Xenophanes
2 of the 7 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Xenophanes. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
ze-nof'a-nez (570-480 B. C.), a Greek philosopher. He was born at Colophon, Asia Minor . He was banished from the city and settled finally at Elea in Lower Italy. Here he founded the Eleatic school of philosophy of which Zeno was a distinguished member. Xenophanes and his friends may be regarded as Grecian Unitarians. He attacked the mythology of Homer and Hesiod, declaring that these poets ascribed actions to the gods that would disgrace any man. The fragments of his scientific writings that remain show that the world had scientific leaders 2,000 years before it had people sufficiently intelligent to follow them. In physics, he taught that earth and water are the elements of all created things. He held that the stars were fiery clouds. In geology, he believed that the fossils of sea animals found in the marble quarries of Syracuse, and even high up on the mountains, were to be explained by the theory that the surface of the earth had been subject to alternate elevation and subsidence.
1000 Classical Characters (1900)
A celebrated philosopher, who was a native of Colophon, and flourished between B. c. 540 and 500. He was also a poet, and considerable fragments have come down to us of his elegies, and of a didactic poem, On Nature. 2026 Editor's Note: Xenophanes was a pioneering thinker who sought natural explanations for physical phenomena like clouds and rainbows, rejecting divine or mythological causes. He is also considered one of the earliest satirists, using his poetry to criticize societal values such as wealth, excess, and athletic victories. None of his poems survive intact; his work is known only through fragments preserved in quotations by later philosophers and literary critics. (Ed: BR 2026-06-25)