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CHAP. XII.
His Auditors and Schollers.
THe first eminent person of those who heard Thales and pro∣fess'd his Philosophy, was Anaximander sonne of ••raxi∣des a Milesian, who flourish'd in the time of Polycrates Tyrant of Samos.
Next is Anaximenes a Milesian also, sonne of Euristratus, (who according to Eusebius) flourished in the second yeare of the 56th. Olympiad. He was Scholler to Anaximander and Parmenides; But that he heard Thales also, he acknowledgeth in an* 1.1 Epistle to Pythagoras.
We may (as in that Epistle Anaximenes doth) amongst the dis∣ciples of Thales reckon Pythagoras the Samian, institutor of the Italick Sect, who being from his youth particularly addicted to investigation of Religious mysteries, addrest his first journey to Thales at Miletus, as to one that best could further his designe, being (according to* 1.2 Iamblichus) not fully 18. yeares old; which if we follow the accompt of Euseb. us for his birth (the fourth yeare of the seventieth Olympiad) and that of Sosicrates for his age eighty yeares (for the rest, the farther they exceed that time, are so much the more incapable of reconcilement) will fall about the second yeare of the fifty fourth Olympiad,) which is the 82. of Thales. From Thales he received the Rudiments of that Ex∣cellence which he afterwards attained. This is acknowledged by* 1.3 Iamblichus. Thales, saith he, entertaind him very kindly, admiring the difference between him and other youths, which exceeded the fame hee had receiv'd of him. After that he had instructed him as well as he was able in the Mathematicks, alledging for excuse his old age and infirmity, be advis'd him to goe to Aegypt, and to converse with the Memphian Priests, especially those of Iupiter, of whom he himselfe had in his Travells learned those things, for which by many he was esteem'd wises and* 1.4 again, among other things Thales chiefely advis'd him to husband his time well, in respect whereof he a••tain'd from wine and flesh, onely eating such things as are light of digestion, by which meanes he procured shortnesse of sleepe, wakefulnesse, purity of minde, and constant health of body.