made the citizens swear every year to abide by the laws which Parmenides had given them.[430] Footnote 426: See above, Chap. II. p. 140, _n._ 308. Footnote 427: Diog. ix. 21 (R. P. III), reading Ἀμεινίᾳ Διοχαίτα with Diels (_Hermes_, xxxv. p. 197). Sotion, in his _Successions_, separated Parmenides from Xenophanes and associated him with the Pythagoreans (_Dox._ pp. 146, 148, 166). Footnote 428: Strabo, vi. 1, p. 252 (p. 195, _n._ 430); Ceb. _Tab._ 2 (R. P. 111 c). This Kebes is not the Kebes of the _Phaedo_; but he certainly lived some time before Lucian, who speaks of him as a well-known writer. A Cynic of the name is mentioned by Athenaios (156 d). The statements of Strabo are of the greatest value; for they are based upon historians now lost. Footnote 429: O. Kern in _Arch._ iii. pp. 173 sqq. We know too little, however, of the apocalyptic poems of the sixth century B.C. to be sure of the details. All we can say is that Parmenides has taken the form of his poem from some such source. See Diels, “Ueber die poetischen Vorbilder des Parmenides” (_Berl. Sitzb._ 1896), and the Introduction to his _Parmenides Lehrgedicht_, pp. 9 sqq. Footnote 430: Diog. ix. 23 (R. P. 111). Plut. _adv. Col._ 1226 a, Παρμενίδης δὲ τὴν ἑαυτοῦ πατρίδα διεκόσμησε νόμοις ἀρίστοις, ὥστε τὰς ἀρχὰς καθ’ ἕκαστον ἐνιαυτὸν ἐξορκοῦν τοὺς πολίτας ἐμμενεῖν τοῖς Παρμενίδου νόμοις. Strabo, vi. 1. p. 252, (Ἐλέαν) ἐξ ἧς Παρμενίδης καὶ Ζήνων ἐγένοντο ἄνδρες Πυθαγόρειοι. δοκεῖ δέ μοι καὶ δι’ ἐκείνους καὶ ἔτι πρότερον εὐνομηθῆναι. [Sidenote: The poem.] 85. Parmenides was really the first philosopher to expound his system in metrical language. As there is some confusion on this subject, it deserves a few words of explanation. In writing of Empedokles, Mr. J. A. Symonds said: “The age in which he lived had not yet thrown off the form of poetry in philosophical composition. Even Parmenides had committed his austere theories to hexameter verse.” Now this is wrongly put. The earliest philosophers, Anaximander, Anaximenes, and Herakleitos, all wrote in prose, and the only Greeks who ever wrote philosophy in verse at all were just these two, Parmenides and Empedokles; for Xenophanes was not primarily a philosopher any more than Epicharmos. Empedokles copied Parmenides; and he, no doubt, was influenced by Xenophanes and the Orphics. But the thing was an innovation, and one that did not maintain itself. The fragments of Parmenides are preserved for the most part by Simplicius, who fortunately inserted them in his commentary, because in his time the original work was already rare.[431] I follow the arrangement of Diels. Footnote 431: Simpl. _Phys._ 144, 25 (R. P. 117). Simplicius, of course, had the library of the Academy at his command. Diels notes, however, that Proclus seems to have used a different MS. (1)