Colophon (city)
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Colophon was an ancient city in Ionia. Founded around the end of the 2nd millennium BC, it was likely one of the oldest of the twelve cities of the Ionian League. It was located between Lebedos and Ep
Ruins of Colophon
Xenophanes
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Xenophanes of Colophon was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher, poet, and critic of Homer. He was born in Ionia and travelled throughout the Greek-speaking world in early classical antiquity.
Colophon (city)
…there, but his corpse was brought back to Colophon by Damasichthon's sons, and subsequently lay near Colophon). It was the birthplace of the philosopher Xenophanes and the poets Antimachus and Mimnermus. Colophon was the strongest of the Ionian cities and renowned both for its cavalry and for the inhabitants…
Fictionalized portrait of Xenophanes from a 17th-century engraving
6th century BC depiction of an Ancient Greek symposium. Xenophanes criticized these drinking parties as they were celebrated in his time for their excesses and failures to honor the gods.
Xenophanes was likely the first philosopher to offer a naturalistic rather than a mythological explanation for St. Elmo's fire.