268 HEIDEL. 



the three whom, with Hesiod, HeracHtus rebuked for their polymathy, 

 which failed to teach them understanding. This Ust is not the 

 product of chance; for a clear line, running from Hesiod through 

 Thales and Anaximander, leads us to Pythagoras, the mathematician, 

 to Xenophanes, the rationalist interested in ethnography and history, 

 and to Hecataeus the geographer, historian, and naturalist. Hera- 

 clitus is said to have testified to the interest of Thales in astronomy, 

 and Eudemus called him the father of geometry. The latter also, 

 apparently, is responsible fbr the data we have for Anaximander's 

 ideas regarding the magnitudes and intervals of the heavenly bodies 

 and for the statement that he outlined the subject of geometry.^'' 



How these several intellectual interests were cultivated in the 

 Milesian circle, we do not know; but it is not difficult to discover a 

 relation between their studies and the problems which crowded upon 

 the intelligent citizens of Miletus. Thus Thales was credited with 

 a work on nautical astronomy ^^ and with various nautical devices 

 natural in the busiest trading center of the Levant, whose sailors 

 went everywhere. Of similar interest was presumably his study of 

 the calendar. As for the pursuit of geometry, its relation to city- 

 planning and to the allotment of lands was well recognized in anti- 

 quity; the relation of both astronomy and geometry to geography was 

 no less distinctly seen.^^ The schematic geometrical treatment of the 

 early Ionian (Milesian) maps is known to every student of ancient 

 geography: hence we need not suppose that Eratosthenes first brought 

 geometry to the service of cartography. 



In the busy streets of Miletus there met men who had voyaged to 

 Egypt and seen the Ethiopians, snub-nosed and dark of skin, and to 

 Thrace, and knew its blue-eyed and red-haired inhabitants : ''° one could 

 gather there, even without travel, to which every Milesian must have 

 been tempted, the most varied lore about all sorts of strange peoples 

 and their customs. Pretty nearly everything we learn of the ' barba- 

 rians ' before the close of the fifth century comes ultimately from early 

 Ionian writers. They interested themselves also in the progress of 

 civilization and the steps and ' inventions' whereby it was advanced.^^ 



67 73 1. 19^ 12, I. 14, 22. 



68 Whether it really belongs to Thales or not — and this is not clear — the 

 work was undoubtedly quite ancient. 



69 See Strabo 2.5 and Ar. Nub. 201 sq. 



70 Xenophanes /r. 16 Diels. 



71 Xenophanes /r. 18 Diels; cp. the interest shown by Herodotus in the 

 contributions of various foreign lands, especially Egypt and Babylonia, to 

 Greek civihzation. Strabo 2.5,18 expresses the thought wliich underhes the 

 historico-geographical tradition from the beginning. 



