113-554: Thales of Miletus ( / ˈ θ eɪ l iː z / THAY -leez ; Ancient Greek : Θαλῆς ; c. 626/623 – c. 548/545 BC ) was an Ancient Greek pre-Socratic philosopher from Miletus in Ionia , Asia Minor . Thales was one of the Seven Sages , founding figures of Ancient Greece . Many regard him as the first philosopher in the Greek tradition , breaking from
226-454: A Carian name and his mother had a Greek name. Diogenes Laërtius seems to also reference an alternative account: "Most writers, however, represent him as a genuine Milesian and of a distinguished family". Encyclopedia Britannica (1952) concluded that Thales was most likely a native Milesian of noble birth and that he was certainly a Greek. Diogenes continues, by delivering more conflicting reports: one that Thales married and either fathered
339-537: A pitch accent . In Modern Greek, all vowels and consonants are short. Many vowels and diphthongs once pronounced distinctly are pronounced as /i/ ( iotacism ). Some of the stops and glides in diphthongs have become fricatives , and the pitch accent has changed to a stress accent . Many of the changes took place in the Koine Greek period. The writing system of Modern Greek, however, does not reflect all pronunciation changes. The examples below represent Attic Greek in
452-549: A "fighting together", with the Lydians. This has sometimes been interpreted as an alliance. Croesus was defeated before the city of Sardis by Cyrus the Great , who subsequently spared Miletus because it had taken no action. Cyrus was so impressed by Croesus’ wisdom and his connection with the sages that he spared him and took his advice on various matters. The Ionian cities should be demoi, or "districts". He counselled them to establish
565-472: A lack of contemporaneous evidence. Several theories exist about what Hellenic dialect groups may have existed between the divergence of early Greek-like speech from the common Proto-Indo-European language and the Classical period. They have the same general outline but differ in some of the detail. The only attested dialect from this period is Mycenaean Greek , but its relationship to the historical dialects and
678-419: A lesser degree. Pamphylian Greek , spoken in a small area on the southwestern coast of Anatolia and little preserved in inscriptions, may be either a fifth major dialect group, or it is Mycenaean Greek overlaid by Doric, with a non-Greek native influence. Regarding the speech of the ancient Macedonians diverse theories have been put forward, but the epigraphic activity and the archaeological discoveries in
791-531: A maximum of 250,000. By comparison, the population of Boeotia was 38,000-50,000 in the late sixteenth century, according to tahrir records, 40,000-42,000 in the 1889 census, and 117,920 in the 2011 census. Boeotia took a prominent part in the Corinthian War against Sparta, especially in the battles of Haliartus and Coronea (395–394 BC). This change of policy was mainly due to the popular resentment against foreign interference. Yet disaffection against Thebes
904-543: A prefix /e-/, called the augment . This was probably originally a separate word, meaning something like "then", added because tenses in PIE had primarily aspectual meaning. The augment is added to the indicative of the aorist, imperfect, and pluperfect, but not to any of the other forms of the aorist (no other forms of the imperfect and pluperfect exist). The two kinds of augment in Greek are syllabic and quantitative. The syllabic augment
1017-671: A separate historical stage, though its earliest form closely resembles Attic Greek , and its latest form approaches Medieval Greek , and Koine may be classified as Ancient Greek in a wider sense. There were several regional dialects of Ancient Greek; Attic Greek developed into Koine. Ancient Greek was a pluricentric language , divided into many dialects. The main dialect groups are Attic and Ionic , Aeolic , Arcadocypriot , and Doric , many of them with several subdivisions. Some dialects are found in standardized literary forms in literature , while others are attested only in inscriptions. There are also several historical forms. Homeric Greek
1130-598: A short period of prosperity under the Frankish rulers of Athens (1205–1310), who repaired the underground drainage channels ( καταβόθρα katavóthra ) of Lake Kopais and fostered agriculture, Boeotia long continued in a state of decay, aggravated by occasional barbarian incursions. The first step toward the country's recovery was not until 1895, when the drainage channels of Kopais were again put into working order. In 1880–86, Heinrich Schliemann 's excavations at Orchomenus (H. Schliemann, Orchomenos , Leipzig 1881) revealed
1243-577: A short time in the Aetolian League (about 245 BC) Boeotia was generally loyal to Macedon , and supported its later kings against Rome. Rome dissolved the league in 171 BC, but it was revived under Augustus , and merged with the other central Greek federations in the Achaean synod. The death-blow to the country's prosperity was dealt by the devastations during the First Mithridatic War . Save for
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#17328445281331356-593: A single seat of government, and pointed out Teos as the fittest place for it; "for that," he said, "was the centre of Ionia . Their other cities might still continue to enjoy their own laws, just as if they were independent states." Miletus, however, received favorable terms from Cyrus. The others remained in an Ionian League of twelve cities (excluding Miletus), and were subjugated by the Persians. Early Greeks, and other civilizations before them, often invoked idiosyncratic explanations of natural phenomena with reference to
1469-517: A son (Cybisthus or Cybisthon) or adopted his nephew of the same name; the second that he never married, telling his mother as a young man that it was too early to marry, and as an older man that it was too late. Plutarch had earlier told this version: Solon visited Thales and asked him why he remained single; Thales answered that he did not like the idea of having to worry about children. Nevertheless, several years later, anxious for family, he adopted his nephew Cybisthus. The culture of Archaic Greece
1582-609: A standard subject of study in educational institutions of the Western world since the Renaissance . This article primarily contains information about the Epic and Classical periods of the language, which are the best-attested periods and considered most typical of Ancient Greek. From the Hellenistic period ( c. 300 BC ), Ancient Greek was followed by Koine Greek , which is regarded as
