anaximander's book. 255 



of Apollodorus regarding his age in this precise year. The additional 

 statement that he died not long thereafter would be adequately 

 explained if Anaximander's book made no mention of the fall of 

 Sardis, which soon followed. 



It will be seen that this hypothesis carries us beyond the natural 

 scope of a cosmological treatise, such as would necessarily be entitled 

 On Nature, into a field more closely connected with history or geo- 

 graphy. It may be said, however, that, while this assumption would 

 meet the necessary conditions, others equally as good might be made 

 to fit the requirements. Granted that an h^'pothesis, however 

 satisfactory, is not to be accepted as proof, we are justified in saying 

 that this particular hypothesis has more probability in its favor than 

 any other that has been proposed, and is at least in a measure sup- 

 ported by the evidence of Anaximander's interest in geography. 



But we have not yet exhausted the possible sources of information 

 regarding Anaximander's book. Aside from a fragment preserved 

 by Simplicius, to which we shall later return, there are mentioned 

 certain opinions and passages attributed in our sources to 'Anaxi- 

 mander.' Their status, however, is uncertain, because we hear of 

 another Anaximander of Miletus, to whom they have generally been 

 referred. We are bound, therefore, to consider the new claimant and 

 the validity of his claims. 



What we may be said to know about the other Anaximander 

 is little enough, being contained in two brief notices. Diogenes 

 Laertius reports*^ that "there was also another Anaximander, an 

 historian, he too being a Milesian, who wrote in Ionic." The entry 

 of Suidas regarding him runs thus: "Anaximander the Younger, son 

 of Anaximander, of Miletus — Jiistorian. He lived in the time of Ar- 

 taxerxes Mnemon; wrote Interpretation of Pythagorean Symbols, 

 e.g. ' not to step over a cross-bar,' ' not to poke the fire with a poniard,' 

 'not to eat from a whole loaf,' and the rest." The first gives nothing 

 omitted in the second notice except that he wrote in Ionic, which was 

 natural if he wrote before Attic became the recognized medium for 

 prose, as it did in the fourth century B.C. As Artaxerxes Mnemon 

 reigned 405-359 B.C., and the chronological datum ' he lived in the 

 time of such and such a king' regularly refers to the date of the king's 

 accession (405), this information was not material. Suidas, then, 

 alone gives us significant data. We gather, then, that Anaximander 

 was a fairly frequent name at Miletus, as this notice acquaints us with 



43 F3 I 14^ 18. 



