Xenophanes of Colophon (Ancient Greek: Ξενοφάνης ὁ Κολοφώνιος IPA: [ksenophánɛːs ho kolophɔˊːnios]; 570 – 480 BCE) was a Greek philosopher, poet, and social and religious critic. Our knowledge of his views comes from fragments of his poetry, surviving as quotations by later Greek writers. To judge from these, his elegiac and iambic poetry criticized and satirized a wide range of ideas, including Homer and Hesiod, the belief in the pantheon of ant...
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Xenophanes of Colophon (Ancient Greek: Ξενοφάνης ὁ Κολοφώνιος IPA: [ksenophánɛːs ho kolophɔˊːnios]; 570 – 480 BCE) was a Greek philosopher, poet, and social and religious critic. Our knowledge of his views comes from fragments of his poetry, surviving as quotations by later Greek writers. To judge from these, his elegiac and iambic poetry criticized and satirized a wide range of ideas, including Homer and Hesiod, the belief in the pantheon of anthropomorphic gods and the Greeks' veneration of athleticism. He is the earliest Greek poet who claims explicitly to be writing for future generations, creating "fame that will reach all of Greece, and never die while the Greek kind of songs survives."
Xenophanes rejected the idea that the gods resembled humans in form strenuously enough that the idea must have been widely current in the sixth century. He is the first to express a skepticism that became current during the fourth century. He cleverly satirized the polytheistic beliefs of earlier...
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