Anaxagoras’ principle of infinite divisibility allowed him to account for change on any
scale, even a microscopic one. His contemporary Z E argued that this principle
has absurd consequences.
In his cosmogony, Anaxagoras described how in the beginning there was a more or less
uniform mixture of elements. “Mind” (nous) created a rotary motion expanding into a great
whirl or vortex, which tended to separate like elements to like, as in a centrifuge. The
present world is the result of this motion, with the vortex carrying the heavenly bodies
around the earth. Mind plays a cosmic role in exercising some control over the world, at
least in its origin. Anaxagoras described mind as an extended stuff with special properties,
that does not mix with all things like the elements. It is, however, found in all living things.
Anaxagoras’ most important scientific innovations came in astronomy. He held that the
heavens consisted of heavy bodies held aloft by the vortex motion. When a large meteor fell
near Aigospotamoi in northern Greece, he was said to have predicted it. Anaxagoras also
correctly explained solar and lunar eclipses, perhaps for the first time in recorded human
history. Probably drawing on Parmenide ̄s’ insight that the moon gets its light from the sun,
he explained eclipses as screenings of the sun’s light. He also posited the existence of unseen
bodies (asteroids in effect). He argued (probably against Parmenide ̄s) that the earth is flat; in
this he was wrong, but he argued his case empirically, and his advances seem to qualify him
as the first empirical astronomer.
Like other philosophers of his time, Anaxagoras also proposed a number of meteoro-
logical theories. He gave an essentially correct explanation of hail and conventional
accounts of lightning and thunder. He explained the Nile floods as resulting from melting
snows in southern mountains.
As the first philosopher-scientist to reside in Athens, he laid the foundations of an
important intellectual tradition. His mechanistic views of the heavenly bodies seemed blas-
phemous to conservative Athenians and led to proceedings against him, yet he remained the
most influential scientific thinker of the early 5th c.
Ed.: DK 59; D. Sider, The Fragments of Anaxagoras^2 (2005); P. Curd, Anaxagoras of Clazomenae = Phoenix
S.44 (2007).
KRS 352–384; D. Panchenko, “Anaxagoras’ Argument against the Sphericity of the Earth,” Hyper-
boreus 3 (1997) 175–178.
Daniel W. Graham
Anaxikrate ̄s (of Rhodes?) (325 – 315 BCE)
Wrote a Periplous of the Red Sea, based on his voyage south from Aila (mod. Aqaba), and
cited by S 16.4.4 from E; his expedition may be the one in T-
, HP 9.4.2–6, cf. A, Indika 43.7. Perhaps the same as the writer of Argolika
(FGrHist 307). Tzetze ̄s Chil. 7.177–180, refers to an Anaxikrate ̄s epistate ̄s under Seleukos I,
along with Askle ̄piodo ̄ros the satrap of Persis (cf. D S 19.48.5), who is
likely different. The name is rare except at Athens and Rhodes (LGPN).
RE S.14 (1974) 44–47 (#8), W. Schmithenner.
PTK
Anaxilaïde ̄s (ca 350 BCE – ca 200 CE)
D L 3.2 cites Anaxilaïde ̄s, On Philosophers 2, for a tale about P’s
mother Periktio ̄ne ̄ also told by S and K; at D.L. 1.107 the same man,
ANAXIKRATE ̄S