Diogenes of Apollonia

Diogenes came from Apollonia, a Milesian colony in Thrace, and spent time in Athens during the fifth century BC. He argued that air was the single primal substance underlying existence, both the source of all other materials and a conscious, divine force animating the cosmos. He also produced an account of how blood vessels were arranged in the human body. The comic playwright Aristophanes parodied his theories in performance, ensuring a kind of fame by ridicule. His ideas may have shaped the Orphic commentary later preserved in the Derveni papyrus. None of his philosophical writings survived intact; what remains comes through long excerpts quoted by Simplicius and brief summaries in Aristotle, Theophrastus, and Aetius.