11 Facts About Democritus

Democritus was said to be born in the city of Abdera in Thrace, an Ionian colony of Teos.

The theory of Democritus held that everything is composed of "atoms," which are physically, but not geometrically, indivisible; that between atoms, there lies empty space; that atoms are indestructible, and have always been and always will be in motion; that there is an infinite number of atoms and of kinds of atoms, which differ in shape and size.

Democritus surmised that there are many worlds, some growing, some decaying; some with no sun or moon, some with several.

Democritus held that every world has a beginning and an end and that a world could be destroyed by collision with another world.

The ethics and politics of Democritus come to us mostly in the form of maxims.

Democritus was a pioneer of mathematics and geometry in particular.

Democritus thought that the first humans lived an anarchic and animal sort of life, going out to forage individually and living off the most palatable herbs and the fruit which grew wild on the trees.

Democritus believed that these early people had no language, but that they gradually began to articulate their expressions, establishing symbols for every sort of object, and in this manner came to understand each other.

Democritus says that the earliest men lived laboriously, having none of the utilities of life; clothing, houses, fire, domestication, and farming were unknown to them.

Later Greek historians consider Democritus to have established aesthetics as a subject of investigation and study, as he wrote theoretically on poetry and fine art long before authors such as Aristotle.

Democritus was nevertheless well known to his fellow northern-born philosopher Aristotle, and was the teacher of Protagoras.