Anaximenes

(Ἀναξιμένης), who is usually placed third in the series of Ionian philosophers, was born at Miletus, like Thales and Anaximander, with both of whom he had personal intercourse : for besides the common tradition which makes him a disciple of the latter, Diogenes Laertius quotes at length two letters said to have been written to Pythagoras by Anaximenes; in one of which he gives an account of the death of Thales, speaking of him with reverence, as the first of philosophers, and as having been his own teacher. In the other, he congratulates Pythagoras on his removal to Crotona from Samos, while he was himself at the mercy of the tyrants of Miletus, and was looking forward with fear to the approaching war with the Persians, in which he foresaw that the Ionians must be subdued. (D. L. 2.3, &c.)

There is no safe testimony as to the exact periods of the birth and death of Anaximenes : but since there is sufficient evidence that he was the teacher of Anaxagoras, B. C. 480, and he was in repute in B. C. 544, he must have lived to a great age. (Strab. xiv. p.645; Cic. de Nat. Deor. 1.11 ; Origen, vol. iv. p. 238.) The question is discussed by Clinton in the Philological Museum. (Vol. i. p. 86, &c.)

Like the other early Greek philosophers, he employed himself in speculating upon the origin, and accounting for the phenomena, of the universe: and as Thales held water to be the material cause out of which the world was made, so Anaximenes considered air to be the first cause of all things, the primary form, as it were, of matter, into which the other elements of the universe were resolvable. (Aristot. Met. 1.3.) For both philosophers seem to have thought it possible to simplify physical science by tracing all material things up to a single element: while Anaximander, on the contrary, regarded the substance out of which the universe was formed as a mixture of all elements and qualities. The process by which, according to Anaximenes, finite things were formed from the infinite air, was that of compression and rarefaction produced by motion which had existed from all eternity : thus the earth was created out of air made dense, and from the earth the sun and the other heavenly bodies. (Plut. apud Euseb. Praep. Evang. 1.8.) According to the same theory, heat and cold were produced by different degrees of density of the primal element : the clouds were formed by the thickening of the air; and the earth was kept in its place by the support of the air beneath it and by the flatness of its shape. (Plut. de Pr. Frig. 7, de Plac. Ph. 3.4; Aristot. Met. 2.13.)

Hence it appears that Anaximenes, like his predecessors, held the eternity of matter : nor indeed does he seem to have believed in the existence of anything immaterial; for even the human soul, according to his theory, is, like the body, formed of air (Plut. de Plac. Ph. 1.3); and he saw no necessity for supposing an Agent in the work of creation, since he held that motion was a natural and necessary law of the universe. It is therefore not unreasonable in Plutarch to blame him, as well as Anaximander, for assigning only the material, and no efficient, cause of the world in his philosophical system. (Plut. l.c.) [C.E.P]

(Ἀναξιμένης) of Lampsacus, son of Aristocles, and pupil of Zoilus and Diogenes the Cynic. He was a contemporary of Alexander the Great, whom he is said to have instructed, and whom he accompanied on his Asiatic expedition. (Suidas, s.v. Eudoc. p. 51; comp. D. L. 5.10; Diod. 15.76.) A pretty anecdote is related by Pausanias (6.18.2) and Suidas, about the manner in which he saved his native town from the wrath of Alexander for having espoused the cause of the Persians. His grateful fellow-citizens rewarded him with a statue at Olympia. Works

Anaximenes wrote three historical works: 1. History of Philip of Macedon

A history of Philip of Macedonia, which consisted at least of eight books. (Harpocrat. s. v. Καβύλη, Ἁλόννησος; Eustratius. ad Aristot. Eth. 3.8.) 2. A history of Alexander the Great.

