Because they now had the phonetic alphabet, they were able, for the first time, to write the results of their inquiries down. These intellectuals included men with names still famous today—Hippocrates, Pythagoras, Herodotus—and equally seminal figures whose names are now less well known: As we shall see, Xenophanes of Colophon was one of the most influential thinkers of all time. They had used the revolutionary technology of writing they had adapted from the Phoenicians not only to invent physical science and write about it in both poetry and prose; they also developed rational medicine,
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