48 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCIENCE 



Anaximander, collecting data from the Ionian sailors frequent- 

 ing Miletus, constructed a map of the earth, and speculated on the 

 relative distances of the heavenly bodies. 



Herodotus relates that 



during the reign of Cleomenes, Aristagoras, prince of Miletus, ar- 

 rived at Sparta; the Lacedaemonians affirm, that desiring to have 

 a conference with their sovereign, he appeared before him with a 

 tablet of brass in his hand, on which was inscribed every known part 

 of the habitable world, the seas, and the rivers. 



ANAXIMENES. A third Ionian Greek, often associated with 

 those just mentioned, is Anaximenes (sixth century B.C.), like them 

 a native of Miletus. For him the stars are fixed upon the celes- 

 tial vault, and pass behind the northern (highest) part of the earth 

 on setting. Air, not water, is the first cause of all things, the 

 others being formed by its compression or rarefaction. The heat 

 of the sun is due to its rapid motion, but the stars are too remote 

 to give out heat. 



Anaximenes arrived at the conclusion that air is the one movable, 

 infinite, first principle of all things. For he speaks as follows : ' Air 

 is the nearest to an immaterial thing; for since we are generated in 

 the flow of air, it is necessary that it should be infinite and abundant, 

 because it is never exhausted.' (A fragment accredited to Anax- 

 imenes.) 



Most of the earlier students of the heavenly bodies believed that 

 the sun did not go underneath the earth but rather around the earth 

 and this region, and that it disappeared from the view and produced 

 night because the earth was so high toward the north. . . . Anaxim- 

 enes and Anaxagoras and Democritus say that the breadth of the 

 earth is the reason why it remains where it is. ... Anaximenes says 

 that the earth was wet, and when it dried it broke apart, and that 

 earthquakes are due to the breaking and falling of hills. Aristotle. 



The school of Thales and his successors in this Ionian outpost 

 of Greek civilization was soon succeeded by developments of still 

 greater importance in the more remote Italian colonies. 



