Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers

​And all of this came to pass. But while the citizens were escorting Heraclides and shouting acclamations, the serpent, hearing the tumult, crept out of the clothes and threw most of them into confusion. Afterward, however, everything was exposed, and Heraclides was seen not as he had seemed to be, but as he really was. And our own epigram upon him runs as follows: "You wished to leave among men the report, Heraclides, that having died you had become for all a living serpent. Yet you were deceived, subtle plotter; for truly the beast was indeed a serpent, but you were caught being a beast, and not wise at all." Hippobotus also relates these things.

​Hermippus, however, says that when a famine gripped the country, the Heracleots asked the Pythia for relief. Heraclides, he says, bribed with money both the sacred envoys and the prophetess mentioned above, so that she proclaimed that they would be rid of the evil if, while he lived, Heraclides the son of Euthyphron were crowned by them with a golden crown, and after his death were honored as a hero. The purported oracle was brought back, but those who fabricated it gained nothing from it. For immediately, while being crowned in the theater, Heraclides suffered a stroke, and the sacred envoys were stoned to death. Moreover, the Pythia herself, going down at that very hour into the inner shrine and stepping upon one of the serpents, was bitten and instantly expired. Such are the accounts concerning his death.

​Aristoxenus the musical theorist also says that he composed tragedies and inscribed the name of Thespis upon them. Chamaeleon too says that he stole material from him to write his work On Hesiod and Homer. Furthermore, Autodorus the Epicurean censures him, arguing against his dialogue On Justice. In addition, Dionysius the Renegade (or, as some say, Spintharus), having written the Parthenopaeus, attributed it to Sophocles. Heraclides, believing this, used citations from it in one of his own writings as being by Sophocles.

​Dionysius, having realized this, revealed the truth to him; and when Heraclides denied it and refused to believe, Dionysius sent word to him to look at the acrostic; and it spelled "Pankalos." This was the beloved boy of Dionysius. When Heraclides, still disbelieving, said that it was possible for such a thing to occur by chance, Dionysius wrote back again that he would also find the following: "A: An old ape is not caught in a trap. B: He is caught indeed, but caught after a time." And in addition to these: "Heraclides does not understand his letters, nor did he blush." Now, there have been fourteen men named Heraclides: the first is this man himself; the second, a fellow citizen of his, who composed pyrrhic dances

​and trifling verses; the third, a man of Cyme, who wrote a Persian History in five books; the fourth, a man of Cyme, a rhetorician who wrote arts of rhetoric; the fifth, a native of Callatis or Alexandria, who wrote the Succession in six books and a Discourse on Skiffs, whence he was also called Lembos; the sixth, an Alexandrian, who wrote on the peculiarities of the Persians; the seventh, a dialectician of Bargylia, who wrote against Epicurus; the eighth, a physician belonging to the school of Hicesius; the ninth, a physician of Tarentum, an Empiricist; the tenth, a poet, who wrote moral counsels; the eleventh, a sculptor of Phocaea; the twelfth, a melodious writer of epigrams; the thirteenth, a Magnesian, who wrote a History of Mithridates; the fourteenth, an author of astronomical writings.