anaximander's book. 243 



enumerating the four titles already considered, adds that Anaxi- 

 mander wrote 'some other treatises' not specified by name. Now 

 we shall subsequently find another title, not included in the list of 

 Suidas, which may with probability be referred to our Anaxiniander. 



This circumstance might be considered as aggravating the diffi- 

 culty to the point of rendering what was before an improbability a 

 sheer impossibility. But this also does not necessarily follow; for 

 it may be that we shall have to revise our notions concerning Anaxi- 

 niander and what is possible or probable in regard to him. It so 

 happens that the title elsewhere cited and not specifically mentioned 

 in the list of Suidas is identical with a title cited in reference to Heca- 

 taeus of Miletus. Now Hecataeus, as we shall presently see, was 

 only a trifle over a generation younger than his fellow townsman 

 Anaxiniander, and pursued studies in good part at least identical 

 with his, taking up and perfecting his map and writing a geographical 

 treatise which enjoyed a great and well deserved reputation. If it 

 should prove that Anaxiniander was in intention primarily a geo- 

 grapher, the work of these two eminent Milesians would in fact lie 

 quite in the same plane and run in part parallel, though each extended 

 his line in one direction beyond the other's. Of this we shall have to 

 speak more at length presently: what for the moment concerns us 

 is to point out the fact that there is a striking similarity between these 

 almost contemporary authors in regard to the titles ascribed to them. 

 Hecataeus seems to have written one work, or at most two, but the 

 recorded titles are quite numerous.^° That these bibliographical data 

 derived in part from the catalogues of the Alexandrian libraries 

 admits of no doubt, and is in fact not questioned. Why we should 

 not assume the same source for the bibliography of Anaximander 

 does not appear. We have, therefore, thus far found no good reason 

 for rejecting the testimony of Suidas, subject of course to the limi- 

 tations wliich apply to all early titles, including that On Nature. 

 The only apparently good reason will be presently found on closer 

 examination to confirm the record that Anaxiniander wrote a geo- 

 graphical treatise. 



We have seen that Suidas attributes the introduction of the gnomon 

 or sun-dial to Anaxiniander. Diogenes Laertius reports ^^ that "he 

 first invented the gnomon and, according to the Miscellany of Favori- 



10 See Jacoby, 'Hekataios' in Pauly-Wissowa's Real-Eiicyc, 7 (hereafter 

 abbreviated Jacobv), col. 2671 sq. This elaborate essay is at present by far 

 the best study of Hecataeus, and must be read in connection with the same 

 scholar's essay on Herodotus in the same work. 



11 V^ I. 14, 7. 



