Greek Texts & Translations

"Heraclitus of Ephesus to King Darius, son of Hystaspes, greeting.

"All men upon earth hold aloof from truth and justice, while, by reason of wicked folly, they devote themselves to avarice and thirst for popularity. But I, being forgetful of all wickedness, shunning the general satiety which is closely joined with envy, and because I have a horror of splendour, could not come to Persia, being content with little, when that little is to my mind."

So independent was he even when dealing with a king.

Demetrius, in his book on Men of the Same Name, says that he despised even the Athenians, although held by them in the highest estimation ; and, notwithstanding that the Ephesians thought little of him, he preferred his own home the more. Demetrius of Phalerum, too, mentions him in his Defence of Socrates ^note; and the commentators on his work are very numerous, including as they do Antishenes and Heraclides of Pontus, Cleanthes and Sphaerus the Stoic, and again Pausanias who was called the imitator of Heraclitus, Nicomedes, Dionysius, and, among the grammarians, Diodotus. The latter affirms that it is not a treatise upon nature, but upon government, the physical part serving merely for illustration. ^note

Hieronymus tells us that Scythinus, the satirical poet, undertook to put the discourse of Heraclitus into verse. He is the subject of many epigrams, and amongst them of this one ^note:

Heraclitus am I. Why do ye drag me up and down, ye illiterate? It was not for you I toiled, but for such as understand me. One man in my sight is a match for thirty thousand, but the countless hosts do not make a single one. This I proclaim, yea in the halls of Persephone.

Another runs as follows ^note:

Do not be in too great a hurry to get to the end of Heraclitus the Ephesian's book : the path is hard to travel. Gloom is there and darkness devoid of light. But if an initiate be your guide, the path shines brighter than sunlight.

Five men have borne the name of Heraclitus : (1) our philosopher ; (2) a lyric poet, who wrote a hymn of praise to the twelve gods ; (3) an elegiac poet of Halicarnassus, on whom Callimachus wrote the following epitaph ^note:

They told me, Heraclitus, they told me you were dead,

They brought me bitter news to hear and bitter tears to shed.

I wept as I remembered how often you and I

Had tired the sun with talking and sent him down the sky.

And now that thou art lying, my dear old Carian guest,

A handful of grey ashes, long, long ago at rest,

Still are thy pleasant voices, thy nightingales, awake ;

For Death, he taketh all away, but them he cannot take ; ^note

(4) a Lesbian who wrote a history of Macedonia ;

(5) a jester who adopted this profession after having been a musician.