Fragmenta
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Democritus
Democritus
c. 460 BCE–c. 370 BCE · Abdera
Atomist philosopher of Abdera; with Leucippus founded the doctrine that reality consists of indivisible atoms moving in the void — the materialist alternative to Platonism.
“By convention sweet, by convention bitter, by convention hot, by convention cold, by convention color; but in reality atoms and void.”
Did you know?
The idea of the atom is about 2,200 years older than modern chemistry
Around 430 BCE the Greek philosopher Democritus, building on his teacher Leucippus, held that all matter is made of tiny indivisible particles — atomos, “uncuttable” — moving through a void. Modern atomic theory arrived only with John Dalton in 1808.
How we know
Democritus c. 460–370 BCE (active c. 430 BCE), atomism with Leucippus; Dalton's A New System of Chemical Philosophy, 1808 CE — about 2,200 years later.
Life journeyclick any stop, or use ←/→
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Stop 1 of 5460 BCEBorn
AbderaThrace
What they did here
Born in Abdera in Thrace c.460 BCE (Apollodorus' dating; Thrasyllus places it c.470). His birthplace and Thracian origin are well-attested in antiquity, including by Diogenes Laertius (IX.34).
About Abdera
A wealthy Greek colony on the Thracian coast that—despite a reputation for foolish citizens—produced two of antiquity's sharpest minds: the atomist Democritus and the sophist Protagoras.
In Abdera at the same time
In the same place & time
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Sages whose lives overlapped with Democritus’s in the same cities, drawn from their recorded journeys.
In the same tradition
Aeschylus, Themistocles, Parmenides, Anaxagoras, Sophocles, Protagoras, Herodotus, Gorgias of Leontini, Euripides, Antiphon, Leucippus, Socrates, Prodicus, Thucydides, Critias, Antisthenes, Aristophanes, Lysias
The world in their lifetime
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Thinkers and teachers of other traditions whose lives overlapped with Democritus’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.