6. About Anaximenes

Anaximenes, who was also a Milesian, the son of Eurystratus, said that the beginning was a boundless air from which what was, is, and shall be and gods and divine things came into being, while the rest came from their descendants. But that the condition of the air is such that when it is all over alike it is invisible to the eye, but it is made perceptible by cold and heat, by damp and by motion. And that it is ever-moving, for whatever is changeable changes not unless it be moved. For it appears different when condensed and rarefied. For when it diffuses into greater rarity fire is produced; but when again halfway condensed into air, a cloud is formed from the air’s compression; and when still further condensed, water, and when condensed to the full, earth; and when to the very highest degree, stones. And that consequently the great rulers of formation are contraries, to wit, heat and cold. And that the earth is a flat surface borne up on the air in the same way as the sun and moon and the other stars. For all fiery things are carried through the air laterally. And that the stars are produced from the earth by reason of the mist which rises from it and which when rarefied becomes fire, and from this ascending fire the stars are constructed. And that there are earth-like natures in the stars’ place carried about with them. But he says that the stars do not move under the earth, as others assume, but round the earth as a cap is turned on one’s head, and that the sun is hidden, not because it is under the earth, but because it is hidden by the earth’s higher parts, and by reason of its greater distance from us. And because of their great distance, the stars give out no heat. And that winds are produced when the air after condensation escapes rarefied; but that when it collects and is thus condensed to the full, it becomes clouds and thus changes into water. Also that hail is produced when the water brought down from the clouds is frozen; and snow when the same clouds are wetter when freezing. And lightning come when the clouds are forced apart by the strength of the winds; for when thus driven apart, there is a brilliant and fiery flash. Also that a rainbow is produced by the solar rays falling upon solidified air, and an earthquake from the earth’s increasing in size by heating and cooling. This then Anaximenes. He flourished about the 1st year of the 58th Olympiad.