Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers

​Seleucus the grammarian, however, says that a certain Croton records in his Diver that a certain Crates was the first to bring the book to Greece, and that he also said it required a Delian diver who would not be drowned in it. Some entitle it The Muses, others On Nature; Diodotus entitles it "A precise helm for the balance of life," others "A guide of conduct, the keel of the whole cosmos, one and all." They say that when asked why he kept silent, he replied: "So that you may chatter." Darius also desired to enjoy his company and wrote to him as follows:

"King Darius, son of Hystaspes, greets Heraclitus of Ephesus, a wise man. "You have put forth a treatise On Nature which is hard to understand and hard to interpret. In certain parts, when interpreted according to your own expression, it seems to possess a certain power of contemplation of the whole cosmos and of the things occurring in it, which are situated in the divinest motion; but in most parts it causes suspension of judgment, so that even those most versed in writings are at a loss regarding the interpretation that seems to have been correctly written by you. King Darius, son of Hystaspes, wishes therefore to share in your instruction and in Greek education. Come, then, promptly to my presence and to the royal palace.

​For the Greeks for the most part, being unappreciative of wise men, overlook the noble things set forth by them for serious listening and learning. But at my court there will be every precedence for you, daily noble and serious conversation, and a life made illustrious by your counsels." "Heraclitus of Ephesus greets King Darius, son of Hystaspes. "All men who dwell upon the earth keep aloof from truth and justice, but devote themselves to insatiable greed and vainglory because of their evil folly. But I, possessing forgetfulness of every wickedness, shunning the satiety that is intimate with envy, and avoiding ostentation, would not come to the land of the Persians, being content with few things according to my own mind." Such a man was he, even toward a king.

​Demetrius says in his Men of the Same Name that he even looked down upon the Athenians, though holding highest renown among them, and chose his own home rather, although despised by the Ephesians. Demetrius of Phalerum also mentions him in his Apology of Socrates. The commentators on his treatise are very numerous; for there are Antisthenes, Heraclides Ponticus, Cleanthes, and Sphaerus the Stoic, and besides these Pausanias, who was called the Heraclitean, Nicomedes, and Dionysius; and among the grammarians Diodotus, who asserts that the treatise is not about nature, but about the commonwealth, and that what pertains to nature is placed there by way of example.

​Hieronymus says that Scythinus the iambic poet also undertook to set his doctrine into verse. Many epigrams are current about him, and especially this one: "I am Heraclitus: why do you drag me up and down, uncultured men? I labored not for you, but for those who understand me. One man to me is thirty thousand, and the unnumbered multitude is nobody. This I proclaim even beside Persephone." And another of this kind: "Do not roll up the book of Heraclitus the Ephesian too hastily to the navel; the path is exceedingly hard to tread. There is gloom and unlighted darkness; but if an initiate lead you in, it is brighter than the blazing sun."

​There have been five men named Heraclitus: the first is this man himself; the second a lyric poet, who wrote an encomium on the twelve gods; the third an elegiac poet of Halicarnassus, on whom Callimachus composed the following: "Someone told of your death, Heraclitus, and brought me to tears, and I remembered how often we both brought down the sun in conversation. But you, I suppose, Halicarnassian guest, have long since been ashes, yet your nightingales live on, upon which Hades, the snatcher of all things, will not lay his hand." The fourth was a Lesbian, who wrote a history of Macedonia; the fifth a writer of serious-comic verse, who had passed over from cithara-singing into this style.