1695-564: A suitable capital; other major towns were Orchomenus , Plataea , and Thespiae . It was the constant ambition of the Thebans to absorb the other townships into a single state, just as Athens had annexed the Attic communities. But the outlying cities successfully resisted this policy, and only allowed the formation of a loose federation that, initially, was merely religious. While the Boeotians, unlike
1808-400: A total of 24,200 men in the army. He assumes that 25% of men were ineligible for military service, so his total population of men between the ages of twenty and fifty is 30,250. Using model life tables he calculates a total male citizen population of 72,240 and an equal number of women, for a minimum free population of 144,050, plus an unknown number of slaves and foreign residents. He proposes
1921-616: A triangle inscribed in a circle and having the circle's diameter as one side; the other, also called the intercept theorem , is about an angle intercepted by two parallel lines, forming a pair of similar triangles . Modern scholars are skeptical that anyone in Thales's time was producing mathematical proofs to the standard of later Greek mathematics, though not enough direct evidence remains to draw firm conclusions. While Thales may have discovered some basic geometric relations and provided some justification for them, attribution to him of formal proofs
2034-510: A vowel or /n s r/ ; final stops were lost, as in γάλα "milk", compared with γάλακτος "of milk" (genitive). Ancient Greek of the classical period also differed in both the inventory and distribution of original PIE phonemes due to numerous sound changes, notably the following: The pronunciation of Ancient Greek was very different from that of Modern Greek . Ancient Greek had long and short vowels ; many diphthongs ; double and single consonants; voiced, voiceless, and aspirated stops ; and
2147-556: Is a literary form of Archaic Greek (derived primarily from Ionic and Aeolic) used in the epic poems , the Iliad and the Odyssey , and in later poems by other authors. Homeric Greek had significant differences in grammar and pronunciation from Classical Attic and other Classical-era dialects. The origins, early form and development of the Hellenic language family are not well understood because of
2260-418: Is added to stems beginning with consonants, and simply prefixes e (stems beginning with r , however, add er ). The quantitative augment is added to stems beginning with vowels, and involves lengthening the vowel: Some verbs augment irregularly; the most common variation is e → ei . The irregularity can be explained diachronically by the loss of s between vowels, or that of the letter w , which affected
2373-630: Is also attributed to Thales, as well as the timings of the solstices and equinoxes . He was also an engineer , known for having diverted the Halys River . The main source concerning the details of Thales's life and career is the doxographer Diogenes Laërtius , in his third-century-AD work Lives and Opinions of the Eminent Philosophers . While it is all we have, Diogenes wrote some eight centuries after Thales's death and his sources often contained "unreliable or even fabricated information". It
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#17328445281332486-481: Is also possible Thales knew about Egypt from accounts of others, without actually visiting it. Aside from Egypt, the other mathematically advanced, ancient civilization before the Greeks was Babylonia, another commonplace attribution of travel for a mathematically-minded philosopher. At least one ancient historian, Josephus , claims Thales visited Babylonia. Historians Roger L. Cooke and B.L. Van der Waerden come down on
2599-576: Is believed the Babylonians knew the theorem for special cases. The theorem is mentioned and proved as part of the 31st proposition in the third book of Euclid 's Elements . Dante's Paradiso refers to Thales's theorem in the course of a speech. The story is told in Diogenes Laërtius , Pliny the Elder , and Plutarch , sourced from Hieronymus of Rhodes , that when Thales visited Egypt , he measured
2712-644: Is called 'East Greek'. Arcadocypriot apparently descended more closely from the Mycenaean Greek of the Bronze Age. Boeotian Greek had come under a strong Northwest Greek influence, and can in some respects be considered a transitional dialect, as exemplified in the poems of the Boeotian poet Pindar who wrote in Doric with a small Aeolic admixture. Thessalian likewise had come under Northwest Greek influence, though to
2825-448: Is considered by some linguists to have been closely related to Greek . Among Indo-European branches with living descendants, Greek is often argued to have the closest genetic ties with Armenian (see also Graeco-Armenian ) and Indo-Iranian languages (see Graeco-Aryan ). Ancient Greek differs from Proto-Indo-European (PIE) and other Indo-European languages in certain ways. In phonotactics , ancient Greek words could end only in
2938-497: Is his own thinking, his statement that Thales held it as water is generally accepted as genuinely originating with Thales. Writing centuries later, Diogenes Laërtius also states that Thales taught "Water constituted ( ὑπεστήσατο , 'stood under') the principle of all things." According to Aristotle: That from which is everything that exists and from which it first becomes and into which it is rendered at last, its substance remaining under it, but transforming in qualities, that they say
3051-461: Is known Thales was from Miletus , a mercantile city settled at the mouth of the Maeander river . The dates of Thales's life are not exactly known, but are roughly established by a few datable events mentioned in the sources. According to the historian Herodotus , writing in the 5th century BC, Thales predicted a solar eclipse in 585 BC. Assuming one's acme (or floruit ) occurred at the age of 40,
3164-695: Is now thought to represent speculative rationalization and reconstruction by later authors, rather than concrete accomplishments of Thales himself or his contemporaries. According to one author, while visiting Egypt, Thales observed that when the Egyptians drew two intersecting lines, they would measure the vertical angles to make sure that they were equal. Thales concluded that one could prove that all vertical angles are equal if one accepted some general notions such as: all straight angles are equal, equals added to equals are equal, and equals subtracted from equals are equal. Pamphila says that, having learnt geometry from
