From the Beginning to Plato

FROM THE BEGINNING TO PLATO 109
159, 184 n. 7; Marcovich [3.2], 254; J. C.Carter ‘Sanctuaries in the chora of
Metaponto’, in S.E.Alcock and R.G. Osborne (eds) Placing the Gods, Oxford,
Clarendon Press, 1994:161–98.
35 B56, B57. See below ‘The Errors of Other People’.
36 Something similar to this conclusion was suggested by Guthrie [3.24], 476 on the
basis of fragment B68.
37 B71–3. See below ‘The Errors of Other People’ and ‘Custom and Shared Practice’.
38 B89. See below ‘Custom and Shared Practice’.
39 This section of the chapter is based on a paper delivered to a conference of the
University of Wales Institute of Classics and Ancient History and due to appear in
a forthcoming volume of proceedings.
40 The text appears in a list of sayings from Heraclitus quoted without context by John
Stobaeus, Anthology III. 1.179. Stobaeus wrote in the fifth century AD.
41 The text is quoted shortly after B1, (on which see below, ‘The Logos’) by Sextus
Empiricus Adversus Mathematicos VII. 133, who says that Heraclitus adds this
claim after a few intervening things. The opening words show that it concludes an
argument that established the role of what is ‘common’ in determining the correct
wisdom, conceivably B114. The text I translate, the one usually adopted by editors,
follows a suggestion of Bekker since what Sextus Empiricus says is slightly
garbled. The explanation of the term xunos is presumably by Sextus himself (a
writer in the Sceptical (Pyrrhonist) school) for the benefit of his second century AD
readers. He is discussing Heraclitus’ views on the criterion of truth and knowledge.
42 See below ‘The Logos’.
43 ‘The people should fight for their custom as if for a wall.’ (B44) The text is quoted
by Diogenes Laertius [3.12] (third century AD), Lives IX. 2. He offers no
interpretation. The word for ‘custom’ (nomos) can refer to formal legal provisions
or to local established practice.
44 See above ‘Ritual and the Gods’, The text does not supply the word nomos after
‘divine’, but it is natural to understand it from the mention of human customs. An
alternative translation would be ‘all human customs are nourished by the one divine
thing’.
45 The ‘divine law’ mentioned in B114 is identified with the laws of nature by some
interpreters, notably Robinson [3.44], 483–4. This restricts the divine law to the
laws of behaviour of physical or material bodies; it makes Heraclitus a materialist,
whereas the stress on human social practices and language suggests his interests lie
much more in the non-material connections between things that have no physical
link.
46 The text is preserved by Hippolytus [3.13] Refutation IX. 10 (see above n. 18). The
word ‘something’ is missing in the text (unless there was no word there and ‘god’
is said to change); various suggestions have been made as to what is said to change
when mixed with spices, the most popular being ‘fire’ (Diels’s suggestion). The
point is clear in any case: an admixture of spices will alter the effect and the name
of something itself unchanged. It is probably best to avoid a term such as ‘fire’ that
carries theoretical significance.
47 Reported by Plutarch (AD c.45–120) De Superstitione 166C.
48 The text is known from two relatively reliable sources: Sextus Empiricus Advenus
Mathematicos VII. 132, in the same context as fr. 2 (see above), and Hippolytus of
Rome [3.13] in his ch. on Noetus Refutation IX. 9. The opening sentence is also