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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.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 2017 

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References

1 Überweg, F. (trans. Morris, G.), A History of Philosophy, from Thales to the Present Time (London, 1875), 12 Google Scholar: ‘striving after intellectual and … scientific culture’, being ‘educated above the mass of men’, ‘love of wisdom’; LSJ s.v. φιλοσοφέω: ‘loving or pursuing knowledge’, or, in the orators, ‘studying or contriving’; s.v. φιλοσοφία: ‘systematic, methodical treatment of a subject’; s.v. φιλόσοφος: ‘all men of education and learning’ and ‘one who speculates on truth and reality’; Havelock, E.A., Preface to Plato (Cambridge, MA, 1963), 280–8Google Scholar, 306–7, ‘intellectuals’ concerned for abstraction; Nightingale, A.W., Genres in Dialogue: Plato and the Construct of Philosophy (Cambridge, 1995), 1415 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Frede, M., ‘The philosopher’, in Brunschwig, J. and Lloyd, G.E.R. (edd.), Greek Thought: A Guide to Classical Knowledge (Cambridge, MA, 2000), 319 Google Scholar, at 4–8: a philosopher is someone ‘who, in what he does and how he lives, to an unusual degree is influenced by a concern for wisdom’; Laks, A., ‘Philosophes présocratiques: remarques sur la construction d'une catégorie de l'historiographie philosophique’, in Laks, A. and Louguet, C. (edd.), Qu'est-ce que la Philosophie présocratique? (Villeneuve-D'Ascq, 2002), 1738 Google Scholar, at 29: ‘faire preuve de curiosité intellectuelle’ or ‘cultiver son esprit’; Cooper, J., ‘Socrates and philosophy as a way of life’, in Scott, D. (ed.), Maieusis: Essays in Ancient Philosophy in Honour of Myles Burnyeat (Oxford, 2007), 2043 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 23–4 n. 7, ‘intellectual and general culture’ as well as ‘someone engaged in logical argument and trusting to reason in pursuit of the truth about how things actually are, while, if that pursuit of the truth requires it, disregarding experience and convention’.

2 Clement quotes Heraclitus: ‘It sure is necessary for philosophical men to be inquirers into much’ (χρὴ εὖ μάλα πολλῶν ἵστορας φιλοσόφους ἄνδρας εἶναι); on its meaning and authenticity, see, for example, Guthrie, W.K.C., A History of Greek Philosophy. Volume 1: The Presocratic Tradition from Parmenides to Democritus (Cambridge, 1962), 204Google Scholar, 417; Marcovich, M., Heraclitus: Greek Text (Merida, 1967), 19Google Scholar, 26–9; Lallot, J., ‘Une invective philosophique (Héraclit, Fr. 129 et 35 D.–K.)’, REA 73 (1971), 1523 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kahn, C.H., The Art and Thought of Heraclitus: An Edition of the Fragments with Translation and Commentary (Cambridge, 1979), 105Google Scholar; Curd, P.K., ‘Knowledge and unity in Heraclitus’, The Monist 74 (1991), 531–49CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The author of VM contrasts his favoured medical approach to the more abstract and cosmological approach of other doctors and of sophistai which ‘tends toward philosophy’ (τείνει … ὁ λόγος ἐς φιλοσοφίην); for discussion, see Dunn, F., ‘ On Ancient Medicine and its intellectual contexts’, in van der Eijk, P.J. (ed.), Hippocrates in Context (Leiden, 2005), 60–3Google Scholar; Schiefsky, M., Hippocrates: On Ancient Medicine (Leiden, 2005), 293318 Google Scholar.

