Note 6 — Chapter I · SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY IN GREECE, BEFORE AND IN THE TIME OF SOKRATES.
Reading edition
Aristotel. Metaphys. A. 3, p. 983, b. 21. De Cœlo, ii. 13, p. 294, a. 29. Θαλῆς, ὁ τῆς τοιαύτης ἀρχηγὸς φιλοσοφίας, &c. Seneca, Natural. Quæst. vi. 6.
Pherekydes, Epimenides, &c., were contemporary with the earliest Ionic philosophers (Brandis, Handbuch der Gesch. der Gr.-Röm. Phil., s. 23).
According to Plutarch (Aquæ et Ignis Comparatio, p. 955, init.), most persons believed that Hesiod, by the word Chaos, meant Water. Zeno the Stoic adopted this interpretation (Schol. Apollon. Rhod. i. 498). On the other hand, Bacchylides the poet, and after him Zenodotus, called Air by the name Chaos (Schol. Hesiod. Theogon. p. 392, Gaisf.). Hermann considers that the Hesiodic Chaos means empty space (see note, Brandis, Handb. d. Gesch. d. Gr.-Röm. Phil., vol. i., p. 71).