Xenophanes

Poet, theologian, and natural philosopher

Born: c. 570 b. c.e.; Colophon, Asia Minor (now near Ephesus, Turkey) Died: c. 478 b. c.e.; Magna Graecia (now in southern Italy)

Category: Philosophy; poetry; literature; religion and mythology

Life Xenophanes (zih-NAHF-uh-neez), a son of Dexius (Orthomenus), lived an extraordinarily long life, reaching the age of ninety-two. He was driven to Sicily by the Persian invasion of Colophon in 545 b. c.e. and spent the rest of his life traveling around the Greek colonies ofZancle (Messina), Catana (Catania), Elea (Velia), and Syracuse. He condemned the luxury and degeneration of his contemporaries in the Silloi (satires), the first ancient Greek collection of satirical verses. Traditionally, he is said to have written epic poems dedicated to Colophon and Elea, and the poem “On Nature” (fragment, published in English in 1898), which presents his philosophical views on nature: All things come from earth and water, and water is the primary constituent of the Sun, clouds, winds, and rivers.

Influence Rejecting the conventional beliefs of Homer and Hesiod that gods resemble men in body and character, Xenophanes proclaimed that there is one supreme divine being governing the universe with “the shaking of his thought.” Distinguishing true knowledge from speculative opinion, he foreshadowed Parmenides’ monism and the theory of knowledge of Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, and the skeptics.

Further Reading

Brunschwig, Jacques, and G. E. R. Lloyd, eds. Greek Thought: A Guide to Classical Knowledge. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2000.

Guthrie, W. K. C. A History of Greek Philosophy. 6 vols. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1978-1990.

Hermann, Arnold. To Think Like God: Pythagorus and Parmenides, the 902

Origins of Philosophy. Las Vegas: Parmenides Publishing, 2004.

Kirk, G. S., J. E. Raven, and M. Schofield. The Presocratic Philosophers.

2d ed. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Lesher, J. H. Xenophanes of Colophon. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992.

Long, A. A. The Cambridge Companion to Early Greek Philosophy. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1999.

Svetla Slaveva-Griffin

See also: Aristotle; Hesiod; Homer; Literature; Parmenides; Philosophy; Plato; Stoicism.