Parmenides was born in Elea, a Greek city in southern Italy. He was reportedly a student of Xenophanes, and may have studied with the Pythagoreans, but he followed neither. He wrote a long poem in Homeric hexameters, of which about 150 lines have been recovered. This poem radically changed philosophy. It is divided into two parts: the first describes the Way of Truth and the second the Way of Opinion, which characterizes a false and deceitful manner of thinking.
