Vitae philosophorum

Theopompus relates in his Mirabilia that, as he was building a temple to the Nymphs, a voice came from heaven: Epimenides, not a temple to the Nymphs but to Zeus, and that he foretold to the Cretans the defeat of the Lacedaemonians by the Arcadians, as already stated; and in very truth they were crushed at Orchomenus.

And he became old in as many days as he had slept years; for this too is stated by Theopompus. Myronianus in his Parallels declares that the Cretans called him one of the Curetes. The Lacedaemonians guard his body in their own keeping in obedience to a certain oracle; this is stated by Sosibius the Laconian.

There have been two other men named Epimenides, namely, the genealogist and another who wrote in Doric Greek about Rhodes.

Pherecydes, the son of Babys, and a native of Syros according to Alexander in his Successions of Philosophers, was a pupil of Pittacus. Theopompus

Many wonderful stories are told about him. He was walking along the beach in Samos and saw a ship running before the wind; he exclaimed that in no long time she would go down, and, even as he watched her, down she went. And as he was drinking water which had been drawn up from a well he predicted that on the third day there would be an earthquake; which came to pass. And on his way from Olympia he advised Perilaus, his host in Messene, to move thence with all belonging to him; but Perilaus could not be persuaded, and Messene was afterwards taken.[*](These stories no doubt come from Theopompus, whose work on Marvels is cited in the next paragraph.)