ABSTRACT
In the case of the Miletus in which Thales was formed, people have the privilege of being able to detect a large number of specific factors. The creation of such important contacts ensured the city some useful relationships and additional resources. Political and economic frameworks tend to set boundaries within which things move. Culture, institutionalized beliefs, and the collective imaginative world defined the tracks along which creativity unfolded. The success of the epic was of incomparable importance for Greece, since it forged a common store of mental resources for the Hellenes. Skilful verbalization, which was certainly the mature fruit of a long exercise by a wide community of singer-storytellers, must have constituted another real novelty for the time, a Greek achievement and something which would also win attentive reception. The Olympic games, the Pythian games, the Panathenaic games, and other similar gatherings were also ways of presenting a distinct self-image.
