HIPPO, a Greek philosopher, who is called by some a native of Samoa and a follower of Pythagoras, and by others a native of Rhegium, in southern Italy. With regard to his age, some writers have made him a contemporary of Thales, or have placed him even before the age of Thales; but he evidently belongs to a much later time, and was perhaps a contemporary of the comic poet °ratlines (about n.c. 450), who rediculed him in one of his last comedies ; further, Hippo mentions the four elements of the physical philosophy of Empedocles in such a manner that we must infer that he was acquaiuted with the theory of Empedoeles. Aristotle (' Metaphys.' a 3) does not appear to attach any great value to the philosophical system of Hippo, which in fact was that of Thalea, with sundry additions and - — modification& He thus went back to the materialism of the early Ionic school ; and as Thales had taken water, so Hippo took moisture to be the principle of all things. (Aristot. 'Do Anima,' 1. 2. Plutarch,
' De Placit. Philos.' 5.) He explained his views in a work which seems to have been called tpvcria 56-seara, which however owing to Its insignificance, appears to have fallen into oblivion at a very early period, and .carcely any fragments of it have come down to us. Clemens of Alexandria (' Cohortat. ad Gent.: vol 1. p. 43, ed. Potter) has preserved an epigram of Hippo, whioh is also printed in the editions of the Greek Anthology. (Iamblichus, De Vita Pythag. 36 ; Sextus Empir. Pyrrha's. lIyp. iii. 30, edit dollies. ix. 361 ; Scholiast.. ad A ristoph. Nab. 97; compare Brandis, (Iesehichle der Griech. Ranitchen PAilosophie, vol. 1. p. 121, ko.; Bakhuizen van den Brink, Varna Latioac es If istoria Philosophic Antigua, pp. 36-59; Brucker, Hist. Crit. Phil. I