84. Parmenides, son of Pyres, was a citizen of Hyele, Elea, or Velia, a colony founded in Oinotria by refugees from Phokaia in 540-39 B.C.[422] Diogenes tells us that he “flourished” in Ol. LXIX. (504-500 B.C.), and this was doubtless the date given by Apollodoros.[423] On the other hand, Plato says that Parmenides came to Athens in his sixty-fifth year, accompanied by Zeno, and conversed with Sokrates, who was then quite young. Now Sokrates was just over seventy when he was put to death in 399 B.C.; and therefore, if we suppose him to have been an _ephebos_, that is, from eighteen to twenty years old, at the time of his interview with Parmenides, we get 451-449 B.C. as the date of that event. I do not hesitate to accept Plato’s statement,[424] especially as we have independent evidence of the visit of Zeno to Athens, where Perikles is said to have “heard” him.[425] The date given by Apollodoros, on the other hand, depends solely on that of the foundation of Elea, which he had adopted as the _floruit_ of Xenophanes. Parmenides is born in that year, just as Zeno is born in the year when Parmenides “flourished.” Why any one should prefer these transparent combinations to the testimony of Plato, I am at a loss to understand, though it is equally a mystery why Apollodoros himself should have overlooked such precise data. Footnote 422: Diog. ix. 21 (R. P. 111). For the foundation of Elea, see Herod. i. 165 sqq. It was on the coast of Lucania, south of Poseidonia (Paestum). Footnote 423: Diog. ix. 23 (R. P. 111). Cf. Diels, _Rhein. Mus._ xxxi. p. 34; and Jacoby, pp. 231 sqq. Footnote 424: Plato, _Parm._ 127 b (R. P. 111 d). There are, as Zeller has shown, a certain number of anachronisms in Plato, but there is not one of this character. In the first place, we have exact figures as to the ages of Parmenides and Zeno, which imply that the latter was twenty-five years younger than the former, not forty as Apollodoros said. In the second place, Plato refers to this meeting in two other places (_Tht._ 183 e 7 and _Soph._ 217 c 5), which do not seem to be mere references to the dialogue entitled _Parmenides_. No parallel can be quoted for an anachronism so glaring and deliberate as this would be. E. Meyer (_Gesch. des Alterth._ iv. § 509, _Anm._) also regards the meeting of Sokrates and Parmenides as historical. Footnote 425: Plut. _Per._ 4, 3. See below, p. 358, _n._ 852.