2 Antisthenes (the writer of Successtons) ap. Diog. ix. 6 (R. P. 31). Cf. Strabo, xiv. p. 633 (R. P. 31 b).
3 Kostlin, Gesch. d. Ethik, i. pp. 160 544.
i) ᾿ is HERAKLEITOS OF EPHESOS IgI
souls dry, and thus assimilate them to the one Wisdom,
which is fire. That is what is really “common,” and
the greatest fault is to act like men asleep (fr. 94),
that is, by letting our souls grow moist, to cut our-
selves off from the fire in the world. We do not
know what were the consequences which Herakleitos
deduced from his rule that we must hold fast to
what is common, but it is easy to see what their
nature must have been. The wise man would not try
to secure good without its correlative evil. He would
not seek for rest without exertion, nor expect to enjoy
contentment without first suffering discontent. He
would not complain that he had to take the bad with
the good, but would consistently look at things as a
whole.
Herakleitos prepared the way for the Stoic world-
state by comparing “the common” to the laws of a
city. And these are even more than a type of the
divine law: they are imperfect embodiments of it.
They cannot, however, exhaust it altogether; for in
all human affairs there is an element of relativity
(fr. 91). “Man is a baby compared to God” (fr. 97).
Such as they are, however, the city must fight for
them as for its walls; and, if it has the good fortune
to possess a citizen with a dry soul, he is worth ten
thousand (fr. 113); for in him alone is “the common”
embodied.
τ Chapter Iv
Parmenides of Elea
Life. 84. PARMENIDES, son of Pyres, was a citizen of
Hyele, Elea, or Velia, a colony founded in Ojinotria
by refugees from Phokaia in 540-39 B.c.1 Diogenes
tells us that he “flourished” in ΟἹ. LXIX. (504-500
B.C.) and this was doubtless the date given by
Apollodoros.2, On the other hand, Plato says that
Parmenides came to Athens in his sixty-fifth year,
accompanied by Zeno, and conversed with Sokrates,
who was then quite young. Now Sokrates was just
over seventy when he was put to death in 399 B.C.;
and therefore, if we suppose him to have been an
ephebos, that is, from eighteen to twenty years old,
at the time of his interview with Parmenides, we get
451-449 BC. as the date of that event. I do not
hesitate to accept Plato’s statement,’ especially as
1 Diog. ix. 21 (R. P. 111). For the foundation of Elea, see Herod. i.
165 sqq. It was on the coast of Lucania, south of Poseidonia (Paestum).
2 Diog. ix. 23(R. P..111). Cf Diels, Rhein. Mus. xxxi. p. 34; and Jacoby, pp. 231 sqq.
3 Plato, Parm. 127 b(R. P. 111d). There are, as Zeller has shown, a certain number of anachronisms in Plato, but there is not one of this character. In the first place, we have exact figures as to the ages of Parmenides and Zeno, which imply that the latter was twenty-five years younger than the former, not forty as Apollodoros said. In the second place, Plato refers to this meeting in two other places (722. 183 e 7 and Soph. 217 ¢ 5), which do not seem to be mere references to the dialogue
PARMENIDES OF ELEA 193.
we have independent evidence of the visit of Zeno
to Athens, where Perikles is said to have “ heard”
him.! The date given by Apollodoros, on the other
hand, depends solely on that of the foundation of Elea,
which he had adopted as the floruzt of Xenophanes.
Parmenides is born in that year, just as Zeno is born
in the year when Parmenides “flourished.” Why any
one should prefer these transparent combinations to
_ the testimony of Plato, I am at a loss to understand,
though it is equally a mystery why Apollodoros him-
self should have overlooked such precise data.
We have seen already (§ 55) that Aristotle
mentions a statement which made Parmenides the
disciple of Xenophanes; but the value of this testi-
mony is diminished by the doubtful way in which
he speaks, and it is more than likely that he is
only referring to what Plato says in the Sophist.’
