Book 9
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Hence TimonFr. 44 D. says of himCf. Od. xi. 601.: And the strength of high-souled Parmenides, of no diverse opinions, who introduced thought instead of imagination’s deceit. It was about him that Plato wrote a dialogue with the title Parmenides or Concerning Ideas.
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He flourished in the 69th Olympiad.504-500 b.c. He is believed to have been the first to detect the identity of Hesperus, the evening-star, and Phosphorus, the morning-star; so Favorinus in the fifth book of his Memorabilia; but others attribute this to Pythagoras, whereas Callimachus holds that the poem in question was not the work of Pythagoras. Parmenides is said to have served his native city as a legislator: so we learn from Speusippus in his book On Philosophers. Also to have been the first to use the argument known as Achilles [and the tortoise]: so Favorinus tells us in his Miscellaneous History.
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There was also another Parmenides, a rhetorician who wrote a treatise on his art.
Chapter 4. MELISSUS
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Melissus, the son of Ithaegenes, was a native of Samos. He was a pupil of Parmenides. Moreover he came into relations with Heraclitus, on which occasion the latter was introduced by him to the Ephesians, who did not know him,Cf. supra, § 15. as Democritus was to the citizens of Abdera by Hippocrates. He took part also in politics and won the approval of his countrymen, and for this reason he was elected admiral and won more admiration than ever through his own merit.
