I.THALES, then, as Herodotus and Duris and Democritus say, was the son of Examyes and Cleobulina; of the family ofthe Thelidae, who are Phoenicians by descent, among the most noble of all thedescendants of Cadmus and Agenor, as Plato testifies. And he was the first manto whom the name of Wise was given, when Damasias was Archon at Athens, in whosetime also the seven wise men had that title given to them, as DemetriusPhalereus records in hisCatalogue of the Archons. He was enrolled as a citizenat Miletus when he came thither with Neleus, who had been banished fromPhoenicia; but a more common statement is that he was a native Milesian, ofnoble extraction.

II.After having been immersed instate affairs he applied himself to speculations in natural philosophy; though,as some people state, he left no writings behind him. For the book onNavalAstronomy, which is attributed to him is said in reality to be the work of Phocusthe Samian. But Callimachus was aware that he was the discoverer of the LesserBear; for in hisIambics he speaks of him thus:

And, he, 'tis said, did first compute the stars
Which beam in Charles's wain, and guide the bark
Of the Phoenician sailor o'er the sea.

According to others he wrote two books, and no more, about thesolstice and the equinox; thinking that everything else was easily to becomprehended. According to other statements, he is said to have been the firstwho studied astronomy, and who foretold the eclipses and motions of the sun, asEudemus relates in his history of the discoveries made in astronomy; on whichaccount Xenophanes and Herodotus praise him greatly; and Heraclitus andDemocritus confirm this statement.

III.   Some again (one of whom isChoerilus the poet) say that he was the first person who affirmed that the soulsof men were immortal; and he was the first person, too, who discovered the pathof the sun from one end of the ecliptic to the other; and who, as one accounttells us, defined the magnitude of the sun as being seven hundred and twentytimes as great as that of the moon. He was also the first person who called thelast day of the month the thirtieth. And likewise the first to converse aboutnatural philosophy, as some say. But Aristotle and Hippias say that heattributed souls also to lifeless things, forming his conjecture from the natureof the magnet, and of amber. And Pamphila relates that he, having learntgeometry from the Egyptians, was the first person to describe a right-angledtriangle in a circle, and that he sacrificed an ox in honour of his discovery.But others, among whom is Apollodorus the calculator, say that it was Pythagoraswho made this discovery. It was Thales also who carried to their greatest pointof advancement the discoveries which Callimachus in his iambics says were firstmade by Euphorbus the Phrygian, such as those of the scalene angle, and of thetriangle, and of other things which relate to investigations about lines. Heseems also to have been a man of the greatest wisdom in political matters. Forwhen Croesus sent to the Milesians to invite them to an alliance, he preventedthem from agreeing to it, which step of his, as Cyrus got the victory, provedthe salvation of the city. But Clytus relates, as Heraclides assures us, that hewas attached to a solitary and recluse life.

IV.    Some assert that he wasmarried, and that he had a son named Cybisthus; others, on the contrary, say thathe never had a wife, but that he adopted the son of his sister; and that oncebeing asked why he did not himself become a father, he answered, that it wasbecause he was fond of children. They say, too, that when his mother exhortedhim to marry, he said, "No, by Jove, it is not yet time." And afterwards, whenhe was past his youth, and she was again pressing him earnestly, he said, "It isno longer time."

V.   Hieronymus, of Rhodes, alsotells us, in the second book of hisMiscellaneous Memoranda, that when he wasdesirous to show that it was easy to get rich, he, foreseeing that there wouldbe a great crop of olives, took some large plantations of olive trees, and somade a great deal of money.

VI.   He asserted water to be theprinciple of all things, and that the world had life, and was full of daemons:they say, too, that he was the original definer of the seasons of the year, andthat it was he who divided the year into three hundred and sixty-five days. Andhe never had any teacher except during the time that he went to Egypt, andassociated with the priests. Hieronymus also says that he measured the Pyramids:watching their shadow, and calculating when they were of the same size as thatwas. He lived with Thrasybulus the tyrant of Miletus, as we are informed by Minyas.