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5 The testimony of Herodorus is regularly ignored, as, for example, in LSJ s.v. φιλοσοφέω and Montanari, F., The Brill Dictionary of Ancient Greek (Leiden, 2015)Google Scholar, s.v. φιλοσοφέω; Chroust, A.H., ‘Philosophy: its essence and meaning in the ancient world’, PhR 56 (1947), 1958 Google Scholar, and Some reflections on the origin of the term “philosopher”’, The New Scholasticism 28 (1964), 423–34Google Scholar; Morrison, J.S., ‘The origins of Plato's philosopher-statesman’, CQ 8 (1958), 198218 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Malingrey, A.-M., “Philosophia”: étude d'un groupe de mots dans la littérature grecque, des Présocratiques au IVe siècle après J.-C. (Paris, 1961)Google Scholar; Heyde, J.E., ‘Das Bedeutungsverhältnis von Φιλοσοφία und Philosophie ’, PhNs 7 (1961), 144–55Google Scholar; Laks (n. 1); Riedweg, C., ‘Zum Ursprung des Wortes Philosophie oder Pythagoras von Samos als Wortschöpfer’, in Bierl, A., Schmitt, A. and Willi, A. (edd.), Antike Literatur in neuer Deutung (Munich, 2004), 147–81Google Scholar; Rossetti (n. 4). Burkert, W., ‘Platon oder Pythagoras? Zum Ursprung des Wortes “Philosophie”’, Hermes 88 (1960), 159–77Google Scholar, at 173 quotes the passage but without analysis.

6 Höistad, R., Cynic Hero and Cynic King: Studies in the Cynic Conception of Man (Uppsala, 1948), 2250 Google Scholar; Galinsky, K., The Herakles Theme: The Adaptations of the Hero in Literature from Homer to the Twentieth Century (Oxford, 1972), 1107 Google Scholar; Stafford, E., Herakles (London, 2012), 104–29Google Scholar.

7 Burstein, S.M., Outpost of Hellenism: The Emergence of Heracles on the Black Sea (Berkeley, 1976), 5Google Scholar, 39–66; Desideri, P., ‘Cultura Eracleota: da Erodoro a Eraclide Pontico, I’, in Bernard, R. (ed.), Pontica I: Recherches sur l'histoire du pont dans l'antiquité (Saint-Étienne, 1991), 724 Google Scholar, at 8–11, 14–15.

8 See, for example, Rossetti, L., La filosofia non nasce con Talete, e nemmeno con Socrate (Bologna, 2015)Google Scholar.

9 See, for example, the Platonic Rival Lovers.

10 Fowler, R.L., Early Greek Mythography (= EGM): Volume 1: Text and Introduction (Oxford, 2000)Google Scholar, and Jacoby, F., ‘Herodorus von Herakleia (31)’, in Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker Parts I–III (= FGrHist) (Berlin, 1923)Google Scholar. The sources are Müller, C., Fragmenta historicorum graecorum (Paris, 1851), 454Google Scholar fr. 6.6 (= Suda η 475 s.v. Ἡρακλῆς), from cod. Par. 1630 (= Ecloga Historiarum); Georgius Cedrenus 1.33 Bekker (Bonn, 1838), which starts at ‘Heracles was the first to make known …’; Anecd. Par. 2.380.22 Cramer (Oxford, 1839) (= cod. Par. gr. 854 fol. 236); Constantine Porphyrogenitus, in Büttner-Wobst, T. (ed.), Excerpta de virtutibus et vitiis (Berlin, 1906), 1.164Google Scholar. Thurn, H., Ioannis Malalae Chronographia (Berlin, 1998)Google Scholar is the critical edition of John Malalas (this passage at 1.14). Treadgold, W., ‘The Byzantine world histories of John Malalas and Eustathius of Epiphania’, International History Review 29 (2007), 709–45CrossRefGoogle Scholar argues that John Malalas paraphrases Eustathius of Epiphania; Mariev, S., Ioannis Antiocheni fragmenta quae supersunt omnia (Berlin, 2008)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 1*–26* discusses John of Antioch's authorship; Roberto, U., Ioannis Antiocheni fragmenta ex historia chronica (Berlin, 2005)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, lxxxiii n. 94 discusses the manuscript tradition for the present passage.

