the dialogue, this must mean that the book was written before 460 B.C., and it is very possible that he wrote others after it.[1] If he wrote a work against the "philosophers," as Souidas says, that must mean the Pythagoreans, who, as we have seen, made use of the term in a sense of their own.[2] The Disputations (Ἐρίδες) and the Treatise on Nature may, or may not, be the same as the book described in Plato's Parmenides.
It is not likely that Zeno wrote dialogues, though certain references in Aristotle have been supposed to imply this. In the Physics[3] we hear of an argument of Zeno's, that any part of a heap of millet makes a sound, and Simplicius illustrates this by quoting a passage from a dialogue between Zeno and Protagoras.[4] If our chronology is right, it is quite possible that they may have met; but it is most unlikely that Zeno should have made himself a personage in a dialogue of his own. That was a later fashion. In another place Aristotle refers to a passage where "the answerer and Zeno the questioner" occurred,[5] a reference which is most easily to be understood in the same way. Alkidamas seems to have written a dialogue in which Gorgias figured,[6] and the exposition of Zeno's arguments in dialogue form must always have been a tempting exercise.
Plato gives us a clear idea of what Zeno's youthful work was like. It contained more than one "discourse," and
- ↑ The most remarkable title given by Souidas is Ἐξήγησις τῶν Ἐμπεδοκλέους. Of course Zeno did not write a commentary on Empedokles, but Diels points out (Berl. Sitzb., 1884, p. 359) that polemics against philosophers were sometimes called ἐξηγήσεις. Cf. the Ἡρακλείτου ἐξηγήσεις of Herakleides Pontikos and especially his Πρὸς τὸν Δημόκριτον ἐξηγήσεις (Diog. v. 88).
- ↑ See above, p. 278, n. 1. It hardly seems likely that a later writer would make Zeno argue πρὸς τοὺς φιλοσόφους, and the title given to the book at Alexandria must be based on something contained in it.
- ↑ Arist. Phys. H, 5. 250 a 20 (R. P. 131 a).
- ↑ Simpl. Phys. p. 1108, 18 (R. P. 131). If this is what Aristotle refers to, it is hardly safe to attribute the κεγχρίτης λόγος to Zeno himself. The existence of this dialogue is another indication of Zeno's visit to Athens at an age when he could converse with Protagoras, which agrees very well with Plato's representation of the matter.
- ↑ Arist. Soph. El. 170 b 22 (R. P. 130 b).
- ↑ Chap. V. p. 199, n. 5.