It is, we also saw, very improbable that Xenophanes
founded the school of Elea, though it is quite possible
he visited that city. He tells us himself that, in his
ninety-second year, he was still wandering up and down
(fr. 8). At that time Parmenides would be well advanced
in life. And we must not overlook the statement
of Sotion, preserved to us by Diogenes, that, though
Parmenides .“ heard ” Xenophanes, he did not “ follow”
him. According to this account, our philosopher was
the “associate” of a Pythagorean, Ameinias, son of
Diochaitas, “a poor but noble man to whom he
afterwards built a shrine as to a hero.” It was
entitled Parmenides. No parallel can be quoted for an anachronism so glaring and deliberate as this would be. E. Meyer (Gesch. des Alterth. iv. § 509, Aum.) also regards the meeting of Sokrates and Parmenides as historical. 1 Plut. Per. 4, 3. See below, p. 358, ἢ. 2. 2 See above, Chap. II. p. 140, ἢ. 2.
194 Early Greek Philosophy
Ameinias and not Xenophanes that “converted ”
Parmenides to the philosophic life.’ This does not
read like an invention, and we must remember that the
Alexandrians had information about the history of
Southern Italy which we have not. The shrine erected
by Parmenides would still be there in later days, like
the grave of Pythagoras at Metapontion. It should
also be mentioned that Strabo describes Parmenides
and Zeno as Pythagoreans, and that Kebes talks of a
“Parmenidean and Pythagorean way of life.”* Zeller
explains all this by supposing that, like Empedokles,
Parmenides approved of and followed the Pythagorean
mode of life without adopting the Pythagorean system.
It is possibly true that Parmenides believed in a
“philosophic life” (§ 35), and that he got the idea.
from the Pythagoreans; but there is very little
trace, either in his writings or in what we are told
about him, of his having been in any way affected
by the religious side of Pythagoreanism. The writing
of Empedokles is obviously modelled upon that of
Parmenides, and yet there is an impassable gulf between
the two. The touch of charlatanism, which is so
strange a feature in the copy, is altogether absent
from the model. It is true, no doubt, that there
are traces of Orphic ideas in the poem of Parmenides ;
1 Diog. ix. 21 (R. P. 111), reading ᾿Αμεινίᾳ Διοχαίτα with Diels (Hermes, XxXxv. p. 197). Sotion, in his Swccesstons, separated Parmenides from Xenophanes and associated him with the Pythagoreans (Dox. pp. 146, 148, 166).
2 Strabo, vi. I, p. 252 (p. 195, n. 1); Ceb. Zad, 2(R. P. 111c). This Kebes is not the Kebes of the Phaedo; but he certainly lived some time before Lucian, who speaks of him as a well-known writer. A Cynic of the name is mentioned by Athenaios (156d). The statements of Strabo are of the-greatest value ; for they are based upon historians now lost.
3 ©. Kern in «γε. iii. pp. 173 sqq. We know too little, however, of the apocalyptic poems of the sixth century B.c. to be sure of the details. All we can say is that Parmenides has taken the form of his poem from
Pakmenides of Elea 195
but they are all to be found either in the allegorical
introduction or in the second part of the poem, and
we need not therefore take them very seriously. Now
Parmenides was a western Hellene, and he had
probably been a Pythagorean, so it is not a little
remarkable that he should be so free from the common
tendency of his age and country. It is here, if any-
where, that we may trace the influence of Xenophanes.
As regards his relation to the Pythagorean system, we
shall have something to say later on. At present we
need only note further that, like most of the older
philosophers, he took part in politics ; and Speusippos
recorded that he legislated for his native city. Others
add that the magistrates of Elea made the citizens
swear every year to abide by the laws which Parmenides had given them.’
85. Parmenides was really the first philosopher to
expound his system in metrical language. As there is
some confusion on this subject, it deserves a few words
of explanation. In writing of Empedokles, Mr. J. A.
