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HERACLES THE PHILOSOPHER (HERODORUS, FR. 14)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 April 2017

Christopher Moore*
Affiliation:
Penn State University

Extract

Among our earliest extant references to the word ‘philosophize’ is an unfamiliar one, from the mythographer Herodorus of Pontic Heraclea, whose son Bryson associated with Plato and Aristotle. A Byzantine compiler quotes Herodorus, probably from his book on Heracles, as saying that his hero ‘philosophized until death’ (φιλοσοφήσας μέχρι θανάτου, FGrHist 31 F 14). This is a surprising claim in light of the fifth/fourth-century b.c. view of Heracles as long-toiling but not intellectual. Euripides' Licymnius characterizes him as ‘unimpressive and unadorned, good to the greatest degree, confined from all sophia in action, unversed in talking’ (φαῦλον ἄκομψον, τὰ μέγιστ᾽ ἀγαθόν, | πᾶσαν ἐν ἔργῳ περιτεμνόμενον | σοφίαν, λέσχης ἀτρίβωνα, fr. 473 TGF). Heracles is thus explicitly distinguished from those who strive for dialectical understanding or theoretical knowledge.

Information

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 2017 

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