11 Müller (n. 10), fr. 24; FGrHist 31 F 14; M. Detienne, , ‘Héraclès, héros Pythagoricien’, Revue de l'histoire des religions 158 (1960), 1953 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 30; EGM 2.328; Hawes, G., Rationalizing Myth in Antiquity (Oxford, 2014)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 12 n. 17.

12 The earliest attestation to Heracles’ nickname τριέσπερος is in Lycoph. Alex. 33 (which Kosmetatou, E., ‘Lycophron's Alexandra reconsidered: the Attalid connection’, Hermes 128 [2000], 3253 Google Scholar argues was written 196–194 b.c.), a work known for its deployment of rare (and thus old) words; the nickname is seen again much later in Alciphron 3.38. The story of a three-night dalliance between Zeus and Alcmene is recorded in Apollod. Bibl. 2.4.8 and Hyg. Fab. 29; the dalliance itself, without mention of its length, is recorded in Hes. [Sc.] 35, Pind. Isthm. 7.5, Nem. 10.19.

13 On the garden of the Hesperides, see Hes. Theog. 215, Apollod. Bibl. 2.120, Ap. Rhod. Argon. 4.1363–401. On this labour, see Apollod. Bibl. 2.120–1, Eur. HF 394–9, Ap. Rhod. Argon. 4.1396–484.

14 On Italy as the West, John Malalas in Thurn (n. 10), 4.2; see also 1.9–10, 2.6. Cf. Fuentes González and Campos Daroca (n. 3), 3.674.

15 Diog. Laert. 1.8, Plin. HN 30.3, Plut. Mor. 370c; Chroust, A.H., ‘Aristotle and the “philosophies of the East”’, RMeta 18 (1965), 572–80Google Scholar.

16 EGM brackets this term: it does not appear in Cedrenus’ version.

17 Detienne (n. 11), 31 and n. 1 doubts that Herodorus would have known the word ἀστροχίτωνα, and so doubts his authorship here, noting that the word appears as Heracles’ epithet again only in Nonnus (Dion. 40) and (to qualify the moon and the night) in the Orphic Argonautica 513, 1028; see also Borin, P., ‘Richerche su Erodoro di Eraclea (FGrH 31)’, Acme 48 (1995), 145–54Google Scholar, at 148–9. Against Detienne, we may observe that Cedrenus does not use ἀστροχίτωνα in his version, instead having in the next line ἀντὶ χιτῶνος (‘instead of a cloak’).

18 Fowler (EGM 2.328, 2.697 n. 4) doubts that sentence [3] belongs to Herodorus on the grounds that (i) this account of apotheosis and star-naming differs from the idea current in Aristophanes’ generation that souls become stars, and that (ii) only with Euhemerus, who flourished after Herodorus, did humans earn posthumous divinity for great deeds. Against (i), I take Herodorus to be critical of the received views, and we might expect debate about apotheosis in this period; against (ii), Fowler admits that Prodicus and Hecataeus may also have reflected on human-divinity transformations.

19 Evidence of Herodorus’ rationalizing: fr. 4 (moon as source of lions); fr. 12 (actual location of the Islands of the Blessed); fr. 13 (the real nature of Atlas’ teachings); fr. 28 (human origin of Troy's walls); fr. 30 (the real story of Prometheus); fr. 48 (Argonauts, not Apollo, arriving at dawn); fr. 57 (the real golden ram). On Herodorus’ rationalizing programme, see Jacoby, F., ‘Herodoros aus Herakleia am Pontos’, RE 8.1 (1912)Google Scholar, cols. 980–7; Wipprecht, F., Zur Entwicklung der rationalistischen Mythendeutung bei den Griechen (Tübingen, 1902), 1.38Google Scholar; Linforth, I.M., ‘Diodorus, Herodorus, Orpheus’, in Classical Studies Presented to Edward Capps on his Seventieth Birthday (Princeton, 1936), 217–22Google Scholar, at 221; Borin (n. 17), 147–51; Fuentes González and Campos Daroca (n. 3), 3.673–4; Blakely, S., ‘Herodoros (31)’, BNJ (2009)Google Scholar, ‘Biographical essay’. We know that Euhemerus of Messene, c.300, rationalized gods as humans, and we have no reason to think he was the first. On rationalizing in general, see now Hawes (n. 11), and specifically among the Socratics, by whom Herodorus may have been influenced, Moore, C., ‘Socrates among the mythographers: review of D. Werner, Myth and Philosophy in Plato's Phaedrus ’, Polis 30 (2013), 106–17Google Scholar, and id., How to “know thyself” in Plato's Phaedrus ’, Apeiron 47 (2014), 390418 Google Scholar.