3277-455: Is one of the regional units of Greece . It is part of the region of Central Greece . Its capital is Livadeia , and its largest city is Thebes . Boeotia was also a region of ancient Greece , from before the 6th century BC. Boeotia lies to the north of the eastern part of the Gulf of Corinth . It also has a short coastline on the Gulf of Euboea . It bordered on Megaris (now West Attica ) in
3390-546: Is probably the source of this tradition, and the source of Thucydides ' "sixtieth year", that is, two generations of thirty years. A second tradition puts the expulsion of the Boiotoi in the reign of Aiatus, one generation after the War . To this should also belong the story in Plutarch , which tells how Opheltas king of the Boiotoi took Chaeronea "by force from the barbarians." Opheltas is
3503-530: Is shown by the reputation and visible Mycenean remains of several of its cities, especially Orchomenus and Thebes . Some toponyms and the common Aeolic dialect indicate that the Boeotians were related to the Thessalians . Traditionally, the Boeotians are said to have originally occupied Thessaly , the largest fertile plain in Greece, and to have been dispossessed by the north-western Thessalians two generations after
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3616-457: Is space, for it holds all things. —attributed to Thales Thales was known for introducing the theoretical and practical use of geometry to Greece, and has been described as the first person in the western world to apply deductive reasoning to geometry, making him the West's "first mathematician." He is also credited with the West's oldest definition of number : a "collection of units", "following
3729-446: Is the element and principle of things that are. …For it is necessary that there be some nature ( φύσις ), either one or more than one, from which become the other things of the object being saved... [The first philosophers] do not all agree as to the number and the nature of these principles. Thales the founder of this type of philosophy says that it is water. Aristotle further adds: Presumably he derived this assumption from seeing that
3842-500: Is the origin of things, that is, that it is that out of which every thing arises, and into which every thing resolves itself, Thales may have followed Orphic cosmogonies, while, unlike them, he sought to establish the truth of the assertion. Hence, Aristotle, immediately after he has called him the originator of philosophy brings forward the reasons which Thales was believed to have adduced in confirmation of that assertion; for that no written development of it, or indeed any book by Thales,
3955-523: The Suda , the proverb is both "applied to those whose boasts exceed what they are" and "a warning to pay no attention to the opinion of the multitude." Diogenes Laërtius relates several stories of an expensive, gold tripod or bowl that is to go to the most wise . In one version (that Laërtius credits to Callimachus in his Iambics ) Bathycles of Arcadia states in his will that an expensive bowl " 'should be given to him who had done most good by his wisdom.' So it
4068-515: The Arcadians , generally acted as a united whole against foreign enemies, the constant struggle between the cities was a serious check on the nation's development. Boeotia hardly figures in history before the late 6th century BC. Previous to this, its people are chiefly known as the makers of a type of geometric pottery, similar to the Dipylon ware of Athens. In about 519 BC, the resistance of Plataea to
4181-560: The Battle of Tanagra . Athens retaliated with a sudden advance upon Boeotia, and after the victory at the Battle of Oenophyta took control of the whole country, taking down the wall the Spartans had built. With the victory the Athenians also occupied Phocis , the original source of the conflict, and Opuntian Locris . For ten years the land remained under Athenian control, which was exercised through
4294-702: The Fall of Troy (1200 BC). They moved south and settled in another rich plain, while others filtered across the Aegean and settled on Lesbos and in Aeolis in Asia Minor . Others are said to have stayed in Thessaly, withdrawing into the hill country and becoming the perioikoi ("dwellers around"). Boeotia was an early member of the oldest Amphictyonic League ( Anthelian ), a religious confederacy of related tribes, despite its distance from
4407-698: The Greek region of Macedonia during the last decades has brought to light documents, among which the first texts written in Macedonian , such as the Pella curse tablet , as Hatzopoulos and other scholars note. Based on the conclusions drawn by several studies and findings such as Pella curse tablet , Emilio Crespo and other scholars suggest that ancient Macedonian was a Northwest Doric dialect , which shares isoglosses with its neighboring Thessalian dialects spoken in northeastern Thessaly . Some have also suggested an Aeolic Greek classification. The Lesbian dialect
4520-550: The Hyades , supposed by the ancients to indicate the approach of rain when they rose with the Sun. According to Seneca , Thales explained the flooding of the Nile as due to the river being beaten back by the etesian wind. Ancient Greek language Ancient Greek ( Ἑλληνῐκή , Hellēnikḗ ; [hellɛːnikɛ́ː] ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and
4633-696: The Mycenean age (1600–1200 BC) when the Mycenean Greeks established themselves in Boeotia and the city of Thebes became an important centre. Many of them are related to the myths of Argos , and others indicate connections with Phoenicia , where the Mycenean Greeks and later the Euboean Greeks established trading posts. Important legends related to Boeotia include: Many of these legends were used in plays by
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4746-585: The Pagasitic Gulf before migrating to the land later termed Boeotia. The location of Arne is unknown, though sometimes it is equated with Cierium in Central Thessaly . The presence in Classical times in Boeotia of cults and place-names of Thessalian origin, such as Itonia and Itonian Athena, Homole and Homoloian Zeus, Alalcomenae , Corseia and Pharae , confirm for most scholars the merits of these traditions. It is, therefore, generally believed that
