Parmenides of Elea (Παρμενίδης), the son of Peirethos (520/510 BC), founder of the Eleatic school. A student of Anaximander, the Pythagorean Ameineias and of Xenophanes according to Diogenes Laertius (there is some doubt that he knew Anaximander). Parmenides was a teacher of Empedocles and Zeno of Elea.

Elea was founded around 540 BC by the Phoceans. Around 545 BC the Ionian city of Phocea was attacked by Harpagus the general of Cyrus the King of Persia. Many Phoceans left their city and with their Pentekonteres ships moved to the island of Chios and from there they went to Corsica (Kyrnos). From there some went to Massalia (Marseille) and Calabria a place called Hyele that later was called Elea (or Velia by the Romans)

The information about Parmenides is limited. In 450 BC he visited Athens to meet Pericles. Except the political visit Plato in his book Parmenides describes a discussion of Parmenides with the Athenian Philosophers including the young Socrates. Even after more than 2000 years scholars disagree on the interpretation of parts of this work.

Parmenides was the main source of inspiration of Zeno's paradoxa of motion. In a world where according to Heraclitus everything changes (and who will disagree?) Parmenides surprisingly says that motion and change is an illusion. According to Parmenides the only true being is "the One" which is indivisible and infinite in time and space ("the One is Everything"). He expressed his ideas with poems such as:

"The mares that carry me as far as my heart may aspire were my escorts; they had guided me and set me on the celebrated road ...Only one road, one story is left: that it is. And on this there are signs in plenty, that, being it is unborn and indestructible, whole of one kind and unwavering, and complete. Nor was it, nor will it be, since now it is, all together, one, continuous. ...That it came from what is not I shall not allow you to say or think - for it is not sayable or thinkable that it is not."

Arnold Hermann, To Think Like God

G. S. Kirk, J. E. Raven, M. Schofield , The Presocratic Philosophers: A Critical History with a Selection of Texts , Cambridge University Press;