1. THALES

...died in Tenedos referring to the previous page's mention of Thales' death in Tenedos. The Sibyl of Erythrae is placed by Eusebius alongside Hezekiah in the 9th Olympiad, 3rd year [742 BCE]. Regarding the nature of this epoch, see Phlegon above, p. 12, n. 2. Wilamowitz observed that the astronomical school was fictitiously attributed to Tenedos on account of Cleostratus (see p. 18).

9. PLATO Theaetetus 174 A: Just as they say of Thales, that while he was observing the stars and looking upward, he fell into a well, and a clever and witty Thracian maidservant mocked him, saying that he was eager to know the things in the heavens, but that the things in front of him and at his feet escaped his notice.

10. ARISTOTLE Politics A 11 1259b6: For all these things are useful to those who value the art of wealth-getting, such as the story of Thales of Miletus. This is indeed a form of wealth-getting, but they attribute it to him because of his wisdom. It happens to be a general principle. For when they reproached him because of his poverty, claiming that philosophy was useless, they say that he realized from his astrological studies that there would be a great harvest of olives. While it was still winter, he acquired a small amount of money and paid deposits for all the olive presses in Miletus and Chios, hiring them for a low price because no one was bidding against him. When the season arrived, with many people seeking them all at once and suddenly, he rented them out on his own terms. Having collected much money, he demonstrated that it is easy for philosophers to become rich if they wish, but that this is not what they are concerned with.

11. PLUTARCH Solon 2: And they say that Thales also engaged in trade, as did Hippocrates the mathematician, and that Plato’s travel expenses were covered by the sale of some oil in Egypt. On Isis and Osiris 34: They think that Homer also, having learned from the Egyptians, posited water as the origin and birth of all things. JOSEPHUS Against Apion I 2: Furthermore, all agree unanimously that those among the Greeks who were the first to philosophize about heavenly and divine matters—such as Pherecydes the Syrian, Pythagoras, and Thales—became students of the Egyptians and Chaldeans, and that they wrote very little, and that these [writings] are considered by the Greeks to be the oldest of all, and they barely believe they were written by them. AËTIUS On the Opinions of the Philosophers I 3, 1 [Dox. 276]: Having philosophized in Egypt, he came to Miletus as an older man. IAMBLICHUS Life of Pythagoras 12: He [Thales] encouraged Pythagoras to sail to Egypt and to converse especially with the priests in Memphis and Diospolis; for he himself had been equipped by them with those things for which he is considered wise by the masses. PROCLUS On Euclid 65, 3 [from Eudemus]: Just as among the Phoenicians the precise knowledge of numbers began because of their trade and transactions, so too geometry was discovered among the Egyptians for the reason mentioned. Thales, having been the first to go to Egypt, brought this theory into Greece, and he himself discovered many things, but he laid the foundations for those who came after him for many others, approaching some things more universally and others more empirically.

Doctrines.

12. ARISTOTLE Metaphysics A 3. 983b18: However, not everyone says the same thing about the number and the form of such a first principle arche first principle/origin. But Thales, the leader of this philosophy, says that it is water (and therefore he declared that the earth is on water), perhaps having taken this notion from seeing that the nourishment of all things...