4859-571: The Thessalians who were led by Thessalus , son of Aiatus, son of Pheidippus , son of another Thessalus. Pheidippus appears in the Catalogue of ships as one of the commanders of the force from Cos and Carpathus. He was thought to have been driven to Epirus after the war and to have settled at Ephyra in the Thesprotid . Hence the Boiotoi were expelled two generations after the Trojan War. Hellanicus
4972-600: The ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek ( c. 1400–1200 BC ), Dark Ages ( c. 1200–800 BC ), the Archaic or Epic period ( c. 800–500 BC ), and the Classical period ( c. 500–300 BC ). Ancient Greek was the language of Homer and of fifth-century Athenian historians, playwrights, and philosophers . It has contributed many words to English vocabulary and has been
5085-501: The present , future , and imperfect are imperfective in aspect; the aorist , present perfect , pluperfect and future perfect are perfective in aspect. Most tenses display all four moods and three voices, although there is no future subjunctive or imperative. Also, there is no imperfect subjunctive, optative or imperative. The infinitives and participles correspond to the finite combinations of tense, aspect, and voice. The indicative of past tenses adds (conceptually, at least)
5198-629: The prytaneis of the Athenian council, which took it in turns to vote on all new measures. Two Boeotarchs were provided by Thebes, but by 395 BC Thebes was providing four Boeotarchs, including two who had represented places now conquered by Thebes such as Plataea, Scolus , Erythrae , and Scaphae . Orchomenus , Hysiae , and Tanagra each supplied one Boeotarch. Thespiae , Thisbe , and Eutresis supplied two between them. Haliartus , Lebadea and Coronea supplied one in turn, and so did Acraephia , Copae , and Chaeronea . The total military force of
5311-437: The seked from the height of the stick and its distance from the point of insertion to the line of sight. Thales was also a noted astronomer, acknowledged in antiquity for describing the position of Ursa Minor , and he thought the constellation might be useful as a guide for navigation at sea. He calculated the duration of the year and the timings of the equinoxes and solstices . He is additionally attributed with calculating
5424-528: The "Treasury of Minyas"). The Boeotian population entered the land from the north possibly before the Dorian invasion. With the exception of the Minyae, the original peoples were soon absorbed by these immigrants, and the Boeotians henceforth appear as a homogeneous nation. Aeolic Greek was spoken in Boeotia. In historical times, the leading city of Boeotia was Thebes, whose central position and military strength made it
5537-1031: The 5th century BC. Ancient pronunciation cannot be reconstructed with certainty, but Greek from the period is well documented, and there is little disagreement among linguists as to the general nature of the sounds that the letters represent. /oː/ raised to [uː] , probably by the 4th century BC. Greek, like all of the older Indo-European languages , is highly inflected. It is highly archaic in its preservation of Proto-Indo-European forms. In ancient Greek, nouns (including proper nouns) have five cases ( nominative , genitive , dative , accusative , and vocative ), three genders ( masculine , feminine , and neuter ), and three numbers (singular, dual , and plural ). Verbs have four moods ( indicative , imperative , subjunctive , and optative ) and three voices (active, middle, and passive ), as well as three persons (first, second, and third) and various other forms. Verbs are conjugated through seven combinations of tenses and aspect (generally simply called "tenses"):
5650-545: The Archaeological Service under Theodore Spyropoulos , uncovering the Mycenaean palace, a prehistoric cemetery, the ancient amphitheatre , and other structures. The regional unit Boeotia is subdivided into 6 municipalities. These are (number as in the map in the infobox): Boeotia was created as a prefecture in 1836 ( Greek : Διοίκησις Βοιωτίας ), again in 1899 ( Νομός Βοιωτίας ) and again in 1943; in all cases it
5763-490: The Archaic period of ancient Greek (see Homeric Greek for more details): Μῆνιν ἄειδε, θεά, Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος οὐλομένην, ἣ μυρί' Ἀχαιοῖς ἄλγε' ἔθηκε, πολλὰς δ' ἰφθίμους ψυχὰς Ἄϊδι προΐαψεν ἡρώων, αὐτοὺς δὲ ἑλώρια τεῦχε κύνεσσιν οἰωνοῖσί τε πᾶσι· Διὸς δ' ἐτελείετο βουλή· ἐξ οὗ δὴ τὰ πρῶτα διαστήτην ἐρίσαντε Ἀτρεΐδης τε ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν καὶ δῖος Ἀχιλλεύς. The beginning of Apology by Plato exemplifies Attic Greek from
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#17328445281335876-555: The Boeotians originated in Thessaly and lived there as a distinct ethnos , in Phthiotis or in Thessaliotis, before they migrated to Boeotia, taking elements with them from other parts of Thessaly . Boeotians were expelled from Thessaly after the Trojan war although there are three traditions which disagree on how expulsion played out. One tradition says that the Boiotoi were expelled by
5989-577: The Boiotian League (11,000 infantry and 1,100 cavalry) has been used as the basis for a number of calculations of the population of the region in the early fourth century BC. John Bintliff assumes an additional 21,000 light troops and rowers in the navy, for a total of 33,100 men. Assuming the same number of women, two children and one slave for every household, he estimates the total Boeotian population at 165,500 (including 33,100 slaves). Mogens Herman Hansen assumes an additional 12,100 light troops, for
6102-455: The Boiotoi seem to have paused to digest western Boeotia; the generation or two before Thebes was captured marks this pause in all traditions. The siting close to Coronea of the sanctuary of Itonian Athena, and the celebration of the Pamboeotia there, together with the renaming of rivers and other toponyms, and the sanctity attached to the neighbouring settlement of Alalcomenae , all strengthen
6215-611: The Classical period of ancient Greek. (The second line is the IPA , the third is transliterated into the Latin alphabet using a modern version of the Erasmian scheme .) Ὅτι [hóti Hóti μὲν men mèn ὑμεῖς, hyːmêːs hūmeîs, Boeotia Boeotia ( / b i ˈ oʊ ʃ ( i ) ə / bee- OH -sh(ee-)ə ), sometimes Latinized as Boiotia or Beotia ( Greek : Βοιωτία ; modern : Viotía ; ancient : Boiōtía ),
