Page "Anaxagoras" Paragraph 2

Anaxagoras appears to have had some amount of property and prospects of political influence in his native town of Clazomenae in Asia Minor.

However, he supposedly surrendered both of these out of a fear that they would hinder his search for knowledge.

Valerius Maximus preserves a different tradition: Anaxagoras, coming home from a long voyage, found his property in ruin, and said: " If this had not perished, I would have.

" A sentence, denoted by Maximus, as being " possessed of sought-after wisdom!

" Although a Greek, he may have been a soldier of the Persian army when Clazomenae was suppressed during the Ionian Revolt.