Anaximander's Life

2 min

I. Anaximander, the son of Praxiadas, was a citizen of Miletus.

II. He used to assert that the principle and primary element of all things was the Infinity, giving no exact definition as to whether he meant air or water, or anything else. And he said that the parts were susceptible of change, but that the whole was unchangeable; and that the earth lay in the middle, being placed there as a sort of centre, of a spherical shape. The moon, he said, had a borrowed light, and borrowed it from the sun; and the sun he affirmed to be not less than the earth, and the purest possible fire.

II. He used to say that Infinity was the principle and primary element of all things. He did not specify whether he meant air, water, or anything else. He said that the parts could change, but the whole could not. He also said that the earth was spherical and lay in the middle, like a center. The moon, he said, borrowed its light from the sun. He claimed that the sun was at least as large as the earth and was the purest possible fire.

III. He also was the first discoverer of the gnomon; and he placed some in Lacedæmon on the sun-dials there, as Phavorinus says in his Universal History, and they showed the solstices and the equinoxes; he also made clocks. He was the first person, too, who drew a map of the earth and sea, and he also made a globe; and he published a concise statement of whatever opinions he embraced or entertained; and this treatise was met with by Apollodorus, the Athenian.

III. He was also the first to discover the gnomon. According to Phavorinus in his Universal History, he placed some on the sundials in Lacedæmon. They showed the solstices and equinoxes. He also made clocks. He was the first to draw a map of the earth and sea, and he also made a globe. He published a concise statement of the opinions he held or considered. Apollodorus the Athenian came across this treatise.

IV. And Apollodorus, in his Chronicles, states, that in the second year of the fifty-eighth Olympiad, he was sixty-four years old. And soon after he died, having flourished much about the same time as Polycrates, the tyrant, of Samos. They say that when he sang, the children laughed; and that he, hearing of this, said, “We must then sing better for the sake of the children.”

IV. Apollodorus says in his Chronicles that he was sixty-four years old in the second year of the fifty-eighth Olympiad. He died soon afterward. He had flourished at about the same time as Polycrates, the tyrant of Samos. They say that children laughed when he sang. When he heard this, he said, “Then we must sing better for the children.”

V. There was also another Anaximander, a historian; and he too was a Milesian, and wrote in the Ionic dialect.

V. There was also another Anaximander, a historian. He too was from Miletus and wrote in the Ionic dialect.