6328-475: The Earth floated on water. In mathematics, Thales is the namesake of Thales's theorem , and the intercept theorem can also be known as Thales's theorem. Thales was said to have calculated the heights of the pyramids and the distance of ships from the shore. In science, Thales was an astronomer who reportedly predicted the weather and a solar eclipse . The discovery of the position of the constellation Ursa Major
6441-464: The Egyptian view". The evidence for the primacy of Thales comes to us from a book by Proclus , who lived a thousand years afterward but is believed to have had a copy of Eudemus 's lost book History of Geometry (4th century BC). Proclus wrote that Thales was the first to visit Egypt and bring the Egyptian study of mathematics to Greece, and that Thales "himself discovered many propositions and disclosed
6554-524: The Egyptians, Thales was the first to inscribe in a circle a right-angled triangle, whereupon he sacrificed an ox . This is sometimes cited as history's first mathematical discovery. Due to the variations among testimonies, such as the story of the ox sacrifice being accredited to Pythagoras upon discovery of the Pythagorean theorem rather than Thales, some historians (such as D. R. Dicks) question whether such anecdotes have any historical worth whatsoever. It
6667-511: The French use the term béotien ("Boeotian") to denote Philistinism . Boeotia had significant political importance, owing to its position on the north shore of the Gulf of Corinth , the strategic strength of its frontiers, and the ease of communication within its extensive area. On the other hand, the lack of good harbours hindered its maritime development. The importance of the legendary Minyae has been confirmed by archaeological remains (notably
6780-407: The Greeks learnt the gnomon from the Babylonians. Thales's follower Anaximander is credited with introducing the gnomon to the Greeks. Herodotus also wrote that the practice of dividing the day into 12 parts, and the polos , came to the Greeks from the Babylonians. Yet this too is disputed, for example by historian L. Zhmud, who points out the gnomon was known to both Egyptians and Babylonians,
6893-586: The League's original home in Anthela . Although they included great men such as Pindar , Hesiod , Epaminondas , Pelopidas , and Plutarch , the Boeotian people were portrayed as proverbially dull by the Athenians (cf. Boeotian ears incapable of appreciating music or poetry and Hog-Boeotians , Cratinus .310). Many ancient Greek legends originated or are set in this region. The older myths took their final form during
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#17328445281337006-554: The Seven Sages were created in the archonship of Damasius at Athens about 582 BC and that Thales was the first sage. The sages were associated with the Delphic maxims , a quote or maxim attributed to each one inscribed on the Temple of Apollo at Delphi . Thales has arguably the most famous of all, gnothi seauton or know thyself . According to the 10th-century Byzantine encyclopedia
7119-523: The Thelidae who are Phoenicians and amongst the noblest descendants of Cadmus and Agenor " who had been banished from Phoenicia and that Thales was enrolled as a citizen in Miletus along with Neleus . However, Friedrich Nietzsche and others interpret this quote as meaning only that his ancestors were seafaring Cadmeians from Boeotia . It is also possible that he was of mixed ancestry, given his father had
7232-550: The aorist. Following Homer 's practice, the augment is sometimes not made in poetry , especially epic poetry. The augment sometimes substitutes for reduplication; see below. Almost all forms of the perfect, pluperfect, and future perfect reduplicate the initial syllable of the verb stem. (A few irregular forms of perfect do not reduplicate, whereas a handful of irregular aorists reduplicate.) The three types of reduplication are: Irregular duplication can be understood diachronically. For example, lambanō (root lab ) has
7345-419: The augment when it was word-initial. In verbs with a preposition as a prefix, the augment is placed not at the start of the word, but between the preposition and the original verb. For example, προσ(-)βάλλω (I attack) goes to προσ έ βαλoν in the aorist. However compound verbs consisting of a prefix that is not a preposition retain the augment at the start of the word: αὐτο(-)μολῶ goes to ηὐ τομόλησα in
7458-454: The beginnings of a modern economy, with the use of artisans to 'do the technical work in making his plow and wagon' and the beginnings of sea commerce and its increasing importance in the economic life of Greece. According to myth, the Boeotians ( Ancient Greek : Βοιώτιοι , romanized : Boiotioi ) lived in Thessaly , especially in the area around Arne , though some may have gone to
7571-505: The belief that this western section was the area where the first Boeotian settlement took place, and where Boeotian institutions were first established in the new homeland. The advance eastward eventually proceeded both to the north and to the south of Copais lake . On the north side it ultimately reached Anthedon , a town credited with once having been occupied by the Thracians . On the south side it came as far as Thebes and Thespiae . In Thebes, according to one version, Damasichthon took
7684-438: The center of Greek scholarship, this division of people and language is quite similar to the results of modern archaeological-linguistic investigation. One standard formulation for the dialects is: West vs. non-West Greek is the strongest-marked and earliest division, with non-West in subsets of Ionic-Attic (or Attic-Ionic) and Aeolic vs. Arcadocypriot, or Aeolic and Arcado-Cypriot vs. Ionic-Attic. Often non-West
7797-419: The chronicle of Apollodorus of Athens , written during the 2nd century BC, therefore placed Thales's birth about the year 625 BC. While the probability is that Thales was as Greek as most Milesians, Herodotus described Thales as "a Phoenician by remote descent". Diogenes Laërtius references Herodotus, Duris , and Democritus , who all agree "that Thales was the son of Examyas and Cleobulina, and belonged to
7910-493: The closing years of the Peloponnesian War; but their greatest achievement was the decisive victory at the Battle of Delium over the Athenian army (424 BC) in which both their heavy infantry and their cavalry displayed unusual efficiency. According to the Hellenica Oxyrhynchia , in 395 BC the Boeotian League comprised eleven groups of sovereign cities and associated townships, each of which elected one Boeotarch or minister of war and foreign affairs, contributed sixty delegates to