VII.   Now it is known to every onewhat happened with respect to the tripod that was found by the fishermen andsent to the wise men by the people of the Milesians, For they say that someIonian youths bought a cast of their nets from some Milesian fishermen. And whenthe tripod was drawn up in the net there was a dispute about it; until theMilesians sent to Delphi: and the God gave them the following answer:

You ask about the tripod, to whom you shall present it;
'Tis for the wisest, I reply, that fortune surely meant it.

Accordingly they gave it to Thales, and he gave it to someone, whoagain handed it over to another, till it came to Solon. But he said that it wasthe God himself who was the first in wisdom; and so he sent it to Delphi. ButCallimachus gives a different account of this in hisIambic taking the traditionwhich he mentions from Leander the Milesian; for he says that a certain Arcadianof the name of Bathycles, when dying, left a goblet behind him with an injunctionthat it should be given to the first of the wise men. And it was given toThales, and went the whole circle till it came back to Thales, on which he sentit to Apollo Didymaeus, adding (according to Callimachus,) the following distich:

Thales, who's twice received me as a prize,
Gives me to him who rules the race of Neleus.

And the prose inscription runs thus:

Thales the son of Examyas, a Milesian, offers this to ApolloDidymaeus, having twice received it from the Greeks as the reward for virtue.

And the name of the son of Bathycles who carved the goblet about from one tothe other, was Thyrion, as Eleusis tells us in hisHistory of Achilles. AndAlexander the Myndian agrees with him in the ninth book of hisTraditions. ButEudoxus of Cnidos, and Euanthes of Miletus, say that one of the friends ofCroesus received from the king a golden goblet, for the purpose of giving it tothe wisest of the Greeks; and that he gave it to Thales, and that it came roundto Chilon, and that he inquired of the God at Delphi who was wiser than himself;and that the God replied, Myson, whom we shall mention hereafter. (He is the manwhom Eudoxus places among the seven wise men instead of Cleobulus ; but Platoinserts his name instead of Periander.) The God accordingly made this replyconcerning him:

I say that Myson the Aetoean sage,
The citizen of Chen, is wiser far
In his deep mind than you.

The person who went to the temple to ask the question wasAnacharsis ; but again Daimachus the Platonic philosopher, and Clearchus, statethat the goblet was sent by Croesus to Pittacus, and so was carried round to thedifferent men. But Andron, in his book calledThe Tripod, says that theArgives offered the tripod as a prize for excellence to the wisest of theGreeks; and that Aristodemus, a Spartan, was judged to deserve it, but that heyielded the palm to Chilon; and Alcaeus mentions Aristodemus in these lines:

And so they say Aristodemus once
Uttered a truthful speech in noble Sparta:
'Tis money makes the man; and he who's none,
Is counted neither good nor honourable.

But some say that a vessel fully loaded was sent by Periander toThrasybulus the tyrant of the Milesians; and that as the ship was wrecked in thesea, near the island of Cos, this tripod was afterwards found by some fishermen.Phanodicus says that it was found in the sea near Athens, and so brought intothe city; and then, after an assembly had been held to decide on the disposal,it was sent to Bias—and the reason why we will mention in our account of Bias.Others say that this goblet had been made by Vulcan and presented by the Gods toPelops, on his marriage; and that subsequently it came into the possession ofMenelaus, and was taken away by Paris when he carried off Helen, and was throwninto the sea near Cos by her, as she said that it would become a cause ofbattle. And after some time, some of the citizens of Lebedos having bought anet, this tripod was brought up in it; and as they quarrelled with the fishermenabout it, they went to Cos; and not being able to get the matter settled there,they laid it before the Milesians, as Miletus was their metropolis; and theysent ambassadors, who were treated with neglect, on which account they made waron the Coans; and after each side had met with many revolutions of fortune, anoracle directed that the tripod should be given to the wisest; and then bothparties agreed that it belonged to Thales: and he, after it had gone the circuitof all the wise men, presented it to the Didymaean Apollo. Now, the assignationof the oracle was given to the Coans in the following words:

The war between the brave Ionian race
And the proud Meropes will never cease,
Till the rich golden tripod which the God,
Its maker, cast beneath the briny waves,
Is from your city sent, and justly given
To that wise being who knows all present things,
And all that's past, and all that is to come.

And the reply given to the Milesians was

You ask about the tripod

and so on, as I have related it before. And now we have saidenough on this subject.

