What survives of Xenophanes

Sextus Empiricus, Against the Logicians I.193 (c. 200 CE)

A sceptic assembling evidence that people disagree irreconcilably about the gods. Xenophanes attacking Homer was useful to him as an example of the disagreement, not as a position he shared.

Clement of Alexandria, Miscellanies V.109.3 (c. 200 CE)

A Christian writer quoting a pagan Greek against pagan religion. Xenophanes had aimed the argument at Homer's gods; Clement copied it out because it demolished the gods of everyone except his own.

The most quoted argument in early Greek philosophy survives because it was useful ammunition to someone six centuries later.

Clement of Alexandria, Miscellanies VII.22.1 (c. 200 CE)

Copied a few pages away from the oxen and horses, in the same campaign against images of the gods made in human shape.

Clement of Alexandria, Miscellanies V.109.1 (c. 200 CE)

Quoted approvingly this time. Clement wanted to show that the better Greeks had glimpsed a single god on their own, and read Xenophanes as a witness for the prosecution turned witness for the defence.

Stobaeus, Anthology I.8.2 (c. 450 CE)

An anthologist compiling improving extracts under headings for his son's education. This one was filed under time.

Sextus Empiricus, Against the Logicians I.49 (c. 200 CE)

The sceptics claimed Xenophanes as an ancestor for this line, and quoted it often enough that it survives in several versions. He is arguing that certainty was doubted long before his own school existed.

Six centuries of sceptics kept it in circulation because it was the oldest statement of their position they could find.