IV. HERAKLEITOS.

According to Apollodoros, Herakleitos son of Blyson flourished in the sixty-ninth Olympiad (504-501 B.C.). An attempt to fix the date from his reference to the expulsion from Ephesos of his friend Hermodoros (Frag. 114) has resulted in a somewhat later date, though it is by no means impossible that Hermodoros was expelled during Persian rule in the city. Beyond the fact that Herakleitos lived in Ephesos we know nothing of his life; of the many stories related about him most can be proved false, and there is no reason for crediting the remainder. His philosophic position is clear, however, since he refers to Pythagoras and Xenophanes (Fr. 16-17), and Parmenides (Vss. 46 sqq.) seems to refer to him. His book is said to have been divided into three parts:—(1) Concerning the All; (2) Political; (3) Theological. Even in antiquity he was surnamed the ‘dark’ or the ‘obscure.’

Literature: Schleiermacher, Op. Phil. ii. 1-146; Bernays, Ges. Abhandl. i.; Lassalle, Die Philosophie Herakleitos des dunklen, Berl. 1858; P. Schuster, ‘Heraklit von Ephesos,’ in Act. soc. phil. Lips. 1873, 111; Teichmüller, Neue Studien zur Gesch. d. Begriffe, Gotha 1876-1878; Bywater, Heracl. Eph. Reliquiae, Oxford 1877; Gomperz, ‘Zu Herakl. Lehre,’ Sitz. d. Wien. Ak. 1886, p. 977 ff.; Patin, Herakl. Einheitslehre, Leipzig 1886, ‘Quellenstudien zu Heraklit,’ in Festschrift f. L. Urlichs, 1880, Herakleitische Beispiele, Progr. Neuburg, 1892-1893; E. Pfleiderer, Die Philosophie des Heraklits im Lichte der Mysterienidee, Berlin 1886; also Rhein. Mus. xlii. 153 ff.; JBB. f. protest. Theol. xiv. 177 ff.; E. Wambier, Studia Heraclitea, Diss. Berlin 1891.

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