 The Pythagorean Paron (DK I 217. 10–15) is probably a fiction resulting from a misreading of Aristotle (Burkert 1972a, 170). Aristotle reports the expression of a certain Xuthus, that “the universe would swell like the ocean,” if there were not void into which parts of the universe could withdraw, when compressed (Physics 216b25). Simplicius says, on unknown grounds, that this Xuthus was a Pythagorean, and scholars have speculated that he was responding to Parmenides (DK I. 376. 20–26; Kirk and Raven 1957, 301–302; Barnes 1982, 616).