The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers

LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS.

and that the world had life and was full of spirits; they say, too, that he was the first to define the seasons of the year, and that it was he who divided the year into three hundred and sixty-five days. He never had any teacher, except during the time he traveled to Egypt and associated with the priests. Hieronymus also says that he measured the Pyramids by watching their shadow and calculating when they were the same size as the object casting them. He lived with Thrasybulus, the tyrant of Miletus, as we are informed by Minyas.

VII. Now, it is known to everyone what happened regarding the tripod that was found by fishermen and sent to the wise men by the people of Miletus. Some Ionian youths had bought a catch from some Milesian fishermen before the net was even pulled from the water. When the tripod was drawn up in the net, a dispute arose over it, until the Milesians sent to Delphi to ask for guidance. 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 else, who handed it over to another, until it eventually reached Solon. But Solon said that the God himself was the first in wisdom, and so he sent it back to Delphi. Callimachus gives a different account in his Iambics, relying on the tradition he mentions from Leander of Miletus. He says that a certain Arcadian named Bathydes, when dying, left a goblet behind with an instruction that it should be given to the first among the wise men. It was given to Thales, and after it had gone through the whole circle of wise men, it came back to Thales, at which point he sent it to Apollo Didymæus, adding (according to Callimachus) the following couplet:

Thales, who's twice received me as a prize,
Gives me to him who rules the race of Neleus. The "race of Neleus" refers to the lineage of Neleus, the founder of Miletus, and is an epithet for Apollo, who was worshipped in the Didymaion temple near Miletus.

And the prose inscription reads:

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

And the name of the son of Bathydes who carried the goblet