Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers
R.D. Hicks, Ed.

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Chapter 1. ANAXIMANDER¹ (611-546 B.C.)

Anaximander, the son of Praxiades, was a native of Miletus. He laid down as his principle and element that which is unlimited without defining it as air or water or anything else. He held that the parts undergo change, but the whole is unchangeable; that the earth, which is of spherical shape, lies in the midst, occupying the place of a centre; that the moon, shining with borrowed light, derives its illumination from the sun; further, that the sun is as large as the earth and consists of the purest fire.²

He was the first inventor of the gnomon and set it up for a sundial in Lacedaemon,³ as is stated by Favorinus in his Miscellaneous History, in order to mark the solstices and the equinoxes; he also constructed clocks to tell the time. [2] He was the first to draw on a map the outline of land and sea, and he constructed a globe as well.

His exposition of his doctrines took the form of a summary which no doubt came into the hands, among others, of Apollodorus of Athens. He says in his Chronology that in the second year of the 58th Olympiad⁴ Anaximander was sixty-four, and that he died not long afterwards. Thus he flourished almost at the same time as Polycrates the tyrant of Samos.⁵ There is a story that the boys laughed at his singing, and that, when he heard of it, he rejoined, "Then to please the boys I must improve my singing."

There is another Anaximander, also of Miletus, a historian who wrote in the Ionic dialect.