8023-443: The dealings with Philip of Macedon the cities merely followed Thebes. The federal constitution was also brought into accord with the democratic governments now prevalent throughout the land. Sovereign power was vested in the popular assembly, which elected the Boeotarchs (between seven and twelve in number), and sanctioned all laws. After the Battle of Chaeroneia , in which the Boeotian heavy infantry once again distinguished itself,
8136-579: The death of Xanthus symbolized traditionally the completion of the conquest of Boeotia under the kings and the consequent immediate extinction of the kingship. During the Persian invasion of 480 BC, Thebes assisted the invaders. In consequence, for a time, the presidency of the Boeotian League was taken from Thebes, but in 457 BC the Spartans reinstated that city as a bulwark against Athenian aggression after
8249-563: The dialect of Sparta ), and Northern Peloponnesus Doric (including Corinthian ). All the groups were represented by colonies beyond Greece proper as well, and these colonies generally developed local characteristics, often under the influence of settlers or neighbors speaking different Greek dialects. After the conquests of Alexander the Great in the late 4th century BC, a new international dialect known as Koine or Common Greek developed, largely based on Attic Greek , but with influence from other dialects. This dialect slowly replaced most of
8362-526: The division of the day into twelve parts (and by analogy the year) was known to the Egyptians already in the 2nd millennium BC , and the idea of the polos was not used outside of Greece at this time. Thales is recognized as one of the Seven Sages of Greece, semi-legendary wise statesmen and founding figures of Ancient Greece. While which seven one chooses may change, the seven has a canonical four which includes Thales, Solon of Athens, Pittacus of Mytilene , and Bias of Priene . Diogenes Laërtius tells us that
8475-451: The federal council at Thebes, and supplied a contingent of about 1000 infantry and 100 cavalry to the federal army. A safeguard against undue encroachment on the part of the central government was provided in the councils of the individual cities, to which all important questions of policy had to be submitted for ratification. These local councils, to which the propertied classes alone were eligible, were subdivided into four sections, resembling
8588-515: The federating policy of Thebes led to the interference of Athens on behalf of the former; on this occasion, and again in 507 BC, the Athenians defeated the Boeotian levy. The Works and Days by Hesiod is often used by economists and historians alike to provide invaluable evidence for the Boetian economic system and its developments in the Homeric Age. In the poem Hesiod, who lived in Boeotia, describes
8701-445: The first among them. Also, while the other Seven Sages were strictly law-givers and statesmen and not speculative philosophers, Plutarch noted "it would seem that Thales was the only wise man of the time who carried his speculations beyond the realm of the practical." Thales's most famous idea was his philosophical and cosmological thesis that all is water, which comes down to us through a passage from Aristotle 's Metaphysics . In
8814-477: The first says that Coronea and Orchomenus were captured virtually simultaneously and then the sanctuary of Itonian Athena was founded. It is clear that both traditions envisaged the Boiotoi as following a well-known invasion route from Thessaly , the one via Thermopylae and Hyampolis to Chaeronea , where the invaders would be poised to attack both Orchomenus and Coronea . Having gained control of Chaeronea , Orchomenus and Coronea , and their territories,
8927-529: The gaining of Thebes . The Thebans remembered, according to Thucydides, that the Asopus valley and Plataea were reduced later than the rest of Boeotia and were occupied in accordance with an agreed plan. The Boeotian advance was apparently stalled on what became the Athenian-Boeotian frontier, by the efforts of local forces, if the legend of Xanthus and Melanthus has any historical significance. In any event
9040-401: The height of the pyramids by their shadows at the moment when his own shadow was equal to his height. According to Plutarch, it pleased the pharoah Amasis . More practically, Thales was said to have the ability to measure the distances of ships at sea. These stories indicate familiarity with the intercept theorem, and for this reason the 26th proposition in the first book of Euclid's Elements
9153-556: The historical Dorians . The invasion is known to have displaced population to the later Attic-Ionic regions, who regarded themselves as descendants of the population displaced by or contending with the Dorians. The Greeks of this period believed there were three major divisions of all Greek people – Dorians, Aeolians, and Ionians (including Athenians), each with their own defining and distinctive dialects. Allowing for their oversight of Arcadian, an obscure mountain dialect, and Cypriot, far from
9266-424: The historical circumstances of the times imply that the overall groups already existed in some form. Scholars assume that major Ancient Greek period dialect groups developed not later than 1120 BC, at the time of the Dorian invasions —and that their first appearances as precise alphabetic writing began in the 8th century BC. The invasion would not be "Dorian" unless the invaders had some cultural relationship to
9379-649: The islands of Lemnos and Thera . The Argonauts were sometimes referred to as Minyans. Also, according to legend the citizens of Thebes paid an annual tribute to their king Erginus . The Minyans may have been proto-Greek speakers. Although most scholars today agree that the Myceneans descended from the Minyans of the Middle Helladic period , they believe that the progenitors and founders of Minyan culture were an indigenous people . The early wealth and power of Boeotia
9492-436: The land never again rose to prosperity. The destruction of Thebes by Alexander the Great (335 BC) destroyed the political energy of the Boeotians. They never again pursued an independent policy, but followed the lead of protecting powers. Although military training and organization continued, the people proved unable to defend the frontiers, and the land became more than ever the "dancing-ground of Ares". Although enrolled for
