Anaxagŏras

, succeeded his father Megapenthes on the throne of Argos. He shared the sovereign power with Bias and Melampus, who had cured the women of Argos of madne . Pausanias , bk. 2 , ch. 18 .――A Clazomenian philosopher, son of Hegesibulus, disciple to Anaximes and preceptor to So crates and Euripi des. He disregarded wealth and honours, to indulge his fondne for meditation and philosophy. He applied himself to astronomy, was acquainted with eclipses, and predicted that one day a stone would fall from the sun, which it is said really fell into the river Ægos. Anaxagoras travelled into Egypt for improvement, and used to say that he preferred a grain of wisdom to heaps of gold. Pericles was in the number of his pupils, and often consulted him in matters of state; and once di uaded him from starving himself to death. The ideas of Anaxagoras concerning the heavens were wild and extravagant. He supposed that the sun was inflammable matter, about the bigne of Peloponnesus; and that the moon was inhabited. The heavens he believed to be of stone, and the earth of similar materials. He was accused of impiety and condemned to die; but he ridiculed the sentence, and said it had long been pronounced upon him by nature. Being asked whether his body should be carried into his own country, he answered, no, as the road that led to the other side of the grave was as long from one place as the other. His scholar Pericles pleaded eloquently and succe fully for him, and the sentence of death was exchanged for banishment. In prison, the philosopher is said to have attempted to square the circle, or determine exactly the proportion of its diameter to the circumference. When the people of Lampsacus asked him before his death whether he wished anything to be done in commemoration of him, “Yes,” said he, “let the boys be allowed to play on the anniversary of my death.” This was carefully observed, and that time, dedicated to relaxation, was called Anaxagoreia . He died at Lampsacus in his 72nd year, 428 B.C. His writings were not much esteemed by his pupil So crates. Diogenes Laërtius , Lives of Eminent Philosophers .— Plutarch , Nicias & Pericles .— Cicero , Academicæ qua est i ones , bk. 4 , ch. 23 ; Tusculanæ Dis put at i ones , bk. 1 , ch. 43 .――A statuary of Ægin a. Pausanias , bk. 5 , ch. 23 .――A grammarian, disciple to Zenodotus. Diogenes Laërtius. ――An orator, disciple to So crates. Diogenes Laërtius. ――A son of Echeanox, who, with his brothers Codrus and Diodorus, destroyed Hegesias tyrant of Ephesus.