Thales of Miletus
historical figure · 6 works · 8 mentions · 18 anchored passages
Thales
in the texts
On the Nature of the Gods
Early Greek philosopher who held water to be the origin of things and god the mind that shaped it.
Thales of Miletus, who first inquired into such matters, said that water is the beginning of things, and that god is that mind which fashioned all things out of water — if gods can exist without sensation;
For you have recounted from memory and at length — so that it pleased me to wonder that there should be in a Roman so great a learning — the opinions of the philosophers concerning the nature of the gods, from Thales of Miletus onward.
The Histories
Ionian sage of Miletus credited by tradition with predicting a solar eclipse and, more doubtfully, with diverting the river Halys for Croesus' army.
But I do not believe this;
but the general belief of the Greeks is that Thales of Miletus got the army across.
Thales of Miletus had foretold this loss of daylight to the Ionians, fixing it within the year in which the change did indeed happen.
On the Commonwealth
Early Greek philosopher credited with astronomical discoveries.
For Gallus said that the invention of that other solid and full globe was old, and that it had first been turned upon the lathe by Thales of Miletus;
for at that time this was a new and unknown principle, that the sun is wont to be eclipsed by the moon's interposition—a thing they say Thales of Miletus first observed.
Protrepticus
Milesian philosopher who set down water as a divine first principle.
Thales of Miletus, water;
Stromata
One of the Seven Sages and founder of the Ionic philosophical succession, credited with foretelling an eclipse and studying with Egyptian prophets.
Anaximander, son of Praxiades, the Milesian, succeeds Thales;
Thales of Miletus, Bias of Priene, Pittacus of Mitylene, and Cleobulus of Lindos;
" But the followers of Aristotle think it Chilon's, while Didymus says the advice is Thales'.
Ad Nationes
Early Greek philosopher cited both for his agnosticism about the gods and his proverbial fall into a well.
" Thales of Miletus, to Croesus inquiring what he thought about the gods, after several leaves of deliberation, replied, "Nothing.
Rightly, then, did Thales of Miletus, while he examines the whole heaven and walks about with his eyes, fall basely into a well, much laughed at by that Egyptian: