a celebrated philosopher and poet, was born at Agrigentum, a city in Sicily, about 444 years before the Christian era. He followed the Pythagorean philosophy, and admitted the metempsychosis. He constantly appeared with a crown of gold on his head; to maintain, by this outward pomp, the reputation he had acquired of being a very extraordinary man. Yet Aristotle says, that he was a great lover of liberty, extremely averse to state and command, and that he even refused a kingdom that was offered him. His principal work was a Treatise in verse on the Nature and Principles of Things. Aristotle, Lucretius, and all the ancients, make the most magnificent eulogiums on his poetry and eloquence. His death is variously reported: but the common opinion is, that he leaped into mount Aetna, that he might leave behind him an opinion that he was a god.