anaximander's book. 245 



By that time the mathematical theory of the globe-earth was fully 

 worked out ^^ and the value of the observation could be seen and the 

 necessary conclusions drawn from it, which resulted in the geo- 

 graphical location of the tropics and the equator. But long before 

 that we learn of the use of three equatorials, the central one passing 

 through the straits of Gibraltar and defined with reference to the 

 equinoxial rising and setting of the sun, and two other lines related 

 respectively to the summer and to the winter sunrise and sunset, the 

 former running from the Pyrenees to the Caucasus along the course of 

 the Ister, the latter running parallel along the line supposed to be 

 described by the upper course of the Nile from the Atlas Mountains 

 to the upper Cataracts. ^^ This scheme, known from Herodotus, is 

 obviously a geographical projection of the lines of a flat disk sun-dial, 

 vvliich originally concerned itself with the positions of the sun, not 

 at the meridian, but at the rising and setting, where its variations were 

 far more conspicuous. Since this geographical scheme is unquestion- 

 ably derived from the early lonians, we naturally think of it as going 

 back either to Hecataeus or to Anaximander; and of the two Anaxi- 

 mander surely has the better claim to it. 



But it has been said that the sun-dial at Sparta cannot be attributed 

 to Anaximander, since Pliny ^° says that it was Anaximenes, the 

 disciple of Anaximander, who set it up. It is surprising that this 

 objection should have been seriously considered; for in the same 

 breath Pliny attributes the invention of the science of the gnomon to 

 Anaximenes. The latter statement no one accepts, and with good 

 reason; for Anaximenes is in comparison with Anaximander a figure 

 of hardly secondary importance. The natural inference is that in 

 tlois case Pliny misunderstood a statement in his source, which may 

 well have been superficially ambiguous, since the clause regarding 

 the discovery of the science of the gnomon and the erection of a dial 

 at Sparta, might well have been introduced by a demonstrative 

 susceptible of reference either to Anaximander or to Anaximenes, 

 both of whom were mentioned. In this connection it is well to remark 

 that while there is nothing else in the literary tradition associating 



neaoxjpav-qaeis. This can hardly be explained except as a survival from earUer 

 practice. Traditionally ^iea-nuPpia merely meant 'noondaj'' or 'south,' as was 

 natural to any people living north of the tropic of Cancer. 



18 As is clear from Aristotle. 



19 See, e. g., Ephorus fr. 38 (Mliller Hist. Gr. Frag. I, 243). I hope to discuss 

 this more fully on another occasion. I do not, of course, refer to the alleged 

 'zones,' of Parmenides: they are either a gross misinterpretation of something 

 quite different or a pure invention of later writers. 



20 V^ I. 24, 40. 



