The European avant-garde is marked by an intriguing paradox: on the one hand, it defines itself in terms of an unequivocal polemics against time-honored cultural traditions and a complete break with the past; on the other hand, as has recently shown systematically and from a cross-disciplinary perspective, its programmatic iconoclastic rupture with tradition is often informed or even shaped by a close, complex dialogue with important paradigms of the European cultural and intellectual ancient heritage. Pre-Socratic thinkers (broadly defined) were such an influential paradigm (e.g. in the works of Surrealists), which, however, has by and large been neglected in discussions of the European avant-garde and, more broadly, modernism.