20 Ar. Nub. 46–7; Eur. HF 360–3.

21 Hyg. Poet. astr. 2.6, discussed in Condos, T., Star Myths of the Greeks and Romans: A Sourcebook Containing the Constellations of Pseudo-Eratosthenes and the Poetic Astronomy of Hyginus (Grand Rapids, MI, 1997), 115118 Google Scholar; see also Eratosth. [Cat.]. 4.241.22–242.9.

22 Jacoby prints πολυποίκιλον, ‘much-variegated’, instead of Fowler's πονυρὸν καὶ ποικίλιον.

23 Arguing that the list of negative virtues is Stoic or Cynic and thereby post-Herodoran: Detienne (n. 11), 31; Hoïstad (n. 6), 30–1; Gruppe, O., ‘Herakles’, RE Suppl. 3 (1918)Google Scholar, cols. 910–1121, at col. 1072. But their argument weakens if the Stoics and the Cynics were influenced by Antisthenes, as Guthrie, W.K.C., A History of Greek Philosophy. Volume 3: The Sophists (Cambridge, 1971), 305–8Google Scholar thinks they were, and if Antisthenes also influenced Herodorus (§6 below).

24 Contra Ogden, D., Dragons, Serpents and Slayers in the Classical and Early Christian Worlds: A Sourcebook (Oxford, 2013)Google Scholar, I.vi.33, and Detienne (n. 11), 30.

25 For example, Ar. Vesp. 73–93; see Cipriano, P., I composti greci con ΦΙΛΟΣ (Viterbo, 1990)Google Scholar.

26 Xen. Mem. 2.1.21–34.

27 John Malalas’ Chronographia comprises dozens of rationalizations and few if any allegories; see S.W. Reinert, ‘Greek myth in Johannes Malalas’ account of ancient history before the Trojan War’ (Diss., UCLA, 1981) for details. Fowler (EMG 2.328) offers the idea that if sentence [3] is not from Herodorus, then [5] may not be either; but he does admit that a view like [5] is to be expected by a person who wrote fragment 13.

28 Indeed, Suda η 475 s.v. Ἡρακλῆς starts by calling Heracles ‘this philosopher’ (Ἡρακλῆς, Ἀλκμήνης υἱός. τοῦτον φιλόσοφον ἱστοροῦσι …) and ends with the catchy three-word claim, using a variant preposition (φιλοσοφήσας ἄχρι θανάτου).

29 1.17.3, 1.19.1, 1.24.1–7 (Egyptian Heracles), 2.39.1–2 (Indian Heracles), 3.74.4–5 (shortly before the Trojan War), and at greatest length at 4.8–39. The Hesperides episode with its various interpretations is at 4.26.2–27.5.

