In his
Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers (circa A.D. 200) Diogenes Laertius reports that Parmenides was the son of Pyres and that he came from a prominent and prosperous family. On Speusippus's authority, Diogenes credits Parmenides with a career as a legislator in his native city, but no details of his political activities or fortunes are supplied.
On the topic of Parmenides' philosophical training, Diogenes is more forthcoming, describing Parmenides as a student of the venerable Xenophanes during the latter's final years of exile in southern Italy. However, it is a Pythagorean by the name of Ameinias who is said to have inspired Parmenides to take up the life of a contemplative. Diogenes reports that Parmenides erected a shrine to his Pythagorean mentor after Ameinias's death; of Parmenides' own death, nothing is said.
Whether or not Parmenides actually journeyed to Athens in his old age, or met the young Socrates there -- events that Plato represents in his circa-360- B.C. Parmenides -- cannot be determined. What is certain is that Parmenides' ideas were disseminated throughout the Greek world, and, in the process, permanently altered the character of philosophical speculation. Parmenides was destined to challenge and to transform radically the project of speculative natural inquiry that had defined the first century of Greek philosophy.
