Xenophanes

Xenophanes of Colophon (/zəˈnɒfəniːz/;Ancient Greek: ὁ Κολοφώνιος [ksenopʰánɛːs ho kolopʰɔ̌ːnios]; c. 570 – c. 475 BC) was a Greek philosopher, theologian, poet, and social and religious critic. Xenophanes lived a life of travel, having left Ionia at the age of 25 and continuing to travel throughout the Greek world for another 67 years. Some scholars say he lived in exile in Sicily. 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 . 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 was a native of Colophon, a city in Ionia (now western Turkey). Some say he was the son of Orthomenes, others the son of Dexius. He is said to have flourished during the 60th Olympiad (540-537 BC). His surviving work refers to Thales, Epimenides, and Pythagoras, and he himself is mentioned in the writings of Heraclitus and Epicharmus. In a fragment of his elegies, he describes the Median invasion as an event that took place in his time, possibly referring to the expedition of Harpagus against the Greek cities in Ionia (546/5 BC). He left his native land as a fugitive or exile and went to the Ionian colonies in Sicily, Zancle and Catana. He probably lived for some time in Elea (founded by the Phocaeans in the 61st Olympiad 536-533 BC), since he wrote about the foundation of that colony. According an elegy reputedly composed when he was 92 years old, he left his native land at the age of 25 and then lived 67 years in other Greek lands.

...
Wikipedia