Philosopher File: Xenophanes

The wandering Greek philosopher and poet who reimagined the nature of the gods.

Image: The Feast of the Gods, begun c. 1514 by Giovanni Bellini, and completed by Titian in 1529; oil on canvas; National Gallery of Art, Washington. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Life

Xenophanes (c. 570 BCE — c. 478 BCE) came from the Ionian city of Colophon. He was a poet, a philosopher and an itinerant wanderer, who roamed around Ancient Greece from city to city, and sung his verses like a philosophical busker.