ON NATURE (Περὶ Φύσεως)

Anaximander of Miletus, c. 547 BCE — Recovered Fragments

Reconstructed from second-hand citations by Theophrastus (Physikōn Doxai, lost) and Hippolytus (Refutatio, I.6). Theophrastus, when subsequently asked, denied having read the original. The present recension follows Diels–Kranz numbering where possible, except for fragments B12a and B12b†, which Diels declined to number.

FRAG. B1

ἀρχή … τῶν ὄντων … τὸ ἄπειρον.

The first principle (archē) of all things that are is the boundless (apeiron).

FRAG. B2

ἐξ ὧν δὲ ἡ γένεσίς ἐστι τοῖς οὖσι, καὶ τὴν φθορὰν εἰς ταῦτα γίνεσθαι.

That from which all things come into being is also that into which they return at their destruction — for they pay penalty and recompense to one another for their injustice, according to the assessment of time.

FRAG. B12a†

… τὸ χάσμα τὸ ἀνοιγνύμενον [lacuna] ἀφ᾽ οὗ πάντα κρίνεται.

… the gaping vessel from which all judgement flows.‡

FRAG. B12b†

μὴ βλέπε πρὸς αὐτό. [———————] ὅτι ἤδη βλέπει.

Do not look directly at it. [lacuna of c. 14 letters] because it is already looking.

FRAG. B14

ὁ κόσμος ἄπειρός ἐστι, καὶ φθίνει εἰς τὸ [———].

The cosmos is boundless, and decays into the [unreadable].

FRAG. B17 (disputed)

ἐν τῷ Λινγκλεστάουν [———————]

In Linglestown [lacuna] — the place-name as transmitted is, on its face, anachronistic by approximately 2,400 years. Authenticity is, accordingly, contested by every responsible scholar and asserted by Hjelms (2003).

† Fragments B12a and B12b appear in the margins of a single 11th-century Vatican manuscript (Cod. Vat. gr. 1773) and nowhere else. The hand is not the manuscript’s primary hand.

‡ Hippolytus, citing Theophrastus, glosses this fragment with the note: “concerning which, he refused to elaborate.” The referent of “he” is grammatically ambiguous in the Greek and may refer either to Anaximander or to the gaping vessel itself.

— recovered fragments end here —