Miletus

Certain · excavated, Ionia

Greatest of Ionian cities, mother of ninety colonies, and the birthplace of natural philosophy: Thales, who predicted an eclipse and said all is water; Anaximander, who wrote the first prose book and posited the boundless; Anaximenes, who chose air. That three successive Milesians asked what the world is made of, and answered without myth, is where this library’s whole philosophical line begins.