23 οὐδέ κεν ἐν κύλικι πρότερον κεράσειέ τις οἶνον ἐγχέας, GAN ὕδωρ καὶ καθύπερθε µέθυ.
βληστρίζοντες ἐμὴν φροντἰδ av’ Ἑλλάδα γῆν" ἐκ γενετῆς δὲ TOT’ ἦσαν ἐείκοσι πέντε τε πρὸς τοῖς,
25 οὐκ lon πρὀκλησις αὕτη, ἀσεβεῖ πρὸς εὐσεβῇ.
29 ef μὴ χλωρὸν ἔφυσε θεὸς µέλι, πολλὸν ἔφασκον γλύσσονα σῦκα πέλεσθαι.
90 <ayvov> ἑνὶ σπεάτεσσι τεοῖς καταλ.είβεται ὕδωρ.
ee πο ων
22. Athen. ix. p. 96858. V.3: MSS. ἀφίξεται, corr. Karst. V. 4: Meineke κλέος Ἑλλαδικῶ», Bergk ἀοιδοπόλων ᾗ γένος Ἑλλαδικῶ».
23. Athen. xi. Ρ. 782. V.2: Vulg. ἐγχεύας, corr. Casaub.
24. Diog. Laer. ix. 19.
25. Arist. Rhet.i.15; p. 8377 8 20.
26. Etym. Magn. s.v. ΓΤηράς; attributed to Xenophon.
27. Schol. ad Aristoph. Equit. v. 408. Vulg. ἐλάται, MS. @ ἐλάτε, V ἑλάτη. Lobeck, Aglaoph. p. 308i, suggests ἐκστᾶσιν 8’ ἐλατῶν πυκινοὶ περὶ δώµατα βάκχοι, and compares Eurip. Bacch. 110.
(28). Draco Straton. p. 33, ed. Herm.; Cram. An. Οσον. iii. p. 296 (Herod. περὶ διχρόν. p. 367 Lehrs); Cram. An. Oxon. iv. p. 415 (Choerob. dict. p. 566 Gais.).
(29). Herod. περὶ µον. λέξ. 41, 5. MSS. Ἐενοφῶ», corr. Dind. Cf. Etym. Magn. 235, 4. EHtym. Gud. 301, 16.
(30). Herod. Ibid. 90, 30. MSS. καὶ μὴν, corr. Lehrs. Cf. περὶ κλισ. ὀνομ. 772, 33.
31). Herod. περὶ διχρό». 296, 5.
τηε Eleatic School: Xenophanes 17
22. For sending the thigh-bone of a goat, thou didst
receive the rich leg of a fatted bull, an honourable
present to a man, the fame whereof shall come to all
Greece, and shall not cease so long as there is a race of Greek bards.
23. Nor would any one first pour the wine into the cup to mix it, but water first and the wine above it.
24. Already now sixty-seven years my thoughts have
been tossed restlessly up and down Greece, but then it was
twenty and five years from my birth, if I know how to
speak the truth about these things.!
25. Nor is this (an oath) an equal demand to make of an impious man as compared with a pious man.
26. Much more feeble than an aged man.
27. Bacchic wands of fir stand about the firmly built house.
28. From the beginning, accorditig to Homer, since all have learned them.?
29. If the god had not made light-coloured honey, I should have said that a fig was far sweeter.
80. Holy water trickles down in thy grottoes.
91. As many things as they have made plain for mortals to see !
1 Bergk‘ interprets φροντίδα by carmen.
2 Hiller, Deut. Litt. Zeitg., 1886, Coll. 474-475, suggests ‘(Men know the wanderings of Odysseus) from the beginning as Homer tells them, since all have learned them.’ .
78 the First Philosophers of Greece
SAYINGS OF XENOPHANES.
Arist. Rhet. ti. 28; 19995 6 (Karsten, Fr. 84).
Xenophanes asgerts that those who say the gods are born
are as impious as those who say that they die; for in
both cases it amounts to this, that the gods do not exist
at all. |
- Ibid. 1400 b 5 (K. 96). When the inhabitants of
Elea asked Xenophanes whether they should sacrifice to
Leukothea and sing a dirge or not, he advised them not
to sing a dirge if they thought her divine, and if they
thought her human not to sacrifice to her.!
