2. There can be no doubt that the founder of the Milesian school, and therefore the first of the cosmologists, was Thales;[55] but all we can really be said to know of him comes from Herodotos, and the romance of the Seven Wise Men was already in existence when he wrote. He tells us, in the first place, that Thales was of Phoenician descent, a statement which other writers explained by saying he belonged to the Thelidai, a noble house descended from Kadmos and Agenor.[56] This is clearly connected with the view of Herodotos that there were “Kadmeians” from Boiotia among the original Ionian colonists, and it is certain that there really were people called Kadmeians in several Ionic cities.[57] Whether they were of Semitic origin is, of course, another matter. Herodotos probably mentions the supposed descent of Thales simply because he was believed to have introduced certain improvements in navigation from Phoenicia.[58] At any rate, the name Examyes, which his father bore, lends no support to the view that he was a Semite. It is a Karian name, and the Karians had been almost completely assimilated by the Ionians. On the monuments, we find Greek and Karian names alternating in the same families, and there is therefore no reason to suppose that Thales was anything else than an ordinary Milesian citizen, though perhaps with Karian blood in his veins.[59] Footnote 55: Simplicius, indeed, quotes from Theophrastos the statement that Thales had many predecessors (_Dox._ p. 475, 11). This, however, need not trouble us; for the scholiast on Apollonios Rhodios (ii. 1248) tells us that Theophrastos made Prometheus the first philosopher, which is merely an application of Peripatetic literalism to a remark of Plato’s (_Phileb._ 16 c 6). Cf. Appendix, § 2. Footnote 56: Herod. i. 170 (R. P. 9 d.); Diog. i. 22 (R. P. 9). Footnote 57: Strabo, xiv. pp. 633, 636; Pausan. vii. 2, 7. Priene was called Kadme, and the oldest annalist of Miletos bore the name Kadmos. See E. Meyer, _Gesch. des Alterth._ ii. § 158. Footnote 58: Diog. i. 23, Καλλίμαχος δ’ αὐτὸν οἶδεν εὑρετὴν τῆς ἄρκτου τῆς μικρᾶς λέγων ἐν τοῖς Ἰάμβοις οὕτως— καὶ τῆς ἁμάξης ἐλέγετο σταθμήσασθαι τοὺς ἀστερίσκους, ᾗ πλέουσι Φοίνικες. Footnote 59: See Diels, “Thales ein Semite?” (_Arch._ ii. 165 sqq.), and Immisch, “Zu Thales Abkunft” (_ib._ p. 515). The name Examyes occurs also in Kolophon (Hermesianax, _Leontion_, fr. 2, 38 Bgk.), and may be compared with other Karian names such as Cheramyes and Panamyes. [Sidenote: The eclipse foretold by Thales.]