Note 444 — Chapter XVII · LYDIANS. — MEDES. — CIMMERIANS. — SCYTHIANS.
Reading edition
Compare the analogous case of the prediction of the coming olive crop ascribed to Thalês (Aristot. Polit. i, 4, 5; Cicero, De Divinat. i, 3). Anaxagoras is asserted to have predicted the fall of an aërolithe (Aristot. Meteorol. i, 7; Pliny, H. N. ii, 58; Plutarch, Lysand. c. 5).
Thalês is said by Herodotus to have predicted that the eclipse would take place “in the year in which it actually did occur,”—a statement so vague that it strengthens the grounds of doubt.
The fondness of the Ionians for exhibiting the wisdom of their eminent philosopher Thalês, in conjunction with the history of the Lydian kings, may be seen farther in the story of Thalês and Crœsus at the river Halys (Herod. i, 75),—a story which Herodotus himself disbelieves.