But Hermippus, in hisLives, refers to Thales what has been by some peoplereported of Socrates; for he recites that he used to say that he thanked fortunefor three things: first of all, that he had been born a man and not a beast;secondly, that he was a man and not a woman; and thirdly, that he was a Greekand not a barbarian.

VIII.   It is said that once he wasled out of his house by an old woman for the purpose of observing the stars, andhe fell into a ditch and bewailed himself, on which the old woman said tohim—"Do you, O Thales, who cannot see what is under your feet, think that youshall understand what is in heaven?" Timon also knew that he was an astronomer,and in hisSilli he praises him, saying:

Like Thales, wisest of the seven sages,
That great astronomer.

And Lobon, of Argos, says, that which was written by him extendsto about two hundred verses; and that the following inscription is engraved upon his statue:

Miletus, fairest of Ionian cities,
Gave birth to Thales, great astronomer,
Wisest of mortals in all kinds of knowledge.

IX.   And these are quoted as some of his lines :

It is not many words that real wisdom proves;
Breathe ratherone wise thought,
Select one worthy object,
So shall you best theendless prate of silly men reprove.—

And the following are quoted as sayings of his: "God is the mostancient of all things, for he had no birth: the world is the most beautiful ofthings, for it is the work of God: place is the greatest of things, for itcontains all things: intellect is the swiftest of things, for it runs througheverything: necessity is the strongest of things, for it rules everything: timeis the wisest of things, for it finds out everything."

He said also that there was no difference between life and death. "Why,then," said some one to him, "do not you die?" "Because," said he, "it does makeno difference." A man asked him which was made first, night or day, and hereplied "Night was made first by one day." Another man asked him whether a manwho did wrong, could escape the notice of the Gods. "No, not even if he thinkswrong," said he. An adulterer inquired of him whether he should swear that hehad not committed adultery. "Perjury," said he, "is no worse than adultery."When he was asked what was very difficult, he said, "To know one's self." Andwhat was easy, "To advise another." What was most pleasant? "To be successful."To the question, "What is the divinity?" he replied "That which has neitherbeginning nor end." When asked what hard thing he had seen, he said, "An old mana tyrant." When the question was put to him how a man might most easily enduremisfortune, he said, "If he saw his enemies more unfortunate still." When askedhow men might live most virtuously and most justly, he said, "If we never doourselves what we blame in others." To the question, "Who was happy?" he madeanswer. "He who is healthy in his body, easy in his circumstances, andwell-instructed as to his mind." He said that men ought to remember thosefriends who were absent as well as those who were present, and not to care aboutadorning their faces, but to be beautified by their studies. "Do not," said he,"get rich by evil actions, and let not any one ever be able to reproach you withspeaking against those who partake of your friendship. All the assistance thatyou give to your parents, the same you have a right to expect from yourchildren." He said that the reason of the Nile overflowing, was, that itsstreams were beaten back by the Etesian winds blowing in a contrarydirection.

X.   Apollodorus, in hisChronicles, says, that Thales was born in the first year of the thirty-fifthOlympiad; and he died at the age of seventy-eight years, or according to thestatement of Sosicrates, at the age of ninety; for he died in the fifty-eighthOlympiad, having lived in the time of Croesus, to whom he promised that he wouldenable him to pass the Halys without a bridge, by turning the course of theriver.

XI.   There have also been othermen of the name of Thales, as Demetrius of Magnesia says, in hisTreatise onPeople and Things of the Same Name; of whom five are particularly mentioned, anorator of Calatia of a very affected style of eloquence; a painter of Sicyon, agreat man; the third was one who lived in very ancient times, in the age ofHomer and Hesiod and Lycurgus ; the fourth is a man who is mentioned by Duris inhis workOn Painting; the fifth is a more modern person, of no great reputation,who is mentioned by Dionysius in hisCriticisms.

XII.   But this wise Thales diedwhile present as a spectator at a gymnastic contest, being worn out with heatand thirst and weakness, for he was very old, and the following inscription wasplaced on his tomb:

You see this tomb is small—but recollect,
The fame of Thales reaches to the skies.

I have also myself composed this epigram on him in the first bookof my epigrams or poems in various metres:

O mighty sun our wisest Thales sat
      Spectator of the games, when you did seize upon him;
But you were right to take him near yourself,
      Now that his aged sight could scarcely reach to heaven.