Plutarch, de vit. pud. p. 580 F (K. 96). When Lasos,
son of Hermiones, called that man a coward who was
unwilling to play at dice with him, Xenophanes
answered that he was very cowardly and without daring
in regard to dishonourable things.
Diog. Laer. ix. 20 (K. 57). When Empedokles said to
him (Xenophanes) that the wise man was not to be found,
he answered : Naturally, for it would take a wise man
to recognise & Wise man.
Plut. de comm. not. p. 1084 5 (K. 88). tenpianee
when. some one told him that he had seen eels living in
hot water, said: Then we will boil them in cold water.
Diog. Laer. ix. 19 (K. 89). ‘ Have intercourse with
tyrants either as little as possible, or as agreeably as
possible.’
Clem. Al. Strom. vii. p. 841. And Greeks suppose
the gods to be like men in their passions as well as in
their forms; and accordingly they represent them, each
race in forms like their own, in the words of Xenophanes :
Ethiopians make their gods black and snub-nosed,
Thracians red-haired and with blue eyes; so also they
conceive the spirits of the gods to be like themselves.”
1 Cf. Plutarch, Amat. p. 763; Is. οἱ Os. p. 379 B. 3 Cf. Theod. Graec. Aff. Cur. 11. p. 49.
The Eleatic School: Xenophanes 79
A. Gellius, Noct. Att. iii. 11 (K. 81). Some writers
have stated that Homer antedated Hesiod, and among
these were Philochoros and Xenophanes of Kolophon ;
others assert that he was later than Hesiod.
(6) PassaGES RELATING TO XENOPHANES IN PuaTO AND
Plato, Soph.242p. And the Eleatic group of thinkers
among us, beginning with Xenophanes and even earlier,
set forth in tales how what men call all things is
really one.
De Coelo, ii. 18; 294a 21. On this account some
assert that there is no limit to the earth underneath us,
saying that it is rooted in infinity, as, for instance,
Xenophanes of Kolophon ; in order that they may not
have the trouble of seeking the cause.!
De mirac. oscult. 88; 888 216. The fire at Lipara, Xenophanes says, ceased once for sixteen years, and came back in the seventeenth. And he says that the lava- stream from Aetna is neither of the nature of fire, nor is it continuous, but it appears at intervals of many years.
Metaph. i. 5; 986b10. There are some who have expressed the opinion about the All that it is one in its essential nature, but they have not expressed this opinion after the same manner nor in an orderly or natural way. 986b 28. Xenophanes first taught the unity of these things (Parmenides is said to have been his pupil), but he did not make anything clear, nor did he seem to get at the nature of either of these things, but looking up into the broad heavens he said: The unity is god.
' Two passages from the Rhet. ii. 23 are translated above, p. 78. Extracts from the book ordinarily called De Xenophane, Zenone, Gorgia, and ascribed to Aristotle, are in part translated below, p. 80, n. 2 ff., in connection with the fragment of Theophrastos which covers exactly the same ground.
80 the First Ph{Losophers of Greece)
These, as we have said, are to be dismissed from the
present investigation, two of them entirely as being
rather more crude, Xenophanes and Melissos; but Par-
menides seems to speak in some places with greater care.’
(ο. PassaGEs RELATING TO XENOPHANES IN THE ‘ DoxoGRAPHISTS.’
Theophrastos, Fr. 5; Simpl. Phys. ὄν: 22,36; Dox. 480. Theophrastos says that Xenophanes of Kolophon, teacher of Parmenides, asserted that the first principle is one, and that being is one and all-embracing, and is neither limited nor infinite, neither moving nor at rest. Theophrastos admits, however, that the record of his opinion is derived from some other source than the investigation of nature. This all-embracing unity Xenophanes called god; he shows that god is one be- cause god is the most powerful of all things; for, he says, if there be a multiplicity of things, it is necessary that power should exist in them all alike; but the most powerful and most excellent of all things is god.? And he shows that god must have been without beginning, since whatever comes into being must come either from what is like it or from what is unlike it; but, he says, it is no more natural that like should give birth to like, than that like should be born from like; but if it had sprung from what is unlike it, then being would have