9605-482: The newly installed democracies; but in 447 BC the people revolted, and after a victory at the Battle of Coronea regained their independence. In the Peloponnesian War the Boeotians fought zealously against Athens. Although slightly estranged from Sparta after the peace of Nicias , they never abated their enmity against their neighbours. They rendered good service at Syracuse and at the Battle of Arginusae in
9718-482: The nutriment of everything is moist, and that heat itself is generated from moisture and depends upon it for its existence (and that from which a thing is generated is always its first principle). He derived his assumption from this; and also from the fact that the seeds of everything have a moist nature, whereas water is the first principle of the nature of moist things." The 1870 book Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology noted: In his dogma that water
9831-499: The older dialects, although the Doric dialect has survived in the Tsakonian language , which is spoken in the region of modern Sparta. Doric has also passed down its aorist terminations into most verbs of Demotic Greek . By about the 6th century AD, the Koine had slowly metamorphosed into Medieval Greek . Phrygian is an extinct Indo-European language of West and Central Anatolia , which
9944-474: The origin of their mathematical knowledge, such as with Thales or Pythagoras or Eudoxus . Several ancient authors assume that Thales, at one point in his life, visited Egypt , where he learned about geometry. It is considered possible that Thales visited Egypt, since Miletus had a permanent colony there (namely Naucratis ). It is also said Thales had close contacts with the priests of Thebes who instructed him, or even that he instructed them in geometry. It
10057-513: The other two: the two generations until the expulsion from Thessaly after the War and the two generations until Thebes is gained give the four generations cited by Hieronymus in his tale of the Cadmean return to Thebes after the war. The entry-point to Boeotia by Boeotians seems to be put in the same general area by all traditions. The second tradition gives Chaeronea as the first place attacked, while
10170-487: The perfect stem eilēpha (not * lelēpha ) because it was originally slambanō , with perfect seslēpha , becoming eilēpha through compensatory lengthening. Reduplication is also visible in the present tense stems of certain verbs. These stems add a syllable consisting of the root's initial consonant followed by i . A nasal stop appears after the reduplication in some verbs. The earliest extant examples of ancient Greek writing ( c. 1450 BC ) are in
10283-648: The position of the Pleiades . Plutarch indicates that in his day (c. AD 100) there was an extant work, the Astronomy , composed in verse and attributed to Thales. While some say he left no writings, others say that he wrote On the Solstice and On the Equinox . The Nautical Star-guide has also been attributed to him, but this was disputed even in ancient times. No writing attributed to him has survived. Lobon of Argus asserted that
10396-409: The prior use of mythology to explain the world and instead using natural philosophy . He is thus otherwise referred to as the first to have engaged in mathematics , science , and deductive reasoning . The first philosophers followed him in explaining all of nature as based on the existence of a single ultimate substance . Thales theorized that this single substance was water . Thales thought
10509-521: The proposition that water is the primal origin and the womb of all things. Is it really necessary for us to take serious notice of this proposition? It is, and for three reasons. First, because it tells us something about the primal origin of all things; second, because it does so in language devoid of image or fable, and finally, because contained in it, if only embryonically, is the thought, "all things are one." Megiston topos: apanta gar chorei ( Μέγιστον τόπος· ἄπαντα γὰρ χωρεῖ. ) The greatest
10622-594: The rule from Autesion , son of Tisamenus , son of Thersander , another stemma that puts the Boeotians in Thebes two generations after the Trojan War . The tradition intimates that there was a peaceful take-over, with Autesion joining the Dorians . There must have been another pause for some time. The next advance, into the Asopus valley, was led by Xanthus , son of Ptolemy , son of Damasichthon , that is, two generations after
10735-409: The side of Babylonian mathematics influencing the Greeks, citing the use of e. g. the sexagesimal system (or base 60). Cooke notes "This relation, however, is controversial." Others historians, such as D. R. Dicks, take issue with the idea of Babylonian influence on Greek mathematics. For until around the time of Hipparchus (c. 190–120 BC) their sexagesimal system was unknown. Herodotus wrote
10848-430: The son of Peneleus , one of the leaders of the Boeotian contingent in the Catalogue , and living one generation after the war. It is not until the reign of Damasichthon , son of Opheltas , that control of Thebes was gained by the Boiotoi. Hence in this tradition one generation after the war, the Boiotoi were expelled and western Boeotia was invaded; two generations after the war, Thebes was won. A third tradition combines
10961-494: The south, Attica in the southeast, Euboea in the northeast, Opuntian Locris (now part of Phthiotis ) in the north and Phocis in the west. The main mountain ranges of Boeotia are Mount Parnassus in the west, Mount Helicon in the southwest, Cithaeron in the south and Parnitha in the east. Its longest river, the Cephissus , flows in the central part, where most of the low-lying areas of Boeotia are found. Lake Copais
11074-457: The stars were balls of dirt on fire. He seemed to correctly gather that the moon reflects the Sun's light. A crater on the Moon is named in his honor. Rather than assuming that earthquakes were the result of supernatural whims, Thales explained them by theorizing that the Earth floats on water and that earthquakes occur when the Earth is rocked by waves. He is attributed with the first observation of
11187-517: The syllabic script Linear B . Beginning in the 8th century BC, however, the Greek alphabet became standard, albeit with some variation among dialects. Early texts are written in boustrophedon style, but left-to-right became standard during the classic period. Modern editions of ancient Greek texts are usually written with accents and breathing marks , interword spacing , modern punctuation , and sometimes mixed case , but these were all introduced later. The beginning of Homer 's Iliad exemplifies