Symonds said: “The age in which he lived had not
yet thrown off the form of poetry in philosophical
composition. Even Parmenides had committed his
austere theories to hexameter verse.” Now this is
wrongly put. The earliest philosophers, Anaximander,
Anaximenes, and Herakleitos, all wrote in prose, and
the only Greeks who ever wrote philosophy in verse
some such source. See Diels, ‘‘ Ueber die’ poetischen Vorbilder des Parmenides” (Beri. Sitzb. 1896), and the Introduction to his Parmenides Lehrgedicht, pp. 9 544.
1 Diog. ix. 23 (R. P. 111). Plut. adv. Col. 1226 a, Παρμενίδης δὲ τὴν ἑαυτοῦ πατρίδα διεκόσμησε νόμοις ἀρίστοις, ὥστε τὰς ἀρχὰς καθ᾽ ἕκαστον ἐνιαυτὸν ἐξορκοῦν τοὺς πολίτας ἐμμενεῖν τοῖς Παρμενίδου νόμοις. Strabo, vi. I. p. 252, (Ἐλέαν) ἐξ ἧς Παρμενίδης καὶ Ζήνων ἐγένοντο ἄνδρες Πυθαγόρειοι. δοκεῖ δέ μοι καὶ δι᾽ ἐκείνους καὶ ἔτι πρότερον εὐνομηθῆναι.
The poem.
| ν us i oe
196 Early Greek Philosophy
at all were just these two, Parmenides and Empedokles ;
for Xenophanes was not primarily .a philosopher
any more than Epicharmos. Empedokles copied
Parmenides ; and he, no doubt, was influenced by
Xenophanes and the Orphics. But the thing was an
innovation, and one that did not maintain itself.
The fragments of Parmenides are preserved for the
most part by Simplicius, who fortunately inserted them
in his commentary, because in his time the original
work was already rare.’ I follow the arrangement of
Dein τὡκον
The car that bears me carried me as far as ever my heart desired, since it brought me and set me on the renowned way of the goddess, which alone leads the man who knows through all things.. On that way was I borne along ; for on it did the wise steeds carry me, drawing my car, and maidens showed the way. And the axle, glowing in the socket—for it was urged round by the whirling wheels at each end— gave forth a sound as of a pipe, when the daughters of the Sun, hasting to convey me into the light, threw back their veils from off their faces and left the abode of Night.
There are the gates of the ways of Night and Day,? fitted above with a lintel and below with a threshold of stone. They themselves, high in the air, are closed by mighty doors, and Avenging Justice keeps the keys that fit them. Her did the maidens entreat with gentle words and cunningly persuade to unfasten without demur the bolted bars from the gates. Then, when the doors were thrown back, they disclosed a wide opening, when their brazen posts fitted with rivets and nails swung back one after the other. Straight through them, on the broad way, did the maidens guide the horses and the
1 Simpl. Phys. 144, 25 (R. P. 117). Simplicius, of course, had the library of the Academy at his command. Diels notes, however, that Proclus seems to have used a different MS,
2 For these see Hesiod, 7heog. 748.
Parmenides of Elea 197
car, and the goddess greeted me kindly, and took my right hand in hers, and spake to me these words :
Welcome, O youth, that comest to my abode on the car that bears thee tended by immortal charioteers! It is no ill chance, but right and justice that has sent thee forth to travel on this way. Far, indeed, does it lie from the beaten track of men! Meet it is that thou shouldst learn all things, as well the unshaken. heart of well-rounded truth, as the opinions of mortals in which is no true belief at all. Yet none the less shalt thou learn these things also,—how they should have judged that the things which seem to them are,—as thou goest through all things in thy journey.?
But do thou restrain thy thought from this way of inquiry, nor let habit by its much experience force thee to cast upon this way a wandering eye or sounding ear or tongue; but judge by argument the much disputed proof uttered by me. There is only one way left that can be spoken of.2... ΚΕ. P. 113.
THE Way ΟΕ TRUTH
Look steafdastly with thy mind at things though afar as if they were at hand. ‘Thou canst not cut off what is from holding fast to what is, neither scattering itself abroad in order nor coming together. R. P. 118 a.
It is all one to me where I begin; for I shall come back again there.