Thomas L. Heath - Greek Astronomy

SIMPLICIUS, in Phys. Aristotelis, p. 24, 13, Diels.

ANAXIMANDER of Miletus, who was a fellow-citizen and friend of Thales, said that the first principle (i.e. material cause) and element of existing things is the Infinite, and he was the first to introduce this name for the first principle. He maintains that it is neither water nor any other of the so-called elements, but another sort of substance which is infinite, and from which all the heavens and the worlds in them are produced; and into that from which existent things arise they pass away once more, as is ordained; for they must pay the penalty and make reparation to one another for the injustice they have committed, according to the sequence of time, as he says in these somewhat poetical terms.

PSEUDO-PLUTARCH, Stromat. 2.

Anaximander said that the Infinite contains the whole cause of the generation and destruction of the All; it is from the Infinite that the heavens are separated off, and generally all the worlds, which are infinite in number. He declared that destruction and, long before that, generation have been going on from infinitely distant ages, all the worlds recurring in cycles.

HIPPOLYTUS, Refutation of all Heresies, I, 6.

He says that this [the Infinite] is eternal and ageless and embraces all the worlds. And he implies the existence of time in that the three stages of coming into being, existence, and passing-away are distinguished.... And besides the Infinite he says there is eternal motion, in the course of which it happens that the heavens come into being.

HERMIAS, Irrisio, 10.

Anaximander says eternal motion is a principle older than the moist, and it is by this eternal motion that some things are generated and others destroyed.

ATIUS, De placitis, I, 3, 3.

He says that the first principle (or material cause) is infinite, in order that the process of coming into being which is set up may not suffer any check.

SIMPLICIUS, on De caelo, p. 615, 13, Heiberg.

Anaximander was the first to assume the Infinite as first principle, in order that he might have it available for his new births without stint.

SIMPLICIUS, in Phys. p. 1121, 5.

Those who assumed that the worlds are infinite in number, as did Anaximander, Leucippus, Democritus, and, in later days, Epicurus, assumed that they also came into being and passed away, ad infinitum, there being always some worlds coming into being and others passing away; and they maintained that motion is eternal: for without motion there is no coming into being or passing away.

PSEUDO-PLUTARCH, Stromat. 2.

Anaximander says that that which is capable of begetting the hot and the cold out of the eternal was separated off during the coming into being of our world, and from this there was produced a sort of sphere of flame which grew round the air about the earth as the bark round a tree; then this sphere was torn off and became enclosed in certain circles or rings, and thus were formed the sun, the moon, and the stars.

HIPPOLYTUS, Refut. I, 6, 4, 5.

The stars are produced as a circle of fire, separated off from the fire in the universe and enclosed by air. They have as vents certain pipe-shaped passages at which the stars are seen; hence, when the vents are stopped up, eclipses take place. The moon appears sometimes as waxing, sometimes as waning, to an extent corresponding to the closing or opening of the passages.

ATIUS, II, 13, 7.

The stars are compressed portions of air, in the shape of wheels filled with fire, and they emit flames at some point from small openings.

HIPPOLYTUS, loc. cit.

The earth is poised aloft, supported by nothing, and remains where it is because of its equidistance from all other things. Its form is rounded, circular, like a stone pillar; of its plane surfaces one is that on which we stand, the other is opposite.

PSEUDO-PLUTARCH, Stromat. 2.

The earth, he says, is cylinder-shaped and its depth is such as to have a ratio of one-third to its breadth.

HIPPOLYTUS, Refut. I, 6, 5.