Rosicrucian Beacon Magazine - 2012-09 - AMORC

Míletus held a trading concession at Naucratis on the Canopic or westernmost branchof the Nile, and it is possible that Thales first visited Egypt on a trading mission whereit is reputed he gave a demonstration to the Pharaoh Ahmose II on how to measurethe height of the Great Pyramid.Athens, another of the Seven Sages of Greece. If Thales didproduce any children, none of them became prominentenough to become historically recorded. And though weremember Thales primarily as a philosopher and scientist,he was not exactly a pauper. He was an enterprisingbusinessman, becoming a dealer in olive oil and salt.It occurred to me that establishing whether ornot Thales travelled and which countries he visited isimportant to establish what information he could haveacquired from other sources. Plato made the pointthat the Greeks took from foreigners what was of valueand developed their notions into better ideas.Eudemus, who was one of Aristotle’s students,believed that Thales had travelled to Egypt. Anumber of ancient sources support that opinion,including some who stated that he spent timewith the Egyptian priests. By 620 BCE, or even earlier,Míletus held a trading concession at Naucratis on theCanopic or westernmost branch of the Nile, and itis possible that Thales first visited Egypt on a tradingmission. Travel to Egypt would not have been difficult.The wealth of Míletus was the result of its success as atrading centre, and there would have been no difficultyarranging passage on one of the many vessels which tradedwith Egypt. It is related that while in Egypt, he gave ademonstration to Pharaoh Amasis (Ahmose II) of the26 th dynasty, whose capital was at Sais near Naucratis,by merely thrusting his staff into the ground at the endof the shadow cast by a pyramid, and thus, byforming another shadow, he compared the twoshadows and measured the height of the pyramidfor the pharaoh. He is also said to have given anexplanation for the inundation of the Nile afterwitnessing the phenomenon.Josephus wrote that Thales was a discipleof the Egyptians and the Chaldeans whichsuggests that he also visited what is now Iraq. It isthought that Thales visited the Babylonians andChaldeans and had access to their astrologicalrecords which enabled him to predict the solareclipse of 585 BCE.Míletus had founded many colonies,perhaps as many as 90, around the Mediterraneanand especially along the coasts of the BlackSea. The Milesians traded their goods for rawmaterials, especially iron, timber and fish.Strabo mentions a sheep-industry and the yieldof soft wool, and Aristophanes mentioned thefine and luxurious Milesian wool. The Milesiantraders also had access to the hinterland. Theland around the mouth of the river Maeanderwas fertile, and planted with olive trees. Thaleshimself was associated with a commercial venture in theproduction of olive oil in Míletus and on the island ofChios, but his interests may have extended beyond thosetwo places. Olive oil was a basic item in the Mediterraneandiet, and was probably a trading commodity of someimportance to Milesian commerce.It seems likely that Thales was one of the ‘greatteachers’ who, according to Herodotus, visited Croesus,the king of Lydia, in his capital Sardis. From Sardis, hecould have joined a caravan to make the three-monthjourney along the well-used road, to visit the observatoriesThales realised that certain definite principlesapplied to geometric shapes.in Babylonia, and seek out the astronomical knowledgewhich the Babylonians had accumulated over centuriesof observation. Alternatively, as Milesian merchantmencontinually plied the Black Sea, gaining a passage on shipcould have been easily arranged. From any number ofports Thales could have sought information, and from theport of Sinope he may have ventured on the long journeyto Babylonia, perhaps travelling along the valley of theTigris, as Xenophon did in 401-399 BCE.In a letter said to be from Thales to the mysticPherecydes of Syros, regarded as the teacher of Pythagoras,Thales stated that he and Solon had both visited CreteThe Rosicrucian Beacon -- September 201211