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 Menippus of Sinope. Having weighed the probable pains and pleasures of approaching old age, he decided that life had nothing left for which he greatly cared, and drowned himself. He is said to have written several works, which he afterwards burnt. Of one, entitled , Diogenes preserves a single line (vi. 6).

METRODORUS, the name of five philosophers.

1. of Athens was a philosopher and painter who flourished in the 2nd century  It chanced that Paullus Aemilius, visiting Athens on his return from his victory over Perseus in 168, asked for a tutor for his children and a painter to glorify his triumph. The inhabitants suggested Metrodorus as capable of discharging both duties, and it is recorded that Aemilius was entirely satisfied (see Pliny, Nat. Hist. xxv. 135).

2. of Chios was an important member of the Atomistic school. A pupil of Nessus, or, as some accounts prefer, of Democritus himself, he was a complete sceptic. He accepted the Democritean theory of atoms and void and the plurality of worlds, but held a theory of his own that the stars are formed from day to day by the moisture in the air under the heat of the sun. His radical scepticism is seen in the first sentence of his , quoted by Cicero in the Academics ii. 23 § 73. He says, “We know nothing, no, not even whether we know or not!" and maintains that everything is to each person only what it appears to him to be. Metrodorus is especially interesting as the teacher of Anaxarchus, the friend of Pyrrho, and, therefore, as the connecting link between atomism proper and the later scepticism. It cannot be decided whether a work entitled the quoted by Athenaeus (iv. 184 a) is by this, or another, Metrodorus. The same difficulty is found in the case of the  referred to by the scholiast on Apollonius.

3. of Lampsacus was the disciple and intimate friend of Epicurus, and is described by Cicero (de Fin. ii. 28. 92) as “almost a second Epicurus.” He died in 277 at the age of fifty-three, seven years before his master, who adopted his children and in his will commended them to the care of his pupils. The wife of Metrodorus was Leontion, herself, like many other women of the time, a member of the Epicurean society. Athenaeus (vii. 279 F.) quotes from the words of Metrodorus showing that he was in entire agreement with Epicurus, and Was, if possible, even more dogmatic in his doctrine of pleasure. He censures his brother, Timocrates, who, though professedly Epicurean, maintained the existence of pleasures other than those of the body.

4. Another of Lampsacus was a pupil of Anaxagoras, and one of the earliest to attempt to interpret Homer allegorically. He explained not only the gods but also the heroes Agamemnon, Achilles, Hector, as representing primary elements and natural phenomena.

5. of Stratonice was a pupil, first of Apollodorus, and later of Carneades. He flourished about 110, and is reputed to have been an orator of great power. His defection from the Epicurean school is almost unique. It is explained by Cicero as being due to his theory that the scepticism of Carneades was merely a means of attacking the Stoics on their own ground. Metrodorus held that Carneades was in reality a loyal follower of Plato.

METRONOME (Gr., measure, and , law), an instrument for denoting the speed at which a musical composition is to be performed. Its invention is generally, but falsely, ascribed to Johann Nepomuk Maelzel, a native of Ratisbon (1772–1838). It consists of a pendulum swung on a pivot; below the pivot is a fixed weight, and above it is a sliding weight that regulates the velocity of the oscillations by the greater or less distance from the pivot to which it is adjusted. The silent metronome is impelled by the touch, and ceases to beat when this impulse dies; it has a scale of numbers marked on the pendulum, and the upper part of the sliding weight is placed under that number which is to indicate the quickness of a stated note, as M.M. (Maelzel’s Metronome) ＝60, or ＝72, or ＝108, or the like. The number 60 implies a second of time for each single oscillation of the pendulum—numbers lower than this denoting slower, and higher numbers quicker beats. The scale at first extended from 50 to 160, but now ranges from 40 to 208. A more complicated metronome is impelled by clock-work, makes a ticking sound at each beat, and continues its action till the works run down; a still more intricate machine has also a bell which is struck at the first of any number of beats willed by the person who regulates it, and so signifies the accent as well as the time.

METROPOLIS (Gr., mother, , city), properly a mother-city, and so the name of the parent state from which colonies were founded in ancient Greece (see , sect. History, Ancient). The word was used in post-classical Latin for the chief city of a province, the seat of the government, and in particular ecclesiastically for the seat or see of a metropolitan bishop (see ). It is thus used now for the capital of a country, which contains the various official buildings of the administrative departments, the Houses of Parliament, &c. In the case of London, the term “metropolitan” is sometimes applied to the whole area including the “City of London,” e.g. “Metropolitan Asylums Board”; and sometimes, as in “Metropolitan Police,” excludes the City, which has its own police force (see ).

METROPOLITAN (Lat. metropolitanus, Gr. in the Christian church, the title of a bishop who has the oversight over bishops of subordinate sees. In the Western church