Early Greek Philosophy — John Burnet (Heraclitus fragments)

1 Herod. i. 29. Some other points may be noted in confirmation of what has been said as to the ‘‘ Hellenism” of the Mermnadai. Alyattes had two wives, one of whom, the mother of Croesus, was a Karian ; the other was an Ionian, and by her he had a son called by the Greek name Pantaleon (zd. 92). The offerings of Gyges were pointed out in the treasury of Kypselos at Delphoi (2d. 14), and those of Alyattes were one of the “‘ sights” of the place (zd. 25). Croesus also showed great liberality to Delphoi (26. 50), and to many other Greek shrines (#4. 92). He gave most of the pillars for the great temple at Ephesos. The stories of Miltiades (vi. - 37) and Alkmeon (74.125) should also be mentioned in this connexion.

2 Herod. i. 75. He disbelieves it because he had heard, probably from the Greeks of Sinope, of the great antiquity of the bridge on the royal road between Ankyra and Pteria (Ramsay, dsza Minor, p.29). Xanthos recorded a tradition that it was Thales who induced Croesus to ascend his pyre when he knew a shower was coming (fr. 19).

f THE MILESIAN SCHOOL 39

It should be added that the Lydian alliance would
greatly facilitate intercourse with Babylon and Egypt.
Lydia was an advanced post of Babylonian culture,
and Croesus was on friendly terms with the kings of
both Egypt and Babylon. It is noteworthy, too, that
Amasis of Egypt had the same Hellenic sympathies as
Croesus, and that the Milesians possessed a temple of
their own at Naukratis.’

I. Thales

2. There can be no doubt that the founder of the Origin,
Milesian school, and therefore the first of the cosmo-
logists, was Thales ;? but all we can really be said to
know of him comes from Herodotos, and the romance
of the Seven Wise Men was already in existence when
he wrote. He tells us, in the first place, that Thales
was of Phoenician descent, a statement which other
writers explained by saying he belonged to the Thelidai,
a noble house descended from Kadmos and Agenor.’
This is clearly connected with the view of Herodotos
that there were “ Kadmeians” from Boiotia among the
original Ionian colonists, and it is certain that there
really were people called Kadmeians in. several Ionic
cities.* Whether they were of Semitic origin is, of

1 Milesians at Naukratis, Herod. ii. 178, where Amasis is said to have been φιλέλλην. He subscribed to the rebuilding of the temple at Delphoi after the great fire (zd. 180).

2 Simplicius, indeed, quotes from Theophrastos the statement that Thales had many predecessors (Dox. p. 475, 11). This, however, need not trouble us; for the scholiast on Apollonios Rhodios (ii. 1248) tells us that

Theophrastos made Prometheus the first philosopher, which is merely an application of Peripatetic literalism to a remark of Plato’s (PAz/ed. 16 ς 6). Cf. Appendix, § 2..

3 Herod. i. 170 (R. P. 9 d.); Diog. i. 22 (R. P. 9).

4 Strabo, xiv. pp. 633, 636; Pausan. vii. 2, 7. Priene was called Kadme, and the oldest annalist of Miletos bore the name Kadmos, See E. Meyer, Gesch. des Alterth. ii. § 158.

The eclipse
foretold by
Thales.

40 Early Greek Philosophy

course, another matter. Herodotos probably mentions
the supposed descent of Thales simply because he was
believed to have introduced certain improvements in
navigation from Phoenicia." At any rate, the name
Examyes, which his father bore, lends no support to
the view that he was a Semite. It is a Karian name,
and the Karians had been almost completely assimilated
by the Ionians. On the monuments, we find Greek
and Karian names alternating in the same families, and
there is therefore no reason to suppose that Thales was
anything else than an ordinary Milesian citizen, though
perhaps with Karian blood in his veins.’

