properties. This work broke with the mythological and theological tradition and shows Eastern influences. Pherecydes, along with Anaximander and Anaximenes, has long been regarded as one of the first Greek writers to compose his work in prose rather than hexameter verse. Martin Litchfield West notes that the subject matter that all of three of these authors wrote on, the nature of the universe and how it came to be, had been written in verse prior to these authors. West speculates based on the word choice that early logographers used ("words I have heard" instead of "I have read") that the original intent of a book written in prose was essentially a "write-up" of a lecture that a person interest in topics such as cosmology gave as a speech or public discourse. The book was known variously under the titles such as Seven niches ( Heptamychos, Ἑπτάμυχος), "Five niches" (Pentemychos, Πεντέμυχος), and Mixing of the Gods (Theokrasia, Θεοκρασία). In this work, Pherecydes taught his philosophy through the medium of mythic representations. Although it is lost, it was extant in the Hellenistic period, and the fragments and testimony that survive from works that describe it are enough to reconstruct a basic outline. The opening sentence is given by Diogenes Laertius, and two fragments in the middle of the text have also been preserved in fragments from a 3rd century Egyptian papyrus discovered by Bernard Pyne Grenfell and Arthur Surridge Hunt, which was identified thanks to a comment by Clement of Alexandria about the contents of Pherecydes' book: 'Pherecydes of Syros says: "Zas make a great and beautiful robe, and make the earth and Ogenus on it, and the palace of Ogenus".' Theogony Pherecydes developed a unique, syncretistic theogony with a new beginning stage, in which Zas, Chronos, and Chthoniê were the first gods to exist all along. He was probably the first to do this. There is no creation out of nothing (creatio ex nihilo). The cosmogony is justified through etymology, a new understanding of the deity Kronos as Chronos and the insertion of a creator god (demiurge). Also, Pherecydes combined Greek mythology with non-Greek myths and religions. According to Aristotle, he was innovative in his approach, because he broke with the theological tradition and combined mythology with philosophy. Pherecydes' creation story therefore had to be more rational and concrete than Hesiod's Theogony. He wrote that first Chaos came to be (genetos)