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Thales of Miletus GREEK PHILOSOPHER Thales of Miletus, (flourished 6th century BCE), philosopher renowned as one of the legendary Seven Wise Men, or Sophoi, of antiquity (see philosophy, Western: The pre-Socratic philosophers). He is remembered primarily for his cosmology based on water as the essence of all matter, with the Earth a flat disk floating on a vast sea. The Greek historian Diogenes Laërtius (flourished 3rd century CE), quoting Apollodorus of Athens(flourished  BCE), placed the birth of Thales during the 35th Olympiad (apparently a transcription error; it should read the 39th Olympiad, c.  BCE) and his death in the 58th Olympiad (– BCE) at the age of No writings by Thales survive, and no contemporary sources exist. Thus, his achievements are difficult to assess. Inclusion of his name in the canon of the legendary Seven Wise Men led to his idealization, and numerous acts and sayings, many of them no doubt spurious, were attributed to him, such as “Know thyself” and “Nothing in excess.” According to the historian Herodotus (c. –c.  BCE), Thales was a practical statesman who advocated the federation of the Ionian cities of the Aegean region. The poet-scholar Callimachus (c. –c.  BCE) recorded a traditional belief that Thales advised navigators to st

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