Strabo, Geography
H.C. Hamilton, Esq., W. Falconer, M.A., Ed.

1 Metrodorus was not only a fellow-countryman of Demetrius, who was one of the richest and most distinguished citizens of Scepsis, but also his contemporary and protegé. A small treatise of Metrodorus is cited, entitled πεοͅὶ ἀλειπτικῆς, which may mean ‘on anointing with oil,’ or ‘on oil used in the public exercises.’ It seems however very probable that the treatise on the Troad, (τοͅωϊκὰ,) which Athenæus attributes to another Metrodorus of Chios, was the work of this Metrodorus of Scepsis. The place of his birth, which was in the Troad, might have suggested, as it did to his patron, the idea of treating a subject liable to discussion, and to endeavour to throw light upon it by the words of Homer. Add to this that Strabo quotes also Metrodorus on the subject of the Amazons, whose history appears so closely connected with the Trojan war that all who have touched on the one, have also treated of the other. Pliny quotes also a Metrodorus on the subject of the serpents of the river Rhyndacus, near the Troad. It is also a question whether Metrodorus was one of those who occupied themselves with mnemonics, or the art of increasing and strengthening the memory. According to Plutarch, Metrodorus was the victim of Mithridates. Tigranes, who had placed the philosopher in his power, more from inadvertence than intentionally, so much regretted his death that he celebrated magnificent obsequies to his memory.