Anaximander (ca 610 - 546 BCE) was a younger contemporary of Thales and, chronologically, the second of the three principal philosophers of the Milesian (Ionian) school. (The other two being Anaxagoras and Anaximenes.) He wrote the first surviving lines of western philosophy, and offered philosophical speculations in the fields of astronomy, geography and biology. Anaximander was also the first known Greek to attempt to create a map of the world. He thought of the earth as a stubby cylinder situated in the center of all things.