# Anaximenes — The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers character guide

> Anaximenes in The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers by Diogenes Laërtius.

**Role:** supporting

**First appearance:** 0017-anaximenes

## Snapshot

The Milesian who declared that air is the soul of the cosmos, and whose letters reveal a philosopher trembling under the shadow of Persian conquest.

## Who they are

Anaximenes of Miletus was the third of the great Milesian cosmologists, following Thales and Anaximander, and he taught that everything arises from air through rarefaction and condensation. His surviving letters to Pythagoras paint a different picture: a man anxious about the Medes, urging his friend to stay safe in Crotona while the Ionians face slavery. He matters because he shows the Pre-Socratic project not as abstract speculation but as a way of life under political threat.

## In the story

### [Anaximenes](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_lives_and_opinions_of_eminent_philosophers_se/chapters/anaximenes)

Main subject of the chapter; pupil of Anaximander, philosopher who taught air as the first principle.

### [Anaxagoras](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_lives_and_opinions_of_eminent_philosophers_se/chapters/anaxagoras)

Mentioned as the teacher of Anaxagoras.

### [Diogenes](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_lives_and_opinions_of_eminent_philosophers_se/chapters/diogenes)

A fat orator whose lecture Diogenes disrupts with a piece of salt fish.

### [Diogenes of Apollonia](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_lives_and_opinions_of_eminent_philosophers_se/chapters/diogenes-of-apollonia)

Reported by Antisthenes as the teacher of Diogenes of Apollonia.

## Links

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