Chapter IX.—Parmenides; His Theory of “Unity;” His Eschatology.
For Parmenides73 [b.c. 500.] likewise supposes the universe to be one, both eternal and unbegotten, and of a spherical form. And neither did he escape the opinion of the great body (of speculators), affirming fire and earth to be the originating principles of the universe—the earth as matter, but the fire as cause, even an efficient one. He asserted that the world would be destroyed, but in what way he does not mention.74 The next sentence is regarded by some as not genuine. The same (philosopher), however, affirmed the universe to be eternal, and not generated, and of spherical form and homogeneous, but not having a figure in itself, and immoveable and limited.
[11] Καὶ γὰρ καὶ Παρμενίδης ἓν μὲν τὸ πᾶν ὑποτίθεται ἀίδιόν τε καὶ ἀγένητον καὶ σφαιροειδές, οὐδ' αὐτὸς [δὲ] ἐκφυγὼν τὴν τῶν πολλῶν δόξαν πῦρ λέγει καὶ γῆν τὰς τοῦ παντὸς ἀρχάς, τὴν μὲν γῆν ὡς ὕλην, τὸ δὲ πῦρ ὡς αἴτιον καὶ ποιοῦν. τὸν [δὲ] κόσμον ἔφη φθείρεσθαι, ᾧ δὲ τρόπῳ, οὐκ εἶπεν. ὁ αὐτὸς δὲ εἶπεν ἀίδιον εἶναι τὸ πᾶν καὶ οὐ γενόμενον καὶ σφαιροειδὲς καὶ ὅμοιον, οὐκ ἔχον δὲ τόπον ἐν ἑαυτῷ, καὶ ἀκίνητον καὶ πεπερασμένον.