What if a man win victory in swiftness of foot, or in the pentathion, at Olympia, where is the precinct of Zeus by Pisa’s springs, or in wrestling,—what if by cruel boxing or that fearful sport men call pankration he become mote glorious in the citizens’ eyes, and win a place of honour in the sight of all at the games, his food at the public cost from the State, and a gift to be an heirloom for him,—what if he conquer in the chariot-race,—he will not deserve all this for his portion so much asI do. Far better is our art than the strength of men and of horses! These are but thoughtless judgments, nor is it fitting to set strength before our art. Even if there arise a mighty boxer among a people, or one great in the pentathlon or at wrestling, or one excelling in swiftness of foot—and that stands in honour before all tasks of men at the games—the city would be none the better governed for that. It is but little joy a city gets of it if a man conquer at the games by Pisa’s banks; it is not this that makes fat the store-houses of a city.
They learnt dainty and unprofitable ways from the Lydians, so long as they were free from hateful tyranny; they went to the market-place with cloaks of purple dye, not less than a thousand of them all told, vainglorious and proud of their
comely tresses, reeking with fragrance from cunning salves.
Science and Religion 131
Satires
(to)
‘Since all at first have learnt according to Homer. .
(tr)
Homer and Hesiod have ascribed to the gods all things
that are a shame and a disgrace among mortals, stealings and >
adulteries and deceivings of one another. R. P. 99.
(12)
They have uttered many, many lawless deeds of the gods,
stealings and adulteries and deceivings of one another.
R. P. 7.
But mortals deem that the gods are begotten as they are,:
and have clothes! like theirs, and voice and form. R. P. roo.
Yes, and if oxen and horses or lions had hands, and could paint with their hands, and produce works of art as men do, horses would paint the forms of the gods like horses, and oxen like oxen, and make their bodies in the as of their several kinds, R. P. 22.
The Ethiopians make their gods black and snub-nosed ; the Thracians say theirs have blue eyes and red hair. R. P. roo ὃ.
(18)
The gods have not revealed all things to men from the
beginning, but by seeking they find in time what is better.
R. P. 104 b.
1 I formerly, with Zeller, preferred Theodoret’s reading αἴσθησιν, but both Clement and Eusebios have ἐσθῆτα, and Theodoret is entirely dependent on them.
132 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY (23)
One god, the greatest among gods and men, neither in form like unto mortals nor in thought. ... R. P. 100.
(24)
He sees all over, thinks all over, and hears all over. R. P.
102,
(25)
But without toil he swayeth all things by the thought of his
mind. R. P. 108 b.
(26)
And he abideth ever in the selfsame place, moving not at
all; nor doth it befit him to go about now hither now thither.
RP. 25008.
All things come from the earth, and in earth all things end. R. P. 103 a.
(28) This limit of the earth above is seen at our feet in contact with the air ;! below it reaches down without a limit. R. P. 103.
(29)
All things are earth and water that come into being and
grow. R. P. 103.
The sea is the source of water and the source of wind ; for neither in the clouds (would there be any blasts of wind blowing forth) from within without the mighty sea, nor rivers’ streams nor rain-water from the sky. The mighty sea is father of clouds and of winds and of rivers.2 R. P. 103.
1 Reading ἠέρι for καὶ pet with Diels.
2 This fragment has been recovered in its entirety from the Geneva scholia on Homer (see Arch. iv. p. 652). The words in brackets are added by Diels. See also Praechter, ‘‘ Zu Xenophanes” (PAz/o/, xviii. p. 308).
SCIENCE AND RELIGION 133 (31)
The sun swinging over! the earth and warming it... .
(32)
She that they call Iris is a cloud likewise, purple, scarlet
and green to behold. R. P. 103.
(33) For we all are born of earth and water. R. P. 7d.
There never was nor will be a man who has certain know- ledge about the gods and about all the things I speak of. Even if he should chance to say the complete truth, yet he himself knows not that it is so, But all may have their fancy. - R. P. 104.
Let these be taken as fancies? something like the truth. RK. P. 104 a.
