84. Parmenides, son of Pyres, was a citizen of Hyele, Elea, or Velia, a colony founded in Oinotria by refugees from Phokaia in 540-39 B.C.[[422]] Diogenes tells us that he “flourished” in Ol. LXIX. (504-500 B.C.), and this was doubtless the date given by Apollodoros.[[423]] 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 B.C. as the date of that event. I do not hesitate to accept Plato’s statement,[[424]] especially as we have independent evidence of the visit of Zeno to Athens, where Perikles is said to have “heard” him.[[425]] The date given by Apollodoros, on the other hand, depends solely on that of the foundation of Elea, which he had adopted as the floruit 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 himself 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 testimony 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.[[426]] 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 Ameinias and not Xenophanes that “converted” Parmenides to the philosophic life.[[427]] 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.”[[428]] 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;[[429]] 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 anywhere, 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.[[430]]

The poem.

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 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.[[431]] I follow the arrangement of Diels.

(1)

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 maidens5 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. 10

There are the gates of the ways of Night and Day,[[432]] 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 15 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 20 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 25 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 30 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.[[433]]