anaximander's book. 273 



to have been, certain questions on which he held opinions may have 

 been discussed, we again look to the models which have come down to 

 us intact. Let us take Herodotus and Strabo as examples. The debt 

 of Herodotus to Hecataeus is acknowledged. We may well suppose 

 that it was the Tour of the Earth to which the fifth century historian 

 was chiefly indebted, ^^ though he unquestionably used also the 

 Genealogies. Now Hecataeus clearly gave no cosmology: so far as 

 he interested liimself in matters pertaining to meteorology and kin- 

 dred fields of science, he brought forth his opinions in connection with 

 the description of particular lands, especially of Egypt. After Anaxi- 

 mander the 'school' of IMiletus seems to have had a fate similar to 

 that of Aristotle: where the master, in the true encyclopedic fashion, 

 sought to cover the whole field of science, his successors divided the 

 field. There is no evidence that Anaximenes gave any thought to 

 geography and history, and the same is true of those who are brought 

 b}^ tradition in relation to ' the philosophy of Anaximenes'; while Heca- 

 taeus, as has already been remarked, neglected cosmology, and devoted 

 himself to history and geography. Herodotus, though with inade- 

 quate comprehension of the spirit and the achievements of the lonians, 

 was inspired by the example of Hecataeus and Dionysius, thus falling 

 roughly in line with their branch of the tradition originating at Miletus. 

 Another branch of the tradition can be traced through Eratosthenes 

 to Strabo: it is largely indebted, however, to the collateral line which 

 is concerned primarily with history. Geography, as we have previ- 

 ously remarked, had come to occupy a place apart as an independent 

 science. Whether Democritus was at least in part responsible for 

 tliis innovation we cannot say; certainly Ephorus, by separating 

 his geographical books distinctly from the historical, contributed not 

 a little to this result. Eudoxus certainly conceived his geography as 

 related to his astronomy. In Eratosthenes, as in Strabo, the discus- 

 sion of the earth, as the subject of geography, is made to follow that 

 of the cosmos. ^^ Anaximander had done the same, describing the 

 circles of the celestial bodies with the earth at their centre. Here, 

 then, we have those parts of his treatise to which could be given the 

 titles Sphere or On the Fixed Stars. This, we may be sure, formed the 



78 See Hecataeus fr. 292. Jacoby tries to determine in detail the debt of 

 Herodotus to him. 



,79 See Strabo 1.4,1; 2. .5,1 sq. Strabo is himself so much occupied with 

 his criticism of Eratosthenes that he cannot describe the cosmos, though he 

 recognizes that the beginning of the descriptive part of geography is the 

 proper place for the astronomical setting of the earth. Strabo 1.3,3 C 48 sq. 

 is important for the relation of the discussions -rrepi 0i5o-ews to geography. 



