Thales of Miletus

“Let all our discourse begin with a reference to Thales,” wrote Anaximenes to Pythagoras when reporting the demise of the Milesian astronomer. Thales had climbed a hill in the company of a Thracian handmaid, and while looking at the stars, tumbled off a cliff into the sea. The girl reported that he was so eager to know what was going on in the heavens, he could not see what was before his own two feet. The earthy herbalist Gerard drew this moral: “Who would therefore look dangerously up at Planets, that might safely look down at Plants?” Bacon jested that had Thales looked down, he might have seen the stars reflected in the water, but looking aloft, he could not see the water in the stars. Others say he fell into a well while trying to see the stars in daylight.

Thales of Miletus lived from about 624 to about 546 BC. He was one of the Seven Sages of antiquity and reputed by Aristotle to be the first of the Greek philosophers. He predicted an eclipse of the sun in 585 BC, using the methods of the Egyptians and the Chaldeans. The eclipse occured during a battle between the Lydians and the Medians. Thales may also have diverted a river to allow the passage of King Croesus.