Book IX

Chapter 1. Heraclitus

Heraclitus, son of Bloson or, according to some, of Heracon, was a native of Ephesus. He flourished in the 69th Olympiad.^a He was lofty-minded beyond all other men,^b and over-weening, as is clear from his book in which he says: “Much learning does not teach understanding; else would it have taught Hesiod and Pythagoras, or, again, Xenophanes and Hecataeus.”^c For “this one thing is wisdom, to understand thought, as that which guides all the world everywhere.”^d And he used to say that “Homer deserved to be chased out of the lists and beaten with rods, and Archilochus likewise.”^e

Again he would say: “There is more need to extinguish insolence than an outbreak of fire,”^f and “The people must fight for the law as for city-walls.”^g He attacks the Ephesians, too, for banishing his friend Hermodorus: he says: “The Ephesians