And of Melissus too. They rose superior
To prejudice in general; only yielding
To very few.
And Zeno had been a pupil of Parmenides, and had been on other accounts greatly attached to him.
III. He was a tall man, as Plato tells us in his Parmenides, and the same writer, in his Phædrus, calls him also the Eleatic Palamedes.
IV. Aristotle, in his Sophist, says that he was the inventor of dialectics, as Empedocles was of rhetoric. And he was a man of the greatest nobleness of spirit, both in philosophy and in politics. There are also many books extant, which are attributed to him, full of great learning and wisdom.
V. He, wishing to put an end to the power of Nearches, the tyrant (some, however, call the tyrant Diomedon), was arrested, as we are informed by Heraclides, in his abridgment of Satyrus. And when he was examined, as to his accomplices, and as to the arms which he was taking to Lipara, he named all the friends of the tyrant as his accomplices, wishing to make him feel himself alone. And then, after he had mentioned some names, he said that he wished to whisper something privately to the tyrant; and when he came near him he bit him, and would not leave his hold till he was stabbed. And the same thing happened to Aristogiton, the tyrant slayer. But Demetrius, in his treatise on People of the same Name, says that it was his nose that he bit off.
Moreover, Antisthenes, in his Successions, says that after he had given him information against his friends, he was asked by the tyrant if there was any one else. And he replied, “Yes, you, the destruction of the city.” And that he also said to the bystanders, “I marvel at your cowardice, if you submit to be slaves to the tyrant out of fear of such pains as I am now enduring.” And at last he bit off his tongue and spit it at him; and the citizens immediately rushed forward, and slew the tyrant with stones. And this is the account that is given by almost every one.
But Hermippus says, that he was put into a mortar, and pounded to death. And we ourselves have written the following epigram on him:—
Your noble wish, O Zeno, was to slay