Page:Early Greek philosophy by John Burnet, 3rd edition, 1920.djvu/155

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HERAKLEITOS OF EPHESOS
141

saying, "We will have none who is best among us; if there be any such, let him be so elsewhere and among others."[1] R. P. 29 b.

(115) Dogs bark at every one they do not know. R. P. 31 a.

(116) . . . (The wise man) is not known because of men's want of belief.

(117) The fool is fluttered at every word. R. P. 44 b.

(118) The most esteemed of them knows but fancies,[2] and holds fast to them, yet of a truth justice shall overtake the artificers of lies and the false witnesses.

(119) Homer should be turned out of the lists and whipped, and Archilochos likewise. R. P. 31.

(120) One day is like any other.

(121) Man's character is his fate.[3]

(122) There awaits men when they die such things as they look not for nor dream of. R. P. 46 d.

(123) . . . [4] that they rise up and become the wakeful guardians of the quick and dead. R. P. 46 d.

(124) Night-walkers, Magians, Bakchoi, Lenai, and the initiated . . .

(125) The mysteries practised among men are unholy mysteries. R. P. 48.

(126) And they pray to these images, as if one were to talk with a man's house, knowing not what gods or heroes are. R. P. 49 a.

(127) For if it were not to Dionysos that they made a procession and sang the shameful phallic hymn, they would be acting most shamelessly. But Hades is the same as Dionysos in whose honour they go mad and rave. R. P. 49.

(129, 130) They vainly purify themselves by defiling themselves with blood, just as if one who had stepped into the mud were to wash his feet in mud. Any man who marked him doing thus, would deem him mad. R. P. 49 a.


  1. He went to Italy and took part in framing the Twelve Tables at Rome. See p. 131, n. 1.
  2. Reading δοκέοντα with Schleiermacher (or δοκέοντ' ὦν with Diels). I also read γινώσκει, φυλάσσει with Diels, who quotes the combination φυλάσσουσι καὶ γινώσκουσι from Hippokrates.
  3. On the meaning of δαίμων here, see my edition of Aristotle's Ethics, pp. 1 sq.
  4. I have not ventured to include the words ἔνθα δ' ἐόντι at the beginning, as the text seems to me too uncertain. See, however, Diels's note.