Book 2
Chapter 1. ANAXIMANDERWith this Life Diels (Dox. Gr. p. 133) compares Hippolytus (Ref. Haer. i. 6), Plutarch (Strom. 2), Aëtius, i. 3. 3; iii. 11. 1; iii. 10. 2; ii. 11. 5; ii. 20. 1; ii. 24. 2; ii. 29. 1; ii. 21. 1; iii. 15. 6; v. 19. 4, which go back to Theophrastus, Phys. Opin. Fr. 2. (611-546 B.C.)
1.1
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.These astronomical discoveries belong properly to Anaxagoras.
1.1
He was the first inventor of the gnomon and set it up for a sundial in Lacedaemon,But see Herodotus ii. 109, who makes the Babylonians the inventors. 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.
1.2
He was the first to draw on a map the outline of land and sea, and he constructed a globe as well.
