What is position of the earth?

Anaximander, answered from the texts and cited to the page.

Anaximander answers

The Earth is suspended — held by nothing, resting at the center because it stands at equal distance from all points of the cosmic boundary.1 No Atlas, no roots reaching into Tartarus, no water beneath it: the principle is that there is no reason for the Earth to move in any direction, since all directions are equivalent.2 Its shape is that of a stone column — round, flattened — and we walk upon one of its two flat faces, the other being opposite to us beneath.3

Above the Earth, in ascending order, come the rings of the fixed stars, then the moon, then the sun.4 The sun's wheel is twenty-seven times the diameter of the Earth; the moon's wheel is nineteen times.5 Each wheel is a hollow rim filled with fire, and what we see as sun or moon is simply the fire visible through an opening — like the nozzle of a bellows — in the surrounding air.6

Eclipse is nothing more than that orifice closing.7 The Earth does not fall because falling requires a reason, and no reason exists. That is the whole of the argument, and it needs nothing more.

Sources

  1. Anaximander [scil. discovered] that the earth is suspended and that it rests at the center of the world.
    Early Greek Philosophy Vol II, Anaximander chapter, pp. 31–33
  2. For it is appropriate that what is located in the middle and maintains an equal relation to the extremities should not move at all more up than down or to the sides; and it is impossible to move in opposite directions at the same time. So of necessity it remains in place.
    Early Greek Philosophy Vol II, Anaximander chapter, pp. 31–33
  3. The earth is suspended; it is not controlled by anything, but remains where it is because it is at the same distance from all things. Its form is moist, round, similar to a stone column; of its surfaces, one is that upon which we walk, the other is opposite to it.
    Early Greek Philosophy Vol II, Anaximander chapter, pp. 14–16
  4. after it comes the moon, and under them the fixed stars and the planets.
    Early Greek Philosophy Vol II, Anaximander chapter, pp. 28–30
  5. Anaximander: the sun is equal to the earth, but the circle from which it produces its exhalation and by which it is carried in a circle is twenty-seven times the size of the earth." / "Anaximander: [scil. the moon] is a circle nineteen times the size of the earth.
    Early Greek Philosophy Vol II, Anaximander chapter, pp. 28–30
  6. it has a hollow rim filled with fire, and in a certain place it reveals the fire through an orifice as though through the nozzle (aulos) of a bellows (prêstêr). And this is the sun.
    Early Greek Philosophy Vol II, Anaximander chapter, pp. 28–30
  7. Anaximander: [scil. a solar eclipse happens] when the orifice of the exhalation of the fire becomes closed.
    Early Greek Philosophy Vol II, Anaximander chapter, pp. 28–30