XIII.   The apophthegm, "knowyourself," is his; though Antisthenes in hisSuccessions, says that it belongsto Phemonoe, but that Chilon appropriated it as his own.

XIV.   Now concerning the seven,(for it is well here to speak of them all together,) the following traditionsare handed down. Damon the Cyrenaean, who wrote about the philosophers,reproaches them all, but most especially the seven. And Anaximenes says, thatthey all applied themselves to poetry. But Dicaearchus says, that they wereneither wise men nor philosophers, but merely shrewd men, who had studiedlegislation. And Archetimus, the Syracusian, wrote an account of their having ameeting at the palace of Cypselus, at which he says that he himself was present.Ephorus says that they all except Thales met at the court of Croesus. And somesay that they also met at the Pandionium,⁽¹⁾ and atCorinth, and at Delphi. There is a good deal of disagreement between differentwriters with respect to their apophthegms, as the same one is attributed by themto various authors. For instance there is the epigram:

Chilon, the Spartan sage, this sentence said:
Seek noexcess—all timely things are good

There is also a difference of opinion with respect to theirnumber. Leander inserts in the number instead of Cleobulus and Myson, LeophantusGorsias, a native of either Lebedos or Ephesus; and Epimenides, the Cretan;Plato, in hisProtagoras, reckons Myson among them instead of Periander. AndEphorus mentions Anacharsis in the place of Myson; some also add Pythagoras tothe number. Dicaearchus speaks of four, as universally agreed upon, Thales,Bias, Pittacus, and Solon; and then enumerates six more, of whom we are toselect three, namely, Aristodemus, Pamphilus, Chilon the Lacedaemonian,Cleobulus, Anacharsis, and Periander. Some add Acusilaus of Argos, the son ofCabas, or Scabras. But Hermippus, in hisTreatise on the Wise Men says thatthere were altogether seventeen, out of whom different authors selected differentindividuals to make up the seven. These seventeen were Solon, Thales, Pittacus,Bias, Chilon, Myson, Cleobulus, Periander, Anacharsis, Acusilaus, Epimenides,Leophantus, Pherecydes, Aristodemus, Pythagoras, Lasus the son of Charmantides,or Sisymbrinus, or as Aristoxenus calls him the son of Chabrinus, a citizen ofHermione, and Anaxagoras. But Hippobotus in hisDescription of the Philosophersenumerates among them Orpheus, Linus, Solon, Periander, Anacharsis, Cleobulus,Myson, Thales, Bias, Pittacus, Epicharmus, and Pythagoras.

XV.   The following letters arepreserved as having been written by Thales:

THALES TO PHERECYDES.

I hear that you are disposed, as no other Ionian has been, todiscourse to the Greeks about divine things, and perhaps it will be wiser ofyou to reserve for your own friends what you write rather than to entrust itto any chance people, without any advantage. If therefore it is agreeable toyou, I should be glad to become a pupil of yours as to the matters about whichyou write; and if you invite me I will come to you to Syros; for Solon theAthenian and I must be out of our senses if we sailed to Crete to investigatethe history of that country, and to Egypt for the purpose of conferring withthe priests and astronomers who are to be found there, and yet are unwillingto make a voyage to you; for Solon will come too, if you will give him leave,for as you are fond of your present habitation you are not likely to come toIonia, nor are you desirous of seeing strangers; but you rather, as I hope,devote yourself wholly to the occupation of writing. We, on the other hand,who write nothing, travel over all Greece and Asia

XVI.   If you shouldleave Athens it appears to me that you would find a home at Miletus among thecolonists of Athens more suitably than anywhere else, for here there are noannoyances of any kind. And if you are indignant because we Milesians aregoverned by a tyrant, (for you yourself hate all despotic rulers), still atall events you will find it pleasant to live with us for your companions. Biashas also written to invite you to Priene, and if you prefer taking up yourabode in the city of the Prieneans, then we ourselves will come thither andsettle near you.

1.This was the temple of the national diety of the Ionians,Neptune Heliconius, on Mount Mycale."-VideSmith, Dict. Gr. and Rom.Antiq.

The Bohn original has "Euxamius and Cleobule".