anaximander's book. 261 



Greek alphabet, as well as a consideration of the logical context of 

 such an inquiry, must suggest that the book of Anaximander, like 

 those of Hecataeus, Dionysius, and Herodotus, belonged at least in 

 part to the historico-geographical line of tradition. Regarding 

 Hecataeus and Dionysius there can be no question; but Anaximander 

 also is classed with these admittedly ' historical' writers. 



We may be pardoned for insisting that we are thus abundantly 

 justified in holding fast our faith in the essential correctness of the 

 bibliography of Anaximander preserved by Suidas and in the deriva- 

 tion of the list of titles from the catalogues of the Alexandrian libraries. 

 It was there in all probability that Apollodorus found the book, 

 which, as we have seen, was known by report, if not by sight, to 

 Eratosthenes. It is possible, indeed, that Apollodorus discovered 

 the book of Anaximander at Pergamum, where he was active in later 

 life, and where his interest in antiquities must have made liim welcome; 

 but the book must have been rare in his day, and Alexandria is surely 

 the place where we should most expect to find it. If we assume that 

 the book was there in the time of Eratosthenes we shall not violate 

 probabilities; for the case, far from being unexampled, would find a 

 close parallel in the same field. We know from Athenaeus ^^ that 

 Callimachus, presumably in his catalogue, attributed either the Tour 

 of Asia, or, more probably, the entire Tour of the Earth of Hecataeus, 

 of which the Tour of Asia was a part, to one Nesiotes, though we do not 

 know on what grounds. ^^ Conjecture is easy but profitless. But 

 Eratosthenes, his successor, as we learn from Strabo, vindicated the 

 authorship of Hecataeus as confirmed by the Genealogies, which he 

 apparently regarded as a separate work and above suspicion. When, 

 therefore, Apollodorus set aside the doubts of his predecessor regard- 

 ing the book of Anaximander he was merely. doing what other scholars, ' 

 ancient and modern, have done. It was only natural that such 

 indications of doubtful authorship as may have been noted in the 

 Alexandrian catalogues should be expunged, once the doubts of the 

 librarians were resolved. 



There still remain to be considered a number of passages before we 

 can be sure that we have garnered in all the notices of Anaximander's 

 treatise. Athenaeus,^^ expatiating on the skyphos, a cup or goblet, 

 remarks that the name occurs as both a masculine and a neuter noun 

 and is sometimes written skyphos, sometimes skypphos. In this con- 



57 70 B; cf. 410 E. 



58 See note 37 above. 



59 Athen. 498 A sq. 