1 V. Zeller, Vorsokr. Phil. i. 513, n.1; Diels’ Doz. p. 110; Teich- miiller, Studien, p. 607.
2 Cf. Arist. Xen. Zen. Gorg. 977823. It is natural that god should be one; for if there were two or more, he would not be the most powerful and most excellent of all... . If, then, there were several beings, some stronger, some weaker, they would not be gods; for it is not the nature of god to be ruled. Nor would they have the nature of god if they were equal, for god ought to be the most powerful; but that which is equal is neither better nor worse than its equal.
The Eleatic School: Xenophanes 81
sprung from not-being.' So he showed that god is without beginning and eternal. Nor is it either infinite or subject to limits; for not-being is infinite, as having neither beginning nor middle nor end; moreover limits arise through the relation of a multiplicity of things to each other.? Similarly he denies to it both motion and rest; for not-being is immovable, since neither could anything else come into it nor could it itself come into anything else; motion, on the one hand, arises among the several parts of the one, for one thing changes its position with reference to another, 0 that when he says that it abides in the same state and is not moved (Frag. 4.), ‘And it always abides in the same place, not moved at all, nor is it fitting that it should move from one place to another,’ he does not mean that it abides in a rest that is the antithesis of motion, but rather in a stillness that is out of the sphere of both motion and rest. Nikolaos of Damascus in his book On the Gods mentions him as saying that the first principle of things is infinite and immovable.? Accord- ing to Alexander he regards this principle as limited and spherical. But that Xenophanes shows it to be neither limited nor infinite is clear from the very words
' Of. Arist. Χ.Ζ.α. 977419. Headds: For even if the stronger were to come from the weaker, the greater from the legs, or the better from the worse, or on the other hand the worse from the better, still being could not come from not-being, since this is impossible. Accordingly god is eternal.
2 Cf. Arist. Χ.Ζ.α. 977 b 6. The second part reads: But if there were several parts, these would limit each other. The one is not like not-being nor like a multiplicity of parts, since the one has nothing by which it may be limited.
5 Arist. X.Z.G.977b13. ‘He adds: Nothing, however, can be moved into not-being, for not-being does not exist anywhere. But if there is change of place among several parts, there would be parts of the one. Therefore the two or more parts of the one may be moved ; but to remain immovable and fixed is a characteristic of not-being. The one is neither movable nor is it fixed ; forit is neither like not-being, nor like a | multiplicity of being.
82 the First Philosophers of Greece
quoted,—Alexander says that he regarded it as limited
and spherical because it is homogeneous throughout ;
and he holds that it perceives all things, saying (Frag. 3)
‘But without effort he sets in motion all things by mind
and thought.’ !
Theophrast. Fr. 5a ; Galen, in Hipp. d. n. h. xv. 85K. ;
Dox. 481. Several of the commentators have made
false statements about Xenophanes, as for instance
Sabinos, who uses almost these very words: ‘I say that
man is not air, as Anaximenes taught, nor water,
as Thales taught, nor earth, as Xenophanes says in
some book;’ but no such opinion is found to be ex- .
pressed by Xenophanes anywhere. And it is clear from
Sabinos’s own words that he made a false statement in-
tentionally and did not fall into error through ignorance.
Else he would certainly have mentioned by name the
book in which Xenophanes expressed this opinion. On
the contrary he wrote ‘as Xenophanes says in some
book.’ Theophrastos would have recorded this opinion
of Xenophanes in his abridgment of the opinions of
the physicists, if it were really true. And if you are
interested in the investigation of these things, you can
read the books of Theophrastos in which he made this
abridgment of the opinions of the physicists.
Hipp. Philos. 1. 14; Dox. 565. Xenophanes of
Kolophon, son of Orthomenes, lived to the time of
Cyrus. He was the first to say that aljl things are in-
comprehensible, in the following verses: (Frag. 14) ‘ For
even if one chances for the most part to say what is
true, still he would not know; but every one thinks he