  Anaxagoras, son of Hegesibulus (or Eubulus), was a native of Clazomenae, on the west coast of what is now Turkey. According to Diogenes Laertius (see the article on Doxography of Ancient Philosophy) (Diels-Kranz [DK] 59 A1), Anaxagoras came from an aristocratic and landed family, but abandoned his inheritance to study philosophy. (We do not know how he acquired his philosophical learning). He came to Athens (perhaps about the middle of the 5th century, perhaps earlier), and was a friend and protégé of Pericles, the Athenian general and political leader. There is controversy about his time in Athens; Diogenes Laertius says that he came to Athens to study philosophy as a young man. Some scholars claim that his arrival was as early as the Persian invasion of 480 (O’Brien 1968, Woodbury 1981, Graham 2006), others argue for a later date of about 456 (Mansfeld 1979, see also Mansfeld 2011 on Aristotle’s evidence; there is a good discussion of the problems about dating Anaxagoras’ life in Sider 2005). It is clear from their dramas that his work was known to Sophocles, Euripides, and perhaps Aeschylus (Seneca suggests in his Natural Questions 4a.2.17 that they shared Anaxagoras’ view about the source of the Nile); it was certainly familiar to the comic playwright Aristophanes (Curd 2007, Sider 2005; see Mansfeld 1979). He was a resident in the city for at least twenty years; he was said to have been charged with impiety (and perhaps with Medism, political sympathy with the Persians), and banished from the city (437/6?). The charges against Anaxagoras may have been as much political as religious, because of his close association with Pericles. He retreated to Lampsacus (in the eastern Hellespont) where he died; ancient reports say that he was much honored there before and after his death. Democritus, a younger contemporary, dated his own life in relation to Anaxagoras’, saying that he was young in the old age of Anaxagoras (DK59A5); he reportedly accused Anaxagoras of plagiarism. Although Anaxagoras lived in Athens when Socrates was a youth and young adult, there are no reports that Anaxagoras and Socrates ever met. In Plato’s Phaedo, Socrates says that he heard someone reading from Anaxagoras’ book (probably Archelaus, who was, according to Diogenes Laertius, pupil of Anaxagoras and teacher of Socrates).  Anaxagoras is included in the ancient lists of those who wrote only one book: in the Apology, Socrates reports that it could be bought for a drachma.