All of them 8 that are visible for mortals to behold. (37)
And in some caves water drips. . . . (38)
If god had not made brown honey, men would think figs far sweeter than they do.
58. The intention of one of these fragments (fr. 32) The heavenly is perfectly clear. “Iris too” is a cloud, and we may 2 _infer that the same thing had just been said of the sun,
1 The word is ὑπεριέμενος. This is quoted from the A//egories as an explanation of the name Hyperion, and doubtless Xenophanes so meant it.
5. Reading δεδοξάσθω with Wilamowitz.
® As Diels suggests, this probably refers to the stars, which Xenophanes held to be clouds.
134 Early Greek Philosophy
moon, and stars ; for the doxographers tell us that these
were all explained as “clouds ignited by motion.”* To
the same context clearly belongs the explanation of the
St. Elmo’s fire which Aetios has preserved. “ The
things like stars which appear on ships,” we are told,
“which some call the Dioskouroi, are little clouds made
2 In the doxographers this
luminous by motion.
-explanation is repeated with trifling variations under
the head of moon, stars, comets, lightning, shooting
stars, and so forth, which gives the appearance of a
systematic cosmology.* But the system is due to the
arrangement of the work of Theophrastos, and not to
Xenophanes ; for it is obvious that a very few hexa-
meters added to those we possess would amply account
for the whole doxography.
What we hear of the sun presents some difficulties.
We are told, on the one hand, that it too was an ignited
cloud; but this can hardly be right. . The evaporation
of the sea from which clouds arise is distinctly said to
be due to the sun’s heat. Theophrastos stated that the
sun, according to Xenophanes, was a collection of sparks
from the moist exhalation; but even this leaves the
exhalation itself unexplained.* That, however, matters
little, if the chief aim of Xenophanes was to discredit
the anthropomorphic gods, rather than to give a
1 Cf. Diels ad loc. (P. Ph. Fr. p. 44), ‘fut Sol et cetera astra, quae cum in nebulas evanescerent, deorum simul opinio casura erat.” Cf. Arch. X. Ρ. 533:
2 Aet. ii. 18, 1 (Dox. p. 347), Ξενοφάνης τοὺς ἐπὶ τῶν πλοίων φαινομένους οἷον ἀστέρας, ods καὶ Διοσκούρους καλοῦσί τινες, νεφέλια εἷναι κατὰ τὴν ποιὰν κίνησιν παραλάμποντα. :
35 The passages from Aetios are collected in P. Ph. Fr. pp. 32 544. (Vors. p. 42).
4 Aet. ii. 20, 3 (Dox. p. 348), ΞΞενοφάνης ἐκ νεφῶν πεπυρωμένων εἶναι τὸν ἥλιον. Θεόφραστος ἐν τοῖς Φυσικοῖς γέγραφεν ἐκ πυριδίων μὲν τῶν συναθροιζομένων ἐκ τῆς ὑγρᾶς ἀναθυμιάσεως, συναθροιζόντων δὲ τὸν ἥλιον.
Science and Religion 135
scientific theory of the heavenly bodies. The important
thing is that Helios too is a temporary phenomenon.
The sun does not go round the earth, as Anaxi-
mander taught, but straight on, and the appearance of
a circular path is solely due to its increasing distance.
So it is not the same sun that rises next morning, but
a new one altogether ; while the old one “tumbles into
a hole” when it comes to certain uninhabited regions
of the earth. Besides that, there are many suns and
moons, one of each for every region of the earth.’ It
is obvious that things of that kind cannot be gods.
The vigorous expression “tumbling into a hole”?
seems clearly to come from the verses of Xenophanes
himself, and there are others of a similar kind, which
we must suppose were quoted by Theophrastos, The
stars go out in the daytime, but glow again at night
“like charcoal embers.’* The sun is of some use in
producing the world and the living creatures in it, but
the moon “does no work in the boat.”* Such ex-
pressions can only be meant to make the heavenly
bodies appear ridiculous, and it will therefore be well to
ask whether the other supposed cosmological fragments
can be interpreted on the same principle.
