PARMENIDES. A Greek philosopher who lived between the second half of the sixth century BCE and the first half of the fifth century BCE, Parmenides was born in and lived in Elea, an Ionic colony on the coast of Campania, in an area then inhabited by the Lucani, who called the city Velia. He was a pupil of Xenophanes as well as a Pythagorean. Charged with the governance of the city, he gave Elea a long-lasting constitution regarded as the principal reason for its power. He also founded a philosophical school, which was monist and has become known historically as the Eleatic school. His closest followers were Zeno and Melissus. Parmenides wrote a long poem in hexameters titled On Nature, a difficult text even for his contemporaries. The work was lost in the early Middle Ages, and about twenty fragments of around 150 to 160 verses survive. Thus modern interpretation...