Xenophanes
c. 570 BCE–c. 478 BCE · Colophon
Itinerant Ionian poet-philosopher who criticized anthropomorphic conceptions of the gods and spoke of 'one greatest god' — a critique of popular polytheism (often read as henotheism rather than full monotheism); by ancient tradition linked to the Eleatics as a forerunner of Parmenides.
Did you know?
He Saw Seashells on Mountains and Deduced the Sea Once Covered the Land
In the 6th-5th century BCE Xenophanes of Colophon noticed fossil shells and the imprints of sea creatures embedded high in inland rock, and concluded that the land there had once lain under water. He read fossils as evidence of the Earth's history more than two thousand years before geology existed as a science.
How we know
Xenophanes c.570-478 BCE. Ancient reports (via Hippolytus) say he observed fossil shells and fish impressions inland and inferred past submersion; cited as the earliest known use of fossils as evidence for Earth's history. Modern stratigraphic geology: 18th-19th c. CE.
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ColophonIonia (Asia Minor)
We know they were here, but the specifics of what they did at this stop aren’t recorded yet in our corpus.
About Colophon
Colophon was one of the Ionian Greek cities, inland from the coast of Lydia in western Asia Minor (modern Turkey). It was the birthplace of the pre-Socratic philosopher and poet Xenophanes, known for his critique of anthropomorphic depictions of the gods, and of the Hellenistic poet and physician Nicander.
The world in their lifetime
Thinkers, teachers, and rulers whose lives overlapped with Xenophanes’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.
Graeco-Roman world
- Thales· 624 BCE–546 BCE
- Anaximander· 610 BCE–546 BCE
- Anaximenes· 586 BCE–526 BCE
- Hipponax· 575 BCE–535 BCE
- Pythagoras· 570 BCE–495 BCE
- Heraclitus· 540 BCE–480 BCE
- Epicharmus· 540 BCE–450 BCE
- Aeschylus· 525 BCE–456 BCE
- Themistocles· 524 BCE–459 BCE
- Bacchylides· 518 BCE–451 BCE
- Pindar· 518 BCE–438 BCE
- Parmenides· 515 BCE–445 BCE
- Diogenes of Apollonia· 500 BCE–428 BCE
- Anaxagoras· 500 BCE–428 BCE
- Sophocles· 496 BCE–406 BCE
- Empedocles· 495 BCE–435 BCE
- Zeno of Elea· 490 BCE–430 BCE
- Protagoras· 490 BCE–420 BCE
- Herodotus· 484 BCE–425 BCE
- Gorgias of Leontini· 483 BCE–376 BCE
- Leucippus· 480 BCE–420 BCE
- Hippias of Elis· 480 BCE–415 BCE
- Antiphon· 480 BCE–411 BCE
- Euripides· 480 BCE–406 BCE
Luminaries & Explorers world
Hindu world
Egyptian world
Mesopotamian world
Scientists
Jewish world
Buddhist world
Works
No works attributed in the corpus yet.