3. By far the most remarkable statement that
Herodotos makes about Whales is that he foretold the
eclipse of the sun which put an end to the war between
the Lydians and the Medes. Now, we may be sure
that he was quite ignorant of the true cause of eclipses.
Anaximander and his successors certainly were so,* and
it is incredible that the right explanation should once
have been given and then forgotten so soon. Even
supposing, however, Thales had known the cause of
eclipses, no one can believe that such scraps of
elementary geometry as he picked up in Egypt would
enable him to calculate one from the elements of the
moon’s path. Yet the evidence for the prediction. is

1 Diog. i. 23, Καλλίμαχος δ᾽ αὐτὸν oldev εὑρετὴν τῆς ἄρκτου τῆς μικρᾶς

2 See Diels, ‘‘ Thales ein'Semite?” (Arch. ii. 165 sqq.),'and Immisch, ‘Zu Thales Abkunft” (2d. p. 515). The name Examyes occurs also in Kolophon (Hermesianax, Leontion, fr. 2, 38 Bgk.), and may be compared with other Karian names such as Cheramyes and Panamyes.

3 Herod. i. 74.

4 For the theories held by Anaximander and Herakleitos, see zz/ra, 88 19, 71.

: the Milesian School 41

too strong to be rejected off-hand. The testimony of
Herodotos to an event which must have happened
about a-hundred years before his own birth may,
perhaps, be deemed insufficient; but that of Xeno-
phanes is a very different matter, and it is this we
have really to deal with.’ According to Theophrastos,
Xenophanes was a disciple of Anaximander, and he
may quite well have seen and spoken with Thales, In
any case, he must have known scores of people who
were able to remember what happened, and he had no
conceivable interest in misrepresenting it. The pre-
diction of the eclipse is really better attested than any
other fact about Thales whatsoever, and the evidence
for it is about as strong as for anything that happened
in the early part of the sixth century B.C.

Now it is quite possible to predict eclipses without
knowing their true cause, and there is no doubt that
the Babylonians actually did so. On the basis of their
astronomical observations, they had made out a cycle
of 223 lunar months, within which eclipses of the sun
and moon recurred at equal intervals of time.” This,
it is true, would not enable them to predict eclipses of
the sun for a given spot on the earth’s surface ; for
these phenomena are not visible at all places where the
sun is above the horizon at the time. We do not
occupy a position at the centre of the earth, and what
astronomers call the geocentric parallax has to be

1 Diog. i.” 23, δοκεῖ δὲ κατά τινας πρῶτος ἀστρολογῆσαι καὶ ἡλιακὰς ἐκλείψεις καὶ τροπὰς προειπεῖν, ὥς φησιν Εὔδημος ἐν τῇ περὶ τῶν ἀστρο- λογουμένων ἱστορίᾳ, ὅθεν αὐτὸν καὶ ἘΞνοφάνης καὶ Ἡρόδοτος θαυμάζει.

3 The first to call attention to the Chaldaean cycle in this connexion seems to have been the Rev. George Costard, Fellow of Wadham College. See his Dissertation on the Use of Astronomy in History (London, 1764), Ρ. 17. It is inaccurate to call it the Savos; that was quite another thing (see Ginzel, AZo, i. p. 377).

Date of Thales.

42 Early Greek Philosophy

taken into account. It would only, therefore, be
possible to tell by means of the cycle that an eclipse
of the sun would be visible somewhere, and that it
might be worth while to look out for it. Now, if we _
may judge from a report by a Chaldaean astronomer
which has been preserved, this was just the position of
the Babylonians. They watched for eclipses at the
proper dates ; and, if they did not occur, they announced
the fact as a good omen.’ To explain what we are
told about Thales no more than this is required. He
simply said there would be an eclipse; and, as good
luck would have it, it was visible in Asia Minor, and on
a striking occasion.

4. The prediction of the eclipse does not, then, throw
much light upon the scientific attainments of Thales ;
but, if we can fix its date, it will give us a point from
which to start in trying to determine the time at which
he lived. Modern astronomers have calculated that
there was an eclipse of the sun, probably visible in
Asia Minor, on May 28 (O.S.), 585 B.c.,? while Pliny
gives the date of the eclipse foretold by Thales as Ol.
XLVIII. 4 (585/4 Bc)° This, it is true, does not

1 See George Smith, Assyrian Discoveries (1875), p. 409. The inscrip- tion which follows was found at Kouyunjik :—

“Τὸ the king my lord, thy servant Abil-Istar.