30 Treadgold (n. 10), 714.

31 All sixty-seven extant fragments except those saved by Aristotle are from the Common Era or are late scholia.

32 Cf. fr. 42, on the two Orpheuses.

33 Wesseling, P., Dissertatio Herodotea (Paddenburg, 1758), 3.24Google Scholar, with 20–7, is the earliest known to me; Lobeck, C.A., Aglaophamus, sive, De theologiae mysticae Graecorum causis libri tres (Borntraeger, 1829)Google Scholar or Müller (n. 10) are usually the earliest editors acknowledged. Fuentes González and Campos Daroca (n. 3), 3.671 show that at least twenty-two fragments of Herodorus’ works have versions attributed to Herodotus. Reinert (n. 27), 128 retains ‘Diodorus’ without strong evidence; Jeffreys, E., Studies in John Malalas (Sydney, 1990)Google Scholar does not mention Herodorus. Interestingly, Reinert (n. 27) also thinks that Diodorus is responsible only for clause [7], because he believes that the sentence following the fragment, by most editors placed in the subsequent paragraph, overrides it: ‘And these things regarding this Heracles having been framed allegorically were set out by Theophilus the wisest chronographer.’ Yet, this Theophilus could have been responsible for condensing or passing along the whole fragment, including the specific reference to ‘Diodorus’ or to ‘Herodorus’. Or, according to Treadgold (n. 10), 723, John Malalas simply fabricated this (otherwise unknown) Theophilus, attributing passages to him to sophisticate his work.

34 On philosophers as culture-heroes, Reinert (n. 27), 702, 705–6; Jeffreys (n. 33), 65.

35 It is the Chronicon Paschale that adds σωφρόνως (‘with discipline/chastity’); it also uses a present participle for ‘philosophize’ and a different form of the preposition.

36 Isoc. 6.59 (willingly fighting one's enemies until death), Pl. Resp. 2.361d1 (in Glaucon's thought-experiment we imagine a man who is just but seems unjust for his whole life), Hippoc. Morb. pop. 6.5.2.1 (the soul of man keeps growing until death).

37 Africanus F 24b, lines 38–43 prints a similar story about Aphrodite, whom he calls λογικὴ καὶ ποικίλη (‘intellectual and sophisticated’). His epitome does not mention her being a philosopher, but his Adonis is said ‘also’ to be a philosopher, and so his source must have included it—he wrote in a.d. 221, according to Wallraff, M., Iulius Africanus Chronographiae: The Extant Fragments (Berlin, 2007)Google Scholar, xvii—or at least according to the ps.-Symeon tradition from which we get Africanus’ work.

38 There is no reason to ground the story of a philosophical Aphrodite in Pausanias’ story of two Aphrodites in Plato's Symposium, as Reinert (n. 27), 110 shows; but such a story makes plausible fourth-century rationalizing accounts of Aphrodite.

39 Malalas adds ὁ σοφώτατος, as he does for nearly all his sources.

40 Fowler (EMG 2.328) reads this as claiming that Heracles philosophized for his whole life; but I take Herodorus to be interpreting this as Heracles’ achievement of philosophy. Diod. Sic. 4.26.2–4 treats the Hesperides episode as Heracles’ final labour before death, but Eur. HF 348–440 puts it somewhere in the middle of the twelve labours, putting the descent into Hades as the twelfth.

41 Compare Socrates’ heroic philosophizing according to Pl. Ap. 28b2–29c10.

42 See Watkins, C., How to Kill a Dragon: Aspects of Indo-European Poetics (Oxford, 1995), 297303 Google Scholar, 374–82 on Heracles’ connection to the ‘hero slew dragon’ motif; Ogden, D., Drakon: Dragon Myth and Serpent Cult in the Greek and Roman Worlds (Oxford, 2013), 3340 CrossRefGoogle Scholar on Ladon; and Fontenrose, J.E., Python: A Study of Delphic Myth and Its Origins (Berkeley, 1959), 346Google Scholar. Plut. Thes. 8.1 claims that Heracles wore the skin to show off his prowess at besting a wild beast.

43 Kosman, A., ‘ Sôphrosunê as quietness’, in Anton, J.P. and Preus, A. (edd.), Essays in Ancient Greek Philosophy (Albany, NY, 1983), 2.203–16Google Scholar.

