Editing Theogony (section)

==Influence on earliest Greek philosophy==
[[File:Anaximander Mosaic (cropped, with sundial).jpg|thumb|Ancient Roman mosaic from Johannisstraße, [[Trier]], dating to the early third century AD, showing the [[Pre-Socratic philosophy|Pre-Socratic]] philosopher [[Anaximander|Anaximander of Miletus]] holding a sundial<ref>{{cite web|last1=Zühmer|first1=T. H.|title=Roman Mosaic Depicting Anaximander with Sundial|url=http://isaw.nyu.edu/exhibitions/time-cosmos/objects/roman-mosaic-anaximander|website=Institute for the Study of the Ancient World|date=19 October 2016 |publisher=New York University}}</ref>]]
The heritage of Greek mythology already embodied the desire to articulate reality as a whole, and this universalizing impulse was fundamental for the first projects of speculative theorizing. It appears that the order of being was first imaginatively visualized before it was abstractly thought. Hesiod, impressed by necessity governing the ordering of things, discloses a definite pattern in the genesis and appearance of the gods. These ideas made something like ''cosmological'' speculation possible. The earliest rhetoric of reflection all centers about two interrelated things: the experience of wonder as a living involvement with the divine order of things; and the absolute conviction that, beyond the totality of things, reality forms a beautiful and harmonious whole.<ref>{{cite book|title=Presocratic Philosophy vol.3|author=Barry Sandywell|year=1996|publisher=Rootledge New York}} p. 28, 42</ref>

In the ''Theogony'', the origin (''[[arche]]'') is ''Chaos'', a divine primordial condition, and there are the roots and the ends of the earth, sky, sea, and [[Tartarus]]. [[Pherecydes of Syros]] (6th century BC), believed that there were three pre-existent divine principles and called the water also Chaos.<ref>[[Diels–Kranz numbering system|DK]] B1a</ref> In the language of the archaic period (8th – 6th century BC), ''arche'' (or ''archai'') designates the source, origin, or root of things that exist. If a thing is to be well established or founded, its ''arche'' or static point must be secure, and the most secure foundations are those provided by the gods: the indestructible, immutable, and eternal ordering of things.<ref>{{cite book|title=Presocratic philosophy vol.3|author=Barry Sandwell|year=1996|publisher=Rootledge New York|isbn=9780415101707}} p.142</ref>

In ancient [[Greek philosophy]], ''arche'' is the element or first principle of all things, a permanent nature or substance which is conserved in the generation of the rest of it. From this, all things come to be, and into it they are resolved in a final state.<ref>[[Aristotle]], ''[[Metaphysics (Aristotle)|Metaph.]]'' Α983.b6ff</ref> It is the divine horizon of substance that encompasses and rules all things. [[Thales]] (7th – 6th century BC), the first Greek philosopher, claimed that the first principle of all things is water. [[Anaximander]] (6th century BC) was the first philosopher who used the term ''arche'' for that which writers from Aristotle on call the "substratum".<ref>[[Hippolytus of Rome]] I.6.I [[Diels–Kranz numbering system|DK]] B2</ref> Anaximander claimed that the beginning or first principle is an endless mass (''[[Apeiron (cosmology)|Apeiron]]'') subject to neither age nor decay, from which all things are being born and then they are destroyed there. A fragment from [[Xenophanes]] (6th century BC) shows the transition from ''Chaos'' to ''Apeiron'': "The upper limit of earth borders on air. The lower limit of earth reaches down to the unlimited (i.e the Apeiron)."<ref>{{cite book|title=The World of Parmenides|author=[[Karl Popper]]|year=1998|publisher=Rootledge New York|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=V76PlyggwQkC|isbn=9780415173018}} p. 39</ref>