From the Beginning to Plato

108 HERACLITUS
Refutation tries to demonstrate that the heretic Noetus, like Heraclitus, confuses
things of opposed significance. See Osborne [3.31], ch. 4.
19 B60. The text is preserved by Hippolytus [3.13] Refutation IX.10. See below, ‘The
Unity of Opposites’.
20 B58. The text is preserved by Hippolytus [3.13] Refutation IX. 10.
21 Preserved by Stobaeus Anthology IV.40.23, Plutarch Quaestiones Platonicae 999,
and Alexander of Aphrodisias On Fate 6. The fragment is peculiarly difficult to
interpret; the interpretation offered by Alexander appears to cohere with that
offered here, which, however, brings out a quite different sense from that normally
put upon the text by recent scholars (‘a person’s character is his fate (divinity)’,
Robinson [3.9], 69), but makes the most of the typically Heraclitean style with its
ambiguous placing of anthrōpōi. The alternative readings with a genitive
(anthrōpou or anthrōpōn), given by Plutarch and Alexander respectively (the
former adopted by Bollack-Wismann [3.5]) retain the same sense.
22 From a summary of the quotations given by Celsus from Heraclitus on the subject
of the difference between divine and human wisdom, included by Origen, Against
Celsus, 6.12.
23 See below ‘The Logos’.
24 See below ‘Custom and Shared Practice’.
25 Both parts of B15 (see further below) are quoted in close connection by Clement of
Alexandria Protrepticus II. 34.5.
26 This quotation is listed as the second part of B15. The Lenaia was a particular
festival of Dionysus associated with ritual madness on the part of women. See
Seaford [3.22], 239, 322. Heraclitus uses a rare verb (‘to Lenaia-ize’) to speak of
the performance of these ritual activities.
27 See below ‘The Unity of Opposites’.
28 B60; see n. 19.
29 B57, ‘Hesiod is the teacher of a great many; they understand that he knew a great
many things, though he did not recognize day and night. For they are one.’ The text
is preserved by Hippolytus [3.13], Refutation IX. 10 (see n. 18).
30 B103. The text is preserved by Porphyry Quaestiones Homericae ad Iliadem XIV.
200.
31 Heraclitus probably thought the earth was flat, though the evidence is unclear
(Diogenes Laertius [3.12], Lives IX. 11) but he may have been aware that the
length of day varies from north to south, and he recognized that the hours of day
and night are not absolute but determined by the presence or absence of the sun
(B99 and cf. B57).
32 See below ‘Harmony and the Recognition of What is Obscure’.
33 anaidestata, ‘un-Hades-like’ as well as ‘shameless’ if we adopt the widespread
view that there is significant word-play here (Kahn [3.7], 336 n. 390 with further
references). See below ‘Heraclitus’ Style’.
34 The identification of Hades and Dionysus does not seem to be a peculiar doctrine
of Heraclitus, nor does it commit him to monotheism. The evidence for a cult
connection between the two is quite extensive, particularly in south Italy, and the
dionysiac mysteries are associated with death rituals. See Seaford [3.22], 319–26;
C. Sourvinou Inwood ‘Persephone and Aphrodite at Locri: a model for personality
definitions in Greek Religion’, Journal of Hellenic Studies 98 (1978): 101–21, 109,
repr. in Sourvinou Inwood ‘Reading’ Greek Culture, Oxford, 1991; Rohde [3.21],