Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 1.djvu/184

Rh 166 ANAXIMf^NES. into Greece by Anaximander or his contemporaries. (Favorin. ap. Diog. l. c. ; Plin. ii. 8 ; Herod, ii. 109.) The assertion of Diogenes that he invented this instrument, and also geographical maps, can- not be taken to prove more than the extent of his reputation. On the subject of the Gnomon, see Salraas. Plin. Exercit. p. 445, b, G, ed. Utrecht, 1689, and Schaubach, Geseh. d. Griech.Astronomie, p. 1 1 9, &c. It probably consisted of a style on a horizontal plane, and its first use would be to de- termine the time of noon and the position of the meridian by its shortest shadow during the day ; the time of the solstices, by its shortest and longest meridian shadows ; and of the equinoxes, by the rectilinear motion of the extremity of its shadow : to the latter two purposes Anaximander is said to liave applied it ; but since there is little evidence that the ecliptic and equinoctial circles were known in Greece at this period, it must be doubted whether the equinox was determined otherwise than by a rough observation of the equality of day and night. (Schaubach, p. 140, &c.) Anaxi- mander flourished in the time of Polycrates of Samoa, and died soon after the completion of his (J4th year, in 01. Iviii. 2 (b. c. 547), according to Apollodorus. {lip. Dior;. I. c.) But since Polycrates began to reign B. c. 532, there must be some mis- take in the time of Anaximander's death, unless the elder Polycrates (mentioned by Suidas, s. v. "iguKor) be meant. (Clinton, Fast. Hell.) (For the ancient sources of information see Preller, Hist. Philosojih. Gracco-Romanae ejc fontiuvi locis conteata.) [W. F. D.] ANAXI'MENES ('Ava|t;u^i/7js), who is usually jilaced third in the series of Ionian philosophers, was bom at Miletus, like Thalcs and Anaximander, with both of whom he had personal intercourse : for besides the common tradition which makes him a disciple of the latter, Diogenes Laertius quotes at length two letters said to have been written to Pythagoras by Anaximenes ; in one of which he gives an account of the death of Thales, speaking of him with reverence, as the first of philosophers, and as having been his own teacher. In the other, he congratuhites Pythagoras on his removal to Crotona from Samos, while he was himself at the mercy of the tyrants of jMiletus, and was looking forward with fear to the approaching war with the Persians, in which he foresjiw that the lonians must be subdued. (Diog, Laert. iL 3, &c.) There is no safe testimony as to the exact pe- riods of the birth and death of Anaximenes : but since there is sufficient evidence that he was the teacher of Anaxagoras, B. c. 480, and he was in re- pute in B. c, 544, he must have lived to a great age. (Strab. xiv. p. 645 ; Cic. de Nut. Deor. i. 1 1 ; Origen, vol. iv. p. 238.) The question is discussed by Clinton in the Philological Museum. (Vol. L p. 86, &c.) Like the other early Greek philosophers, he employed himself in speculating upon the origin, and accounting for the phenomena, of the universe : and as Thales held water to be the material cause out of which the world was made, so Anaximenes considered air to be the first cause of all things, the primary form, as it were, of matter, into which the other elements of the universe were resolvable. (Aristot. Melaph. i. 3.) For both philosophers seem to have thought it possible to simplify phj'- eical science by tracing all material things up to a single element : while Anaximander, on the con- ANAXIMEXES. trar}', regarded the substance out of which the universe was formed as a mixture of all elements and qualities. The process by which, according to Anaximenes, finite things were formed from the infinite air, was that of compression and rarefaction produced by motion which had existed from all eternit}' : thus the earth was created out of air made dense, and from the earth the sun and the other heavenly bodies. (Plut. ap. Euseb. Praep. Evang. i. 8.) According to the same theory, heat and cold were produced by different degrees of density of the primal element : the clouds were formed by the thickening of the air ; and the earth was kept in its place by the support of the air be- neath it and by the flatness of its shape. (Plut. de Pr. Frig. 7, de Plac. Ph. iii. 4 ; Aristot. Metaph. ii. 13.) Hence it appears that Anaximenes, like his pre- decessors, held the eternity of matter : nor indeed does he seem to have believed in the existence of anything immaterial ; for even the human soul, according to his theory, is, like the body, formed of air (Plut. de Plac. Ph. i. 3) ; and he saw no necessity for supposing an Agent in the work of creation, since he held that motion was a natural and necessary law of the universe. It is therefore not unreasonable in Plutarch to blame him, as well as Anaximander, for assigning only the material, and no efficient, cause of the world in his philoso- phical system. (Plut. I. c.) [C. E. P.] ANAXI'MENES ('Aro|j;U€»/7jj) of Lamfsacus, son of Aristocles, and pupil of Zoilus and Diogenes the Cynic. He was a contemporary of Alexander the Great, whom he is said to have instructed, and whom he accompanied on his Asiatic expedition, (Suidas, s. V. ; Eudoc. p. 51 ; comp. Diog. Laert. v. 10; Diod. xv. 76.) A pretty anecdote is related by Pausanias (vi. 18. ^ 2) and Suidas, about the manner in which he saved his native town from the wrath of Alexander for having espoused the cause of the Persians. His grateful fellow-citizens rewarded him with a statue at Olympia. Anaxi- menes wrote three historical works : 1. A history of Philip of Macedonia, which consisted at least of eight books, (llarpocrat. *. z'. Ko^uAtj, 'AKouvqaos; Eustratius. ad Aristot. Eih. iii. 8.) 2. A history of Alexander the Great. (Diog. Laert. ii. 3; Harpo- crat. s. V. 'AkKifiaxos, who quotes the 2nd book of it.) 3. A history of Greece, which Pausanias (vi. 18. §2) calls rci, h "Er}(nu dpxcua, which, however, is more commonly called irpcajai icrTopiai or TrpccTTj iarupia. (Athen. vi. p. 231 ; Diod. xv. 89.) It comprised in twelve books the history of Greece from the earliest mythical ages down to the battle of Mantineia and the death of Eparainondas. He was a very skilful rhetorician, and wrote a work calumniating the three great cities of Greece, Sparta, Athens, and Thebes, which he published under the name of Theopompus, his personal ene- my, and in which he imitated the style of the lat- ter so perfectly, that every one thought it to be really his work. This production Anaximenes sent to those cities, and thus created exasperation acainst his enemy in all Greece. (Pans. vL 8. § 3, Suid. I.e.) The histories of Anaximenes, of which onl}' very few fragments are now extant, are censured by Plutarch Praec. Pol. 6) for the numerous pro- lix and rhetorical speeches he introduced in them. (Comp. Dionys. Hal. De Jsaeo, 19 ; De adm. %•% die. Demosth. 8.) The fact that we possess so little of his histories, shews that the ancients did not