ZENO OF ELEA

Zeno of Elea (490 BCE? -- 430 BCE?) was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher of southern Italy and a native of Elea (Velia) in Italy. Zeno was an attendant of the Eleatic School founded by Parmenides. He is send to have unfolded his doctrines to people like Pericles and Callias for the price of 100 minae and is said to have taken part in the legislation of Parmenides, to the maintenance of which the citizens of Elea had pledged themselves every year by oath. Called by Aristotle the inventor of the dialectic, he is best known for his paradoxes.

Zeno's Life

Little is known for certain about Zeno's life. Although written nearly a century after Zeno's death, the primary source of biographical information of Zeno is the dialogue of Plato called the Parmenides.
Other perhaps less reliable details of Zeno's life are given in "Diogenes Laertius' Lives of Eminent Philosophers", where it is reported that he was the son of Teleutagoras, but the adopted son of Parmenides, was "skilled to argue both sides of any question, the universal critic", and further that he was arrested and perhaps killed at the hands of a tyrant of Elea. However it now appears his love of freedom is shown by the courage with which he exposed his life in order to deliver his native country from a tyrant. Whether he died in the attempt or survived the fall of the tyrant is a point on which the authorities vary.
Also See: Zeno's Paradoxes

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