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- Title
HERACLES THE PHILOSOPHER (HERODORUS, FR. 14).
- Authors
Moore, Christopher
- Abstract
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.
- Subjects
GREECE; HERACLES (Greek mythological character); HERACLITUS, of Ephesus; MYTHOLOGISTS; HISTORY of philosophy; PHILOSOPHERS; RATIONALIZATION (Sociology); BRYSON family; SOCRATES, ca. 469-399 B.C.; SELF-actualization (Psychology); PLATO, 428-347 B.C.; INTELLECTUAL history; HISTORY
- Publication
Classical Quarterly, 2017, Vol 67, Issue 1, p27
- ISSN
0009-8388
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1017/S0009838817000404