anaximander's book. 263 



Now if we attribute the words quoted by Athenaeus, as apparently 

 we are bound to attribute them, to the elder Anaximander, we see 

 both by the title and the contents that he dealt with the heroic 

 genealogies which were studied, as we know from Hecataeus, Phere- 

 cydes, and Hellanicus, for clews in regard to early history and geo- 

 graphy. ^° The scope of his work or works is thus shown, as indeed Ave 

 were led to infer from his reference to Danaus and the importation of 

 the alphabet from Egypt, to have included not only the beginnings 

 of the cosmos but also the legendary history- of Greek lands. In all 

 such cases, whether known from Greek or Hebrew sources, the geo- 

 graphical and ethnographical status at the time of the would-be 

 historian furnished the starting point which was to be explained by 

 reconstructing the past.^^ Whether it be the story of Creation and 

 the genealogical tables of the descendants of Noah, in the Book of 

 Genesis, or the Hesiodic Thcogony and Catalogues, the purpose and 

 the method are everywhere essentially the same : it is the concep- 

 tion of a universal history. One may call it Genesis, if one will, or 

 Physis, if one prefers; ^^ but the central interest of the men who thus 

 set themselves the task of reading the beginnings is always in the 

 earth and its inhabitants as they found them. The description of 

 the earth and its peoples is what constitutes geography, and has 

 always constituted the science. If, as is certain, Anaximander 

 sketched the beginnings of the cosmos and the early history of the 

 Greeks as reflected in the genealogical tables of the heroes, there is no 

 reason why we should doubt that he who constructed a map of the 

 earth actually wrote, as he is reported to have WTitten, a geographical 

 work, which gave the disposition of the peoples and the boundaries 

 of continents and lands in agreement with the pictorial representation 

 of his chart. That was at once the logical thing to do and the thing 

 which by all the tokens we must infer he was most concerned to do. 



There is one more reference to an Anaximander which calls for 

 consideration. In Xenophon's Symposium^^ the guests are asked to 



60 The reference to the goblet, which descended as an heirloom from father 

 to son and then fell into the hands of Amphitryon, the putative father of 

 Heracles, served no doubt as a means of fixing the date of the great hero from 

 whom many royal families, Greek and foreign, claimed descent. The date of 

 Heracles thus became an important datum for history and historical geo- 

 graphy. Cp. Hdt. 6.53. 



61 See Ilept ^ucrecos, p. 85 sq., especially n. 32. 



62 The Greek said not only alTioXoyelu and 4)vmo\oyetv, but also in essentially 

 the same sense — • 7€j'€a\o7er;/ : cp. Hippocr. Ilept eTrra/xi?^^, 4 (7.442 L.) and 

 Aelian, V. H. 4,17 (cat t6v aeLtr^ov eyeveaXoyei (Pythagoras) ovdif iiWo eluai >) 

 avvuSov Tcov TedveojTCOP. 



63 C. 3. 



