132

Logiv IV 138
mation, is marked by [that?] carrying a doctrine to extremes, which usually belong to youth. So that I think the testimony of Diogenes is best explained by the hypothesis that Parmenides was born about 580 B.C. But we may suppose that by some blunder, the 69th Olympiad mentioned by Diogenes was the time of his birth. This must have been the case, if he was born in Velia, as generally assumed; since that city was only founded in the 61st Olympiad. The only other testimony about the age of Parmenides that seems to me to permit to any closer definition is that Diogenes Laertius [reported?] the Theophastus says, or seems to say, that Parmenides had heard Anaximander, who according to Apollodorus, as reported by Diogenes, died soon after 546 B.C. But probably Theophastus said, or meant, that it was Xenophanes the master of Parmenides who had been a pupil of Anaximander.

If we suppose that Parmenides was born somewhere about