Parmeniscus

(Παρμενίσκος).

1. A partner of Dionysodorus, against whom Demosthenes pleaded in the speech Κατὰ Διονυσόδωρου. (Dem. pp. 1282-1298, ed. Reisk.)

2. Of Metapontum, who probably lived about the middle of the fifth century B. . Iamblichus (Vit. Pythugor. 100.36) calls him (according to the common reading) Παρμίσκος, and ranks him among the celebrated Pythagorean philosophers. Athenaeus, (who, 4.156, c. &c., gives a quotation from a letter of a man of this name, containing an account of a Cynic banquet,) narrates (xiv. p. 614a. b.) an incident in his life, connected with a descent into the cave of Trophonius, and calls him rich and high born. He is also mentioned by Diogenes Laertius, 9.20.

3. A grammarian and commentator, of whom we have fragments and notices in the Schol. Hom. Od. δ#. 242, Il. θ#. 513, λ#. 424; Eustath. ad Il. ii. p. 854; Schol. Eur. Med. 10, 276, Troad. 222, 230, Rhes. 524; Et. Mag. s. v. Ἄρεω; Steph. Byz. s. v.. Ἄλος, Ἔφυρα, Φθία. Hyginus, when speaking (Poet. Astron. 2.2, 13) of his history of the stars, probably refers to a lost commentary on Aratus. Varro (de L. L. 10.10) refers to him as making the distinctive characteristics of words to be eight in number. (Fabric. Bibl. Grtec. vol. i. p. 518, vol. vi. p. 375; Vossius, De Hist. Graec. p. 481, ed. Westermann.) [W.M.G]