** Concerning the eclipse of the moon of which the king my lord sent to me; in the cities of Akkad, Borsippa, and Nipur, observations they made, and then in the city of Akkad, we saw part. . . . The observation was made, and the eclipse took place.

‘And when for the eclipse of the sun we made an observation, the observation was made and it did not take place. That which I saw with my eyes to the king my lord I send.”

2 For the literature of this subject, see R. P. 8 Ὁ, adding Ginzel, Spezzeller Kanon, p. 171. Seealso Milhaud, Sczence grecgue, p. 62.

3 Pliny, V.Z. 11. 53.

The Milesian School 43

exactly tally ; for May 585 belongs to the year 586/5
B.C. It is sufficiently near, however, to justify us in
identifying the eclipse as that of Thales, and this is
confirmed by Apollodoros, who fixed his floruzt in the
same year. The further statement that, according to
Demetrios Phalereus, Thales “received the name of
wise” in the archonship of Damasias at Athens, agrees
very well with this, and is doubtless based on the story
of the Delphic tripod ; for the archonship of Damasias
is the era of the restoration of the Pythian Games.”

5. The introduction of Egyptian geometry into Thales in
Hellas is universally ascribed to Thales, and it is ὌΡ
extremely probable that he did visit Egypt; for he
had a theory of the inundations of the Nile. In a
well-known passage,® Herodotos gives three explana-

+ For Apollodoros, see Appendix, § 20. The dates in our text of Diogenes (i. 37; R. P. 8) cannot be reconciled with one another. That given for the death of Thales is probably right ; for it is the year before the fall of Sardeis in 546/5 B.C., which is one of the regular eras used by Apollodoros. It no doubt seemed natural to make Thales die the year before the * ruin of Ionia” which he foresaw. Seventy-eight years before this brings us to 625/4 B.c. for the birth of Thales, and this gives us 585/4 B.C, for his fortieth year. That is Pliny’s date for the eclipse, and Pliny’s dates come from Apollodoros through Nepos. For a full discussion of the subject, see Jacoby, pp. 175 sqq.

2 Diog. i. 22 (R. P. 9). I do not discuss the Pythian era and the date of Damasias here, though it appears to me that the last word has not yet been said upon the subject. Jacoby (pp. 170 sqq.) argues strongly for 582/1, the date now generally accepted. Others favour the Pythian year 586/5 B.C., which is the very year of the eclipse, and this would help to explain how those historians who used Apollodoros came to date it a year too late; for Damasias was archon for two years and two months. It is even possible that they misunderstood the words Δαμασίου rod δευτέρου, which are intended to distinguish him from an earlier archon of the same name, as meaning ‘‘in the second year of Damasias.” Apollodoros gave only Athenian archons, and the reduction to Olympiads is the work of later writers. Kirchner, adopting the year 582/1 for Damasias, brings the archonship of Solon down to 591/0 (22. AZus. liii. pp. 242 sqq.). But the date of Solon’s archonship can never have been doubtful. On Kirchner’s reckoning, we come to 5386/5 B.c., if we keep the traditional date of Solon. See also E. Meyer, Forschungen, ii. pp. 242 5644.

3 Herod. ii, 20.

44 Early Greek Philosophy

tions of the fact that this alone of all rivers rises in
summer and falls in winter; but, as his custom is in
such cases, he does not name their authors. The first
of them, however, that which attributes the floods to
the Etesian winds, is ascribed to Thales in the Plactta,'
and also by many later writers. Now, those statements
are derived from a treatise on the Rise of the Nile
attributed to Aristotle and known to the Greek
commentators, but now extant only in a Latin epitome
of the thirteenth century. In this work the first of
the three theories mentioned by Herodotos is ascribed
to Thales, the second to Euthymenes of Massalia, and
the third to Anaxagoras. Where did Aristotle, or
whoever wrote the book, get these names? We think
naturally once more of Hekataios, whom Herodotos so
often reproduces without mentioning his name; and
this conjecture is much strengthened when we find that
Hekataios actually mentioned Euthymenes.? We may
conclude, then, that Thales really was in Egypt; and,
perhaps, that Hekataios, in describing the Nile, took
account, as was only natural, of his distinguished
fellow-citizen’s views,