11300-523: The tholos tomb he called the "Tomb of Minyas ", a Mycenaean monument that equalled the beehive tomb known as the Treasury of Atreus at Mycenae . In 1893, A. de Ridder excavated the temple of Asclepios and some burials in the Roman necropolis. In 1903–05, a Bavarian archaeological mission under Heinrich Bulle and Adolf Furtwängler conducted successful excavations at the site. Research continued in 1970–73 by
11413-477: The tragic Greek poets, Aeschylus , Sophocles , and Euripides : They were also used in lost plays such as Aeschylus's Niobe and Euripides's Antiope . Boeotia was also notable for the ancient oracular shrine of Trophonius at Lebadea . Graea , an ancient city in Boeotia, is sometimes thought to be the origin of the Latin word Graecus , from which English derives the words Greece and Greeks . The major poets Hesiod and Pindar were Boeotians. Nonetheless,
11526-554: The underlying principles of many others to his successors, in some case his method being more general, in others more empirical." In addition to Proclus, Hieronymus of Rhodes (3rd century BC) also cites Thales as the first Greek mathematician. Proclus attributes to Thales the discovery that a circle is bisected by its diameter, that the base angles of an isosceles triangle are equal and that vertical angles are equal. Two fundamental theorems of elementary geometry are customarily called Thales's theorem : one of them has to do with
11639-442: The will of anthropomorphic gods and heroes . Instead, Thales aimed to explain natural phenomena via rational hypotheses that referenced natural processes themselves— Logos rather than mythos . Many, most notably Aristotle, regard him as the first philosopher in the Greek tradition . Rather than theologoi or mythologoi , Aristotle referred to the first philosophers as physiologoi , or natural philosophers, and Thales as
11752-433: The work, Aristotle reported Thales's theory that the arche or originating principle of nature was a single material substance : water. Aristotle then proceeded to proffer a number of conjectures based on his own observations to lend some credence to why Thales may have advanced this idea (though Aristotle did not hold it himself). While Aristotle's conjecture on why Thales held water as the originating principle of matter
11865-521: The writings of Thales amounted to two hundred lines. Thales thought the Earth must be a flat disk or mound of land and dirt which is floating in an expanse of water. Heraclitus Homericus states that Thales drew his conclusion from seeing moist substance turn into air, slime and earth. It seems likely that Thales viewed the land as coming from the water on which it floated and the oceans that surround it, perhaps inspired by observing silt deposits. He thought
11978-475: Was Aeolic. For example, fragments of the works of the poet Sappho from the island of Lesbos are in Aeolian. Most of the dialect sub-groups listed above had further subdivisions, generally equivalent to a city-state and its surrounding territory, or to an island. Doric notably had several intermediate divisions as well, into Island Doric (including Cretan Doric ), Southern Peloponnesus Doric (including Laconian ,
12091-502: Was a large lake in the center of Boeotia. It was drained in the 19th century. Lake Yliki is a large lake near Thebes . The origin of the name "Boeotians" may lie in the mountain Boeon in Epirus . The earliest inhabitants of Boeotia, associated with the city of Orchomenus , were called Minyans . Pausanias mentions that Minyans established the maritime Ionian city of Teos , and occupied
12204-415: Was attributed to Thales. They also indicate that he was familiar with the Egyptian seked , or seqed , the ratio of the run to the rise of a slope ( cotangent ). According to Kirk & Raven, all you need for this feat is three straight sticks pinned at one end and knowledge of your altitude. One stick goes vertically into the ground. A second is made level. With the third you sight the ship and calculate
12317-575: Was extant, is proved by the expressions which Aristotle uses when he brings forward the doctrines and proofs of the Milesian. (p. 1016) Most agree that Thales's stamp on thought is the unity of substance. Not merely the empirical claim that all is water, but the deeper philosophical claim that all is one. For example, Friedrich Nietzsche , in his Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks , wrote: Greek philosophy seems to begin with an absurd notion, with
12430-455: Was given to Thales, went the round of all the sages, and came back to Thales again. And he sent it to Apollo at Didyma , with this dedication...'Thales the Milesian, son of Examyas [dedicates this] to Delphinian Apollo after twice winning the prize from all the Greeks. ' " According to Diogenes Laërtius, Thales gained fame as a counselor when he advised the Milesians not to engage in a symmachia,
12543-523: Was heavily influenced by those of the Levant and Mesopotamia . It is said Thales was engaged in trade and visited either Egypt or Babylonia . However, there is no strong evidence that Thales ever visited countries in the Near East , and the issue is disputed among scholars. Visits to such places were a commonplace attribution to various philosophers by later writers, especially when these writers tried to explain
12656-518: Was now growing rife, and Sparta fostered this feeling by insisting on the complete independence of all the cities in the Peace of Antaclidas (387 BC). In 374 BC, Pelopidas restored Theban dominance. Boeotian contingents fought in all the campaigns of Epaminondas against the Spartans, most notably at the Battle of Leuctra in 371 BC, and in the Third Sacred War against Phocis (356–346 BC); while in
12769-491: Was split from Attica and Boeotia Prefecture . As a part of the 2011 Kallikratis government reform, the regional unit Boeotia was created out of the former prefecture Boeotia. The prefecture had the same territory as the present regional unit. At the same time, the municipalities were reorganised, according to the table below. The provinces were: Boeotia is the home of the third largest pasta factory in Europe, built by MISKO ,
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