Posidonius the Stoic names Moschus, or Mochus of Sidon, as the originator of the atomic theory “before the Trojan period.”  Vide Strabo, xvi. 757.  But the most famous Atomists, Leucippus and Democritus of Abdera, in the 5th c. b.c., arose in opposition to the Eleatic school, and were followed in the 3d by Epicurus.  Vide Diog. Laert. ix. § 30, sq. and Cicero, De Nat. Deor. i. 24–26.  Ista enim flagitia Democriti, sive etiam ante Leucippi, esse corpuscula quædam lævia, alia aspera, rotunda alia, partim autem angulata, curvata quædam, et quasi adunca; ex his effectum esse cœlum atque terram, nulla cogente natura, sed concursu quodam fortuito.  Atqui, si haec Democritea non audisset, quid audierat? quid est in physicis Epicuri non a Democrito?  Nam, etsi quædam commodavit, ut, quod paulo ante de inclinatione atomorum dixi:  tamen pleraque dixit eadem; atomos, inane, imagines, infinitatem locorum, innumerabilitatemque mundorum eorum ortus, interitus, omnia fere, quibus naturæ ratio continetur.