44 The summary of the rationalization in fr. 14 treats Heracles’ dubious desires as in some way external to his soul. Interestingly, in this passage both desire and soul are said to have λογισμός (‘calculation’). Suda η 454, which calls Heracles the ‘best philosopher’ (φιλόσοφος ἄριστος), and replicates approximately sentences [4]–[5] (but nothing from [1]–[3] or [6]–[8], the material about Herodorus), describes a statue in which Heracles holds three apples in his left hand, awarded ‘because he has organized the three parts of the soul’ (διὰ τὸ τριμερὲς τῆς ψυχῆς κεκοσμῆσθαι αὐτόν). This gives a Platonic spin to fr. 14's rationalization. (Compare ps.-Codinus, Patria Constantinopoleos 2.8a [= Scriptores originum Constantinopolitanarum 154.18 Preger]: διὰ δὲ τῶν τριῶν μήλων δηλοῖ, ὡς σφαίρας εἰς τρία κλίματα κατέχειν τὴν πᾶσαν διακόσμησιν.)

45 For discussion of λογισμός in the fifth and fourth centuries, see Huffman, C., Archytas of Tarentum: Pythagorean, Philosopher and Mathematician King (Cambridge, 2005), 183224 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. 202–6 concerning fr. 3 of Archytas (428–347), and Horky, P., Plato and Pythagoreanism (Oxford, 2013), 211–12CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Thucydides says that the Athenians’ φιλοσοφεῖν includes λογισμός concerning practical risks (2.40); Democritus says that, whereas mental superiority improves physical strength, physical strength without λογισμός does not improve the body (fr. 187 DK); see also Pl. Meno 98a and Resp. 7.522d1–23a3.

46 Herodorus could have used the word φυσικόν; the word is attested at Xen. Mem. 3.9.1, and the meaning as ‘investigator of phusis’ is attested throughout Aristotle, for example, at Metaph. Λ 6 1071b28, Part. an. 640a2.

47 Plut. De E apud Delphos 387d–e may reflect a common account: ὁ δ᾽ Ἡρακλῆς, οὔπω τὸν Προμηθέα λελυκὼς οὐδὲ τοῖς περὶ τὸν Χείρωνα καὶ Ἄτλαντα σοφισταῖς διειλεγμένος ἀλλὰ νέος ὢν καὶ κομιδῇ Βοιώτιος, ἀναιρῶν τὴν διαλεκτικὴν καὶ καταγελῶν τοῦ ῾εἰ᾽ τὸ πρῶτον, τὸ δεύτερον [εἰ τὸ πρῶτον, καὶ τὸ δεύτερον ‘si primum, est et secundum’ Emperius] ὑποσπᾶν ἔδοξε βίᾳ τὸν τρίποδα καὶ διαμάχεσθαι πρὸς τὸν θεὸν ὑπὲρ τῆς τέχνης· ἐπεὶ προϊών γε τῷ χρόνῳ καὶ οὗτος ἔοικε μαντικώτατος ὁμοῦ γενέσθαι καὶ διαλεκτικώτατος. See also Diod. Sic. 4.27.4.

48 Müller (n. 10) combines into his fr. 24 what became Jacoby's frr. 13 and 14, and translates only what became fr. 13, perhaps implying that the longer fragment should be subsumed to the shorter one.

49 Wipprecht (n. 19), 41.

50 Ad Aeneidem 1.741: nec enim istum docere potuit, qui Didonis erat temporibus, sed docuit Herculem: unde et dicitur ab Atlante caelum sustinuisse susceptum propter caeli scientiam traditam. constat enim Herculem fuisse philosophum, et haec est ratio, cur illa omnia monstra uidicit Nilum Melonem uocari, Atlantem uero Telamonem.

51 For example, Diod. Sic. 4.27.2 records two rationalizations that the ‘apples’ were really sheep; he implies that there may be even more such rationalizations.

