Riding from Elea to Athens (via Syracuse) : the Parmenides and the Early Reception of Eleatism : Epicharmus, Cratinus and Plato

Plato's Parmenides features a number of strange allusions suggesting that the great philosopher from Elea came to be a comic target as early as in the first half of the V century. This paper explores this little-known phenomenon: celebrated playwrights such as Epicharmus and Cratinus abused the Eleats and their abstruse language. Building on this comic tradition, Plato himself attacks Parmenides and especially Zeno: a careful examination of understudied sources and data provides conclusive evidence for Plato's ultimately anti-Eleatic stance. Eleatism turns out to be a catastrophically counterproductive form of philosophical discourse, which - in sharp contrast with Socratic logoi - ends up alienating all possible disciples, thus undermining the very notion of philo-sophia.