Pherecȳdes
(
Φερεκύδης).
1.
A Greek philosopher, of the isle of Syros, about B.C. 600-550; said to have been the first
writer of prose. He wrote in the Ionic dialect of the origin of the world and the gods
(
Cosmogonia and
Theogonia). The poetic element seems to have
held a predominant place in his prose. He is also said to have been the first to maintain the
doctrine of the transmigration of souls, which his pupil Pythagoras borrowed from him.
2.
One of the best known of the Greek
logographi
(q.v.), and a contemporary of Hellanicus and Herodotus. His chief work
was a mythological history in ten books, beginning with the genealogy of the gods, and
passing on to an account of the Heroic Age and of the origins of the great families of his
own time. Fragments edited by Sturz
(Leipzig, 1824), and Müller
(Paris, 1850).