52 Diod. Sic. 4.27.4–5.

53 See Luz, M., ‘The transmission of Antisthenes' Hercules in Hellenistic philosophy and literature’, in Boudouris, K.J. (ed.), Hellenistic Philosophy (Athens, 1994), 114–21Google Scholar, and Antisthenes' Prometheus myth’, in Glucker, J. and Laks, A. (edd.), Jacob Bernays: Un philologue juif (Villeneuve, 1996), 89103 Google Scholar, on the Themistius passage.

54 On προμήθεια, see Moore, C., ‘ Promêtheia (“forethought”) until Plato’, AJPh 136 (2015), 381420 Google Scholar. Prince, S., Antisthenes of Athens: Texts, Translations, and Commentary (Ann Arbor, 2014), 330Google Scholar refers to the object of Antisthenes’ exhortation as ‘a transcendent object of knowledge’.

55 Detienne (n. 11), 25–32; Borin (n. 17), 148–9; Fuentes González and Campos Daroca (n. 3), 3.674–5; Blakely (n. 19).

56 Ath. 4.161a; Porph. Plot. 34–5; Detienne (n. 11), 24; Blakely (n. 19) on F 1.

57 Guthrie (n. 2), 206.

58 We do see such self-conscious modification or re-articulation at Pl. Ap. 28e4–5 with 23d2–6 and 29c5–e3, but Socrates does so openly and for clear reasons.

59 Evidence at Jacoby (n. 19), 984–5.

60 Aristotle also critiques Bryson's famed squaring the circle (An. post. 75b40, Soph. el. 171b16, 172a3) and refutes his claim that putatively vulgar words cannot actually be vulgar (Rhet. 1405b9). On Bryson, see Döring, K., Die Megariker (Amsterdam, 1972), 158–61Google Scholar.

61 Desideri (n. 7), 10 observes that this could also mean that Herodorus’ work was written long before it became generally known in Athens.

62 Diog. Laert. 1.16, 6.85, 9.61. Diogenes also puts him at the end of a chronologically uninformative list of philosophoi who did not write: ‘Socrates, Stilpo, Phillipus, Menedemus, Pyrrho, Theodorus, Carneades, Bryson’.

63 Suda θ 150 claims further that Bryson taught a Theodorus.

64 Fowler (EGM 2.696) gives without evidence a date for Bryson of ‘about 400 to 340’; Hawes (n. 11), 11 gives fl. c.400.

65 Döring, K., ‘Bryson’, in Brill's New Pauly (Leiden, 2002)Google Scholar. Wipprecht (n. 19), 38 suggests a flourishing around 420, which seems too early.

66 Sansone, D., ‘Heracles at the Y’, JHS 124 (2004), 125–42CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Xenophon and Prodicus' Choice of Heracles’, CQ 65 (2014), 371–7Google Scholar argues that Xenophon quotes Prodicus directly; Gray, V., ‘The linguistic philosophies of Prodicus in Xenophon's “Choice of Heracles”?’, CQ 56 (2006), 526–35CrossRefGoogle Scholar denies it. Most scholars agree that Prodicus died by 395. See Hunter, R., Plato and the Traditions of Ancient Literature: The Silent Stream (Cambridge, 2012), 129–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar on the layers of identification this passage creates, and Urstad, K., ‘Pathos, pleasure and the ethical life in Aristippus’, Journal of Ancient Philosophy 3 (2009), 122 Google Scholar on the Socratic aspects of Aristippus, in particular his concern for self-control.

67 On λογισμός in Antisthenes, see Caizza, F. Decleva, Antisthenis Fragmenta (Milan, 1966), 110Google Scholar, and Prince (n. 54), 394.

68 Clem. Al. Strom. 2.20.107.2–3; Theodoret. Cure of Greek Maladies 3.53 (τὴν σωφροσύνη περὶ πλείστου ποιούμενος); cf. Diog. Laert. 6.103, who ascribes to Antisthenes the view that the σώφρων will forgo reading from the fear of distraction by others.

