The lives, opinions, and remarkable sayings of the most famous ancient philosophers. The first volume written in Greek, by Diogenes Laertius ; made English by several hands ...

The LIFE of ANAXIMENES.

ANaximenes, a Milesian also, was the Son of Eurystratus, and a Hearer of Anaximander, and as some say, of Parme∣nides likewise.

He affirm'd the Air and the Infinite Im∣mensity to be the beginning of All things, and that the Stars did not move above the Earth, but round about it. He wrote in the Ionic Dialect, affecting a plain and concise Style. He was born in the sixty third Olympiad, as Apollodorus testifies, and dy'd about the time that Sardis was ta∣ken.

There were also two others of the same name, born in Lampsacus; the one an Ora∣tor; the other, an Historian, and Nephew to the Rhetorician, who wrote the History of Alexander's fam'd Atchievements.

There are likewise extant two Epistles of Anaximenes the Philosopher to Pytha∣goras, of which the first ••uns thus.

Anaximenes to Pythagoras.

THales himself in the progress of his Studies from the flower of his Youth to his Old Age, was not alto∣gether free from misfortune. For, as it was his custom, going forth one night with his Maid Servant to behold the Stars, in the midst of his serious Contem∣plation, forgetting the situation of the place, while he went forward gazing up to the Skies, he fell down a steep Preci∣pice. This was the end, say the Milesi∣ans, of that famous Astrologer. But we, among the rest of his Scholars, forget not the Man, nor our Children, who are his Disciples likewise: But we embrace his Doctrine, and ascribe the beginning of all our Learning to Thales.

His second Epistle was this that follows.

Anaximenes to Pythagoras.

CErtainly thou did'st consult our Ad∣vantage more than our selves, in returning from Samos to Crotona, where thou livest in Peace. For the Sons of Aeacus are offensive to others, and for the Milesians, they are in subjection to

their Tyrants. And the King of the Medes threatens us severely too, unless we will submit our Necks to the Yoke of Servitude: But as yet the Ionians seem readily resolv'd to fight with the Medes both for their own, and the Liberty of their Neighbours. But the Enemy so surrounds, and over-powers us at pre∣sent, that we have little hopes to pre∣serve it. How then is it possible for A∣naximenes to mind his Contemplation of the Skies, living as he does, in continual dread of Perdition or Slavery. But thou enjoyest a perfect Tranquillity; ho∣nour'd by the Crotonaeans, and other Ita∣lians and crowded with Disciples out of Sicily.