Epimenides of Crete

Epimenides was a Greek poet, seer and philosopher from Knossos or Phaistos, on Crete. He lived around the seventh or sixth century BC, in a period when the line between myth and history is blurred, so much of what is told about him is legendary. Some ancient authors counted him among the Seven Sages of Greece, but today he is remembered above all for the paradox that bears his name.

According to tradition, while tending his father's flocks he fell asleep in a cave sacred to Zeus and woke with the gift of prophecy. He was also credited with expertise in sacrifices and funeral customs. Plutarch says this knowledge helped Solon reform the Athenian state, and that for his services Epimenides accepted only a branch of the sacred olive. Around 632 BC, after the failed coup of Cylon and the killing of his followers by the Alcmeonidae, which was seen as sacrilege, Athens was struck by plague, and the tradition holds that Epimenides purified the city. He is also said to have prophesied at Sparta on military affairs, and to have died at a great age, some sources claiming he lived well over a century.

Only indirect traces of his writings survive. Works including a theogony, an epic on the Argonauts, a cosmogony, treatises on purification and sacrifice, and a work on Cretan law were attributed to him, but all are lost. His name endured through a single phrase: "Cretans, always liars." The New Testament Epistle to Titus alludes to it. The paradox arises because if a Cretan says this and speaks truly, the statement is false. The ancients do not seem to have seen a paradox in it; that link came much later. His lasting influence lies mainly in the history of logic, where his saying remains a standard example of self-reference.