69 Decleva Caizza (n. 67), 95 mentions scholarship that uncertainly relates Antisthenes and Herodorus on Heracles.

70 Desideri (n. 7).

71 2.31.76; a similar response is found at Gnom. Vat. 7.

72 Rhetoric: Diog. Laert. 6.2, Gnom. Vat. 4, Jer. Adv. Iovinian. 2.14 Bickel, Suda α 2723; Gorgias: Diog. Laert. 6.1. See Prince (n. 54), 41–8.

73 Diog. Laert. 6.2, Gnom. Vat. 4.

74 Goulet-Cazé, M.-O., ‘Religion and the early Cynics’, in Branham, R. and Goulet-Cazé, M.-O. (edd.), The Cynics: The Cynic Movement in Antiquity and its Legacy (Berkeley, 1996), 4780 Google Scholar, at 69 takes this line, glossing Antisthenes as saying that ‘only philosophy enables a man to surpass the human level and reach that of the divine’, and linking the divine and philosophy with (the normatively excellent) unity and nature. This reasoning follows Pl. Phdr. 274a1–2.

75 Answers to this question, ‘what is gained from philosophy’, are attributed also to Aristippus (Diog. Laert. 2.68), Plato (Gnom. Vat. 430), Aristotle (Diog. Laert. 5.20) and Diogenes of Sinope (Diog. Laert. 6.63).

76 For this anecdote as concerned with self-sufficiency, see Prince (n. 54), 334–5.

77 O.Köln inv. 04.

78 Henrichs, A., ‘Zwei Fragmente über die Erziehung (Antisthenes)’, ZPE 1 (1967), 4554 Google Scholar; Decleva Caizza (n. 67), 110; Prince (n. 54), 547–9.

79 At Hdt. 1.26.1, it refers to the clearing of a ‘thorny’ (ἀκανθώδης) tract of land; in Theophr.  Hist. pl. 2.2.12, in the passive, it means to be domesticated.

80 Implied by Heraclitus, fr. 35 DK. See Guthrie (n. 2), 204; Riedweg (n. 5).

81 Lallot (n. 2) and Ebert, T., ‘Why is Evenus called a philosopher at Phaedo 61c?’, CQ 51 (2001), 423–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar, with the stories of Pythagoras as the first person to call himself philosophos in Cic. Tusc. 5.3.8, Sosicrates apud Diog. Laert. 8.8, Diod. Sic. 10.10.1, Diog. Laert. 1.12.

82 See, for example, Diog. Laert. 8.9, 8.13, 8.18, 8.23.

83 We might find another contemporaneous but much more tenuous connection between Heracles and ‘philosophy’ if we consider that Aristotle's ‘Hymn to Hermias’ implicitly likened Hermias to Heracles, and Aristotle's nephew Callisthenes wrote that Hermias wished people to know that he did nothing unworthy of philosophy (Arius Didymus col. 6.15–16). See Jaeger, W., Aristotle: Fundamentals of the History of his Development (Oxford, 1962 2), 117–18Google Scholar, and Ford, A., Aristotle as Poet: The Song for Hermias and its Contexts (Oxford, 2011), 1920 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 144–6.

84 Fr. 140.10–12 K.–A. In Greek mythology, Linus gets killed for this sassiness (Apollod. Bibl. 2.4.9); see Boardman, J., Palagia, O. and Woodford, S., ‘Herakles' early life and family’, LIMC 4 (1988), 827–38Google Scholar, images 1666–73. Heracles is then sent out to Amphitryon's cowherds for a more rustic education (Herodorus, fr. 17; Apollod. Bibl. 2.4.9).

85 I would like to acknowledge the many labours performed by Robin Boyes, Richard Hunter, Doug Hutchinson, David Murphy, Matthijs Wibier and several anonymous referees in their advice on drafts of this paper.