1 Aet. ii. 24, 9 (Dox. p. 355), πολλοὺς εἶναι ἡλίους καὶ σελήνας κατὰ κλίματα τῆς γῆς Kal ἀποτομὰς καὶ ζώνας, κατὰ δέ τινα καιρὸν ἐμπίπτειν τὸν δίσκον εἴς τινα ἀποτομὴν τῆς γῆς οὐκ οἰκουμένην ὑφ᾽ ἡμῶν καὶ οὕτως ὥσπερ κενεμβατοῦντα ἔκλειψιν ὑποφαίνειν: ὁ δ᾽ αὐτὸς τὸν ἥλιον εἰς ἄπειρον μὲν προιέναι, δοκεῖν δὲ κυκλεῖσθαι διὰ τὴν ἀπόστασιν. It is clear that in this notice ἔκλειψιν has been erroneously substituted for δύσιν, as it has also in Aet. ii. 24, 4 (Dox. p. 354).
3 That this is the meaning of ὥσπερ κενεμβατοῦντα appears sufficiently from the passages referred to in Liddell and Scott.
3 Aet. ii. 13, 14 (Dox. p. 343), ἀναζωπυρεῖν νύκτωρ καθάπερ rods ἄνθρακας.
4 Aet. ii. 30, 8 (Dox. p. 362), τὸν μὲν ἥλιον χρήσιμον εἶναι πρὸς τὴν τοῦ κόσμου καὶ τὴν τῶν ἐν αὐτῷ ζῴων γένεσίν τε καὶ διοίκησιν, τὴν δὲ σελήνην παρέλκειν. The verb παρέλκειν means “to cork.” Cf. Aristo- phanes, Pax, 1306.
1 36 Early Greek Philosophy
Earthand 50. In fr. 29 Xenophanes says that “all things are
aa earth-and water,” and Hippolytos has preserved the
account given by Theophrastos of the context in which
this occurred. It was as follows :—
Xenophanes said that a mixture of the earth with the sea is taking place, and that it is being gradually dissolved by the moisture. He says that he has the following proofs of this. Shells are found in midland districts and on hills, and he says that in the quarries at Syracuse has been found the imprint of a fish and of seaweed, at Paros the form of an anchovy in the depth of the stone, and at Malta flat impressions of all marine animals. These, he says, were produced when all things were - formerly mud, and the outlines were dried in the mud, All human beings are destroyed when the earth has been carried down into the sea and turned to mud. This change takes place for all the worlds.—Hipp. Ref i. 14 (R.P. 103 a).
This is, of course, the theory of Anaximander, and
we may perhaps credit him rather than Xenophanes
with the observations of fossils." Most remarkable of
all, however, is the statement that this change applies to
“all the worlds.” It really seems impossible to doubt
that Theophrastos attributed a belief in “innumerable
worlds” to Xenophanes. As we have seen already,
" Aetios includes him in his list of those who held this
doctrine, and Diogenes ascribes it to him also? In
this place, Hippolytos seems to take it for granted.
1 There is an interesting note on these in Gomperz’s Greek Thinkers (Eng. trans. i. p. 551). -I have translated his conjecture φυκῶν instead of the MS. φωκῶν, as this is said to involve a paleontological impossibility, and impressions of fucoids are found, not indeed in the quarries of Syracuse, but near them. It is said also that there are no fossils in Paros, so the anchovy must have been an imaginary one. :
2 Aet. ii. 1, 2 (Dox, p. 327); Diog. ix. 19 (R. P. 1028)» It is true, of course, that this passage of Diogenes comes from the biographical compendium (Dox. p. 168); but, for all that, it is a serious matter to deny
the Theophrastean origin of a statement found in Aetios, Hippolytos, and Diogenes.
Science and Religion 137
We shall also find, however, that in another connexion
he said the World or God was one. If our interpreta-
tion of him is correct, there is no difficulty here. The
main point is that, so far from being a primeval goddess,
and “a sure seat for all things ever,’ Gaia too is a
. passing appearance. That belongs to the attack upon Hesiod, and, if in this connexion Xenophanes spoke,
_ with Anaximander, of “ innumerable worlds,” while
elsewhere he said that God or the World was one,
that is probably connected with a still better attested
contradiction which we have now to examine.