240 HEIDEL. 



The question regarding Anaximander's book cannot be divorced 

 from that concerning his map. This is not equivalent to saying that 

 the existence of either proves the existence of the other; for maps 

 did exist without accompanying texts, presumably before Anaxi- 

 mander's time; and geographical treatises might, and did in fact, 

 exist without maps. In the case of Anaximander, however, quite 

 apart from general considerations, of which more may be said here- 

 after, the literary evidence for the geographical treatise is so closely 

 interwoven with that for the chart, that it must all be considered 

 together. 



Themistius ^ says that Anaximander was ' the first of the Greeks 

 to our knowledge who ventured to publish a treatise 0?i Nature.'' ^ 

 This statement, except so far as it bears witness to Anaximander's 

 authorship, deserves no credence; for it belongs to a class of data 

 peculiarly untrustworthy. From early times the Greeks amused 

 themselves by investigating the historical beginnings of various 

 activities and contrivances. These studies gave rise in time to 

 treatises On Inventions, * and undoubtedly contained much informa- 

 tion of value; but pronouncements on matters of this sort are obvi- 

 ously relative to the knowledge of the investigator, and, where the 

 author of a dictum and the sources and limitations of his information 

 are alike unknown, we have no right to accept it as truth. In this 

 instance we may at most conclude that Themistius, or rather his 

 unknown source, did not credit Thales with a treatise On Nature. 



The entry of Suidas runs thus: "Anaximander of Miletus, son of 

 Praxiades, a philosopher; kinsman, disciple and successor to Thales. 

 He first discovered the ecjuinox, the solstices, and dials to tell the hours, 

 and that the earth lies midmost. He introduced the gnomon (sun- 

 dial) and, speaking generally, set forth the essential outlines of geom- 

 etry. He wrote On Nature, Tour of the Earth, On the Fixed Stars, 

 Sphere, and some other treatises." For the moment we may pass over 

 all but the bibliographical data. ^ The title On Nature we have already 



2 Diels, Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, 3d edition (hereafter abbreviated 

 73) I., p. 1,5, 16. 



3 riept 4>batw. My reasons for retaining this rendering may be found in my 

 essay, Ilept ^vaew. A Study of the Conception of Nature among the Pre- 

 Socraties, Proceed. Amer. Acad, of Arts and Sciences, 45 (1910), pp. 79-133, 

 hereafter abbreviated ITept ^vaeois. 



4 Evp-npLara. No satisfactory discussion of this Uterary kind as a whole 

 exists. 



5 y, I. 14, 23 eypaxpe Ilept ^uo-ews, Vrjs ireplobov Kai Uepl tcjv air'Kavcov Kai 'Z<j>a2pav 

 Kat aXXa Ti.va.. 



