MELISSUS, a philosopher of Samos, was the disciple of Parmenides and Heraclitus; he flourished B.C. 444, and was the contemporary of Zeno of Eleia, and Empedocles. He did not confine himself to the abstruse questions of philosophy, but took an active part in the political affairs of his country. We find him commanding the fleet of his native island against Pericles, B.C. 440, but he did not succeed in preventing the island from falling into the hands of the Athenians. (Plut. Pericl. c. 26, 27.) Melissus supposed that the universe was infinite, unchangeable, and immovable. He denied the reality of motion, maintaining that it was merely a deception of the senses. Of the gods he maintained that we know nothing, and therefore cannot enter into a discussion respecting their power and attributes. (Diogenes Laert. l. ix.) He was the author of a work, περὶ τῶν ὀντων, on Nature, of which Eusebius has preserved a fragment in his Preparatio Evangelii, xiv.; and another, De Animalibus, of which Fulgentius has inserted in his mythology what Melissus mentions respecting the swan. Fabricius, Biblioth. Græca, i. p. 820.)