previous next


Thales of Miletus (Athen. ii. 87) attributed the rise of the Nile to its being held back by the Etesian winds. H.'s refutation is sensible; the winds blow from the north-west, and so would have affected equally the rivers of Africa and of Syria. But it must be admitted that neither land has ‘many rivers’, and of the Syrian ones, the Orontes flows south-west, and so would not have been affected. In Africa H. knew of the Cinyps and the Triton (iv. 175, 178 nn.).

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.

hide Display Preferences
Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar: