ABSTRACT
We know that Thales was, in his lifetime, a celebrity, and that his achievements were unique. We know he was publicly honoured in Mytilene and Athens; we have a definite idea of the rumours about his public recognition as the most distinguished among the sophoi of his time; we know that some articulate account of his specialist knowledge gained currency outside Miletus (e.g. at Massalia) and contributed to his fame; we know that hardly another Presocratic who lived in the sixth or the first decades of the fifth century (Anaximander, Anaximenes, Hecataeus, Pythagoras, Xenophanes, Heraclitus, and others), raised so widespread interests as he. Another thing we know is that Diogenes Laertius, who seems to have screened his information carefully, favouring what is most immediately intelligible and most intriguing (and leaving aside what was unnecessarily complicate), was able to select a rather impressive amount of news about Thales. Thanks to the abundance of information he resolved to select for this chapter of book one, we can at least figure how vast the documentation exploited by him must have been.
