them but their titles. But from an expression of Cicero⁴, we may infer that his works were of a polemical nature, and directed against the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle, and on Empedocles.⁵

Hermarchus is also a genus of very large stick insects within the order Phasmatodea.

References

Smith, William; Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, "Hermarchus", Boston, (1867)

Notes

• 1 Diogenes Laertius, Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, x. 17, 24
  
• 2 Cicero, De Finibus, ii. 30
  
• 3 Laertius, x. 24
  
• 4 Cicero, De Natura Deorum, i. 33
  
• 5 Cicero, Academica, ii. 30; Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae, xiii. 53; Photius, Bibliotheca, 167
  

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This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology by William Smith (1867).