Thales of Miletus
Life

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 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 occurred at the age of 40, the chronicle of Apollodorus of Athens, written during the 2nd century BC, therefore placed Thales's birth about the year 625 BC.
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