anaximander's book. 283 



is the only extant representative of this branch of hterature from the 

 sixth and fifth centuries, — in fact down to the time of Diodorus; all 

 the really representative authors in this kind being known solely 

 through detached quotations or fragmentary reports at second or 

 third hand. For Herodotus, though an accomplished writer and an 

 indispensable source for the Persian Wars, comprehended little of 

 Ionian science, and was never deemed worthy of being accovmted a geo- 

 grapher until Strabo, almost as superficial as himself, did him the honor 

 of so regarding him. Furthermore, whether from literary affectation 

 or for other reasons, Herodotus often suppresses names and facts which 

 were obviously known to him. Thus it happens that he is for our 

 purposes as little serviceable as one who dealt with the same subject- 

 matter in the fifth century could possibly be. What can be learned 

 from his book has usually to be wrung from him as from an unwilling 

 witness. Anaximander, who certainly played an important role, he 

 does not even mention: Hecataeus, to whom he owed the whole of 

 his second book, he names a few times only, and then (in the part 

 borrowed from him) in rather clumsy ridicule. Anaximenes and his 

 'school' are, as we said above, not mentioned at all except in the 

 doxographical tradition, which clearly points to the conclusion that 

 he did not share the historical and geographical interests of the other 

 Milesians. 



If now we turn to Anaximander we find a considerable number of 

 sources regarding him which have no real or original connection with 

 the doxographers. Thus, when Aelian ^^ reports that Anaximander 

 led in the colonization of Apollonia in Thrace from Miletus, it is 

 obvious that he derived this datum from some work pertaining to 

 history, whether general in character or dealing with biographies of 

 philosophers. There is no reason to connect this source with Theo- 

 phrastus or any of his kind. To a similar treatise we must look for 

 the source of the statement, already mentioned, and reported by 

 Favorinus, that he set up a dial at Sparta.^* From the history of 

 astronomy prepared by Eudemus, who like Theophrastus was a 

 disciple of Aristotle, derive in all probability the data given by Pliny 

 as to Anaximander's discovery of the obliquity of the ecliptic and the 

 date he assigned for the heliacal setting of the Pleiades. ^^ Certainly 

 Simplicius cites Eudemus as authority for the statement that Anaxi- 



93 F' I. 14, 25. Cp. Bilabel, Die lonische Kolonisation (Philologus, Supplb. 

 XIV, I (1920), p. 13 sq. 



94 F3 i_ 14^ 7 



95 V^I. 15, 1; 19, 17. 