D. L. 2.3; Harpocrat. s. v. Ἀλκίμαχος, who quotes the 2nd book of it. 3. A history of Greece

A history of Greece, which Pausanias (6.18.2) calls τὰ ἐν Ἕλλησιν ἀρχαῖα, which, however, is more commonly called πρῶται ἱστορίαι or πρώτη ἱστορία. (Athen. 6.231; Diod. 15.89.) It comprised in twelve books the history of Greece from the earliest mythical ages down to the battle of Mantineia and the death of Epaminondas. He was a very skilful rhetorician, and wrote a work calumniating the three great cities of Greece, Sparta, Athens, and Thebes, which he published under the name of Theopompus, his personal enemy, and in which he imitated the style of the latter so perfectly, that every one thought it to be really his work. This production Anaximenes sent to those cities, and thus created exasperation against his enemy in all Greece. (Paus. 6.8.3, Suid. l.c.) The histories of Anaximenes, of which only very few fragments are now extant, are censured by Plutarch (Praec. Pol. 6) for the numerous prolix and rhetorical speeches he introduced in them. (Comp. Dionys. De Isaco, 19; De adm. ri dic. Demosth. 8.) The fact that we possess so little of his histories, shews that the ancients did not think highly of them, and that they were more of a rhetorical than an historical character. He enjoyed some reputation as a teacher of rhetoric and as an orator, both in the assembly of the people and in the courts of justice (Dionys. l.c. ; Paus. l.c.), and also wrote speeches for others, such as the one which Euthias delivered against Phryne. (Athen. 13.591; comp. Harpocr. s. v. Εὐθίας.) Assessment

There have been critics, such as Casaubon (ad Diog. Laert. 2.3), who thought that the rhetorician and the historian Anaximenes were two distinct persons; but their identity has been proved by very satisfactory arguments. What renders him a person of the highest importance in the history of Greek literature, is the following fact, which has been firmly established by the critical investigations of our own age. He is the only rhetorician previous to the time of Aristotle whose scientific treatise on rhetoric is now extant. This is the so-called Ῥητορικὴ πρὸς Ἀλέξανδρον, which is usually printed among the works of Aristotle, to whom, however, it cannot belong, as all crities agree. The opinion that it is a work of Anaximenes was first expressed by P. Victorius in his preface to Aristotle's Rhetoric, and has been firmly established as a fact by Spengel in his Συναγωγὴ τεχνῶν, "Sive Artium Scriptores ab initiis usque ad editos Aristotelis de rhetorica libros," Stuttgard, 1828, p. 182. &c. (Comp. Quint. Inst. 3.4.9 with the notes of Gesner and Spalding.) This Rhetoric is preceded by a letter which is manifestly of later origin, and was probably intended as an introduction to the study of the Rhetoric of Aristotle. The work itself is much interpolated, but it is at any rate clear that Anaximenes extended his subject beyond the limits adopted by his predecessors, with whose works he was well acquainted. He divides eloquence into forensic and deliberative, but also suggests that a third kind, the epideictic, should be separated from them. As regards the plan and construction of the work, it is evident that its author was not a philosopher : the whole is a series of practical suggestions how this or that subject should be treated under various circumstances, as far as argumentation, expression, and the arrangement of the parts of a speech are concerned. Further Information

Vossius, de Histor. Graec. p. 92, &c., ed. Westermann; Ruhnken, Hist. Crit. Orat. Graec. p. 86; Westermann, Gesch. der Griech. Beredtsamkeit, § 69. [L.S]

(Ἀναξιμένης). (1) A Greek philosopher of Miletus, a younger contemporary and pupil of Anaximander, who died about B.C. 502. He supposed air to be the fundamental principle, out of which everything arose by rarefaction and condensation. This doctrine he expounded in a work, now lost, written in the Ionic dialect.

(2) A Greek sophist of Lampsacus, a favourite of Philip of Macedon and Alexander the Great. He composed orations and historical works, some treating of the actions of those two princes. Of these but little remains. On the other hand, he is the author of the Rhetoric dedicated to Alexander, the earliest extant work of this kind, which was once included among the works of Aristotle.

• of Philip, and of Alexander: Paus. 6.18.2
• overreaches Alexander: Paus. 6.18.2-4
• avenges himself on Theopompus: Paus. 6.18.5
• practises speaking extemporaneously: Paus. 6.18.6
• statue at Olympia: Paus. 6.18.2