PREFACE

HIS essay has grown out of a study of the poem of Parmenides

which was begun a number of years ago. I had come to the con·
elusion that Parmenides' argument was to be understood only
against the background of a new rational view of the physical universe,
a view which was not his own creation, but which permitted him to
take for granted such basic conceptions as the true Nature of things
{φύσις) and the ordered structure of the World (κόσμος). What I have
tried to do here is to reconstruct this pre-Parmenidean view, proceeding
on the assumption that its source must be located in sixth-century
Miletus. This assumption is implicit in all the ancient accounts of the
origins of Greek philosophy, and seems to be justified by the radical
contrast between the physical ideas of Homer and Hesiod on the one
hand, and those of Anaximander and Anaximenes on the other.
The view of the historical development presented here differs from
the traditional scheme in only two respects. I have discounted the
originality of Pythagoras as a figment—or at least an exaggeration—
of the Hellenistic imagination. In other words, so far as the study of
nature is concerned, I have treated the Italian school as an offshoot
of the Ionian philosophy and not as its rival. Furthermore, the scale on
which the three Milesians are depicted is not as uniform as it generally
appears. In the monumental style of ancient historiography, the Milesians
are presented as three statues of the same size and rank, standing at the
head of a long gallery of peers. I have tried to adjust the magnitude of
the figures to the importance of their role in the history of ideas. Thales
and Anaximenes still have their respective places next to Anaximander,
as his precursor and disciple. But they are dwarfed by the comparison
to the master.
Another deviation from the usual treatment is dictated by the scope
of the essay. In dealing with Heraclitus and Parmenides (and, even
more, with their successors) I have largely neglected the fundamentally
new ideas which are their characteristic achievement. Since this is not
a history of early Greek philosophy but a study of the Milesian cos-
mology, later thinkers must be regarded here primarily as the heirs and
debtors of the Milesians.
I would like to mention one recent publication, The Presocratic
xii PREFACE

Philosophers, by G. S. Kirk and J . E. Raven (Cambridge, 1957), which

reached me too late for systematic reference in the notes. On several
points the authors' close analysis of the evidence has led me to re-
formulate my own position. Their work provides an important state-
ment on many of the questions discussed here, and should be compared
in extenso.
A number of other relevant studies have appeared since my manu-
script was completed, while a few earlier ones have only recently come
to my attention. In one or two cases a new discussion would now be
called for. Probably the most important example of this kind is Pro-
fessor W. K . C. Guthrie's article on "The Presocratic World-Picture,"
Harvard Theological Review, X L V (1952), 87, which I encountered only
after the book had gone to press. His suggestion that the κόσμος was
from the beginning distinguished from the circumambient divine stuff
or π€ρι4χον—and hence that the Stoic distinction between κόσμος and
το παν is really pre-Socratic—seems to me very plausible, and I would
now want to take up this idea in Appendix I. (I think it is already
implicit in Appendix II.) I could scarcely be in more complete agree-
ment with Professor Guthrie's general thesis, that " a common picture
of the nature of the Universe, of living creatures, and of divinity was
shared by a surprising number of Greek philosophical and religious
thinkers of the 6th and early 5th centuries B.C." But I am obliged to
part company with him when he goes on: ' 'This world-picture was not
the creation of any one of them, but rather seems to have been assumed
by all at the outset, as is also suggested by certain indications in Greek
literature that it was shared by the unphilosophical multitude." That
elements of one or more pre-philosophic views are incorporated in the
Ionian cosmology is, I would say, agreed upon by all. But the quality
which is lacking in the older world views is precisely what is most
essential in the case of the philosophers: the systematic concern for
rational clarity and coherence. The recent tendency to assimilate
Anaximander to Hesiod—which also underlies Cornford's brilliant
treatment of him in Principium Sapientiae—can only serve to blur the
distinguishing features of each, by confounding the very different atti-
tudes toward Nature that characterize the Greek epic poets and the
early philosophers. If these first philosophers had been able to take for
granted a coherent, ready-made cosmology, then they would not have
been the first after all. On the other hand, once the Milesians and their
successors had worked out a consistent cosmic scheme, it naturally
 PREFACE xiii
exerted a powerful influence on the poets and on the educated public
in general. Hence when we find traces of such a scheme in Euripides or
in the Potidaea epitaph of 432—or in the undated Orphic poems—we
must recognize this as evidence for the diffusion of the Ionian cosmology,
not for its pre-existence in the popular imagination.
Acknowledgment is due to the Soprintendenza alia Antichitä di
Roma I for permission to reproduce the photograph of the frontispiece,
to the Trustees of the British Museum for Plate I, to the Archives
Photographiques, Paris, for Plate IIA, and to the Austrian National
Library for Plate IIB. I wish to thank Professors Otto J. Brendel,
Evelyn B. Harrison, and O. Neugebauer, as well as Professor M. Borda
of the Museo Nazionale in Rome and Mr. D. J. Wiseman of the British
Museum, for information concerning one or more of the monuments
reproduced.
As this book is the fruit of some ten years' study, it has been in-
fluenced by more teachers and scholars than I can mention here. I
think above all of Professors David Grene and Yves R. Simon of the
University of Chicago, who first introduced me to Greek literature and
philosophy—and first impressions are lasting ones. In a more immediate
way, I am indebted to Professor Moses Hadas and the other members
of the examining committee who read and criticized the bulk of the
manuscript in its original form as a doctoral dissertation for Columbia
University. The readability of the whole work has benefited in particular
from the comments of Professor Gilbert Highet, who called my atten-
tion to many an opaque argument and many a clumsy phrase. My
friend Professor Martin Ostwald has often come to my assistance with
excellent advice and has in addition read through a full set of proofs.
Special thanks are due to the Stanwood Cockey Lodge Foundation,
whose generous grant made this publication possible, and to the staff
of Columbia University Press, who have given the author all the
co-operation he could have wished for.
Finally, in dedicating the book to Professor Kurt von Fritz, now at
the University of Munich, I wish to record my lasting gratitude both
for his friendly guidance and for his unflagging interest in this work,
despite the various interruptions of time and place.

C. Η. K .
Columbia University in the City of New York
April, 1959