induced to favour the Clazomenians, who come from a distance, with a
rehearsal. Respecting the visit of Zeno and Parmenides to Athens, we may
observe--first, that such a visit is consistent with dates, and may
possibly have occurred; secondly, that Plato is very likely to have
invented the meeting ('You, Socrates, can easily invent Egyptian tales or
anything else,' Phaedrus); thirdly, that no reliance can be placed on the
circumstance as determining the date of Parmenides and Zeno; fourthly, that
the same occasion appears to be referred to by Plato in two other places
(Theaet., Soph.).

Many interpreters have regarded the Parmenides as a 'reductio ad absurdum'
of the Eleatic philosophy. But would Plato have been likely to place this
in the mouth of the great Parmenides himself, who appeared to him, in
Homeric language, to be 'venerable and awful,' and to have a 'glorious
depth of mind'? (Theaet.). It may be admitted that he has ascribed to an
Eleatic stranger in the Sophist opinions which went beyond the doctrines of
the Eleatics. But the Eleatic stranger expressly criticises the doctrines
in which he had been brought up; he admits that he is going to 'lay hands
on his father Parmenides.' Nothing of this kind is said of Zeno and
Parmenides. How then, without a word of explanation, could Plato assign to
them the refutation of their own tenets?

The conclusion at which we must arrive is that the Parmenides is not a
refutation of the Eleatic philosophy. Nor would such an explanation afford
any satisfactory connexion of the first and second parts of the dialogue.
And it is quite inconsistent with Plato's own relation to the Eleatics.
For of all the pre-Socratic philosophers, he speaks of them with the
greatest respect. But he could hardly have passed upon them a more
unmeaning slight than to ascribe to their great master tenets the reverse
of those which he actually held.