Anaximĕnes

, a philosopher, son of Eras i stratus and disciple of Anaximander, whom he succeeded in his school. He said that the air was the cause of every created being, and a self-existent divinity, and that the sun, the moon, and the stars, had been made from the earth. He considered the earth as a plain, and the heavens as a solid concave figure, on which the stars were fixed like nails, an opinion prevalent at that time, and from which originated the proverb, τι εἰ οὐρανος ἐμπεσοι , if the heavens should fall? to which Horace has alluded, bk. 3 , Odes , poem 3, li. 7 . He died 504 years B.C. Cicero , Academicæ Quæstiones , bk. 4 , ch. 37 ; de Natura Deorum , bk. 1 , ch. 10 .— Plutarch , Quæstiones Convivales .— Pliny , bk. 2 , ch. 76 .――A native of Lampsacus, son of Aristocles. He was pupil to Diogenes the cynic, and preceptor to Alexander the Great, of whose life, and that of Philip, he wrote the history. When Alexander, in a fit of anger, threatened to put to death all the inhabitants of Lampsacus, because they had maintained a long siege against him, Anaximenes was sent by his countrymen to appease the king, who, as soon as he saw him, swore he would not grant the favour he was going to ask. Upon this, Anaximenes begged the king to destroy the city and enslave the inhabitants, and by this artful request the city of Lampsacus was saved from destruction. Besides the life of Philip and his son, he wrote a history of Greece, in 12 books, all now lost. His nephew bore the same name, and wrote an account of ancient paintings. Pausanias , bk. 6 , ch. 18 .— Valerius Maximus , bk. 7 , ch. 3 .— Diogenes Laërtius , Lives of Eminent Philosophers .