AS EXHIBITED IN THE TENTH BOOK OF "THE REPUBLIC." 315 



and to this are attached the ends of the girding-bands of heaven and earth. Now it is known 

 that the key-stone of the philosophy of Heracleitus was the well-known saying, " that a 

 harmony of tension, like that of the lyre and the bow, held together the discordant elements of 

 the universe" (TraKivTovos apfioviri Koa-fxou, oKwairep Xvpt]^ Kal to^ov. Plato, Sympos. p. 187 a. 

 Plutarch, Is. et Os. 45, De Tranq. Anim. 15. Eudem. Eth. vii. l; see Schleiermacher, Werke, 

 Philos. II. pp. 65 sqq. Gladisch, Zdtschrift f. d. Alterthumswiss. 1846, nos. 121, 122). To 

 say nothing of the fact that the lyre and the bow were the symbols of the firegod, whom the 

 Greeks worshipped as Apollo, the epithet va\ivTovo<i shows that the musical harmony of Hera- 

 cleitus presumed a constant resistance and a tendency to dissolution unless this resistance was 

 controlled. And this, as we know, was the doctrine of Zoroaster. For our present purpose, 

 it is most important to observe that Heracleitus, in common with Zoroaster, maintained that 

 fire was this controlling bond which held all things together (Aristot. Phys. iii. 4 : Ttepie-^^eiv 

 airai'Ta kui avavTa Kuj3epvav. Ritter, Gesch. d. Ion. Phil. p. 145 : " Die grosse, die Welt 

 umfassende Feuermasse"). And this is clearly the meaning of Plato in the passage before us. 

 Then again, if Lachesis spins any threads with her ever-whirling spindle, they must be 

 threads derived from this world-surrounding fire; for her spindle is suspended from the 

 extremities of the bands which encompass and constrain the universe. Now it was the 

 doctrine of Heracleitus and Zoroaster that the soul of man was a particle of the fire which 

 surrounded and governed the world (Sext. Empir. adv. Matth. vii. 130 : ri eiri^eviaQficra to7? 

 ^fierepoK crwiuLaaiv airo tov Trepie')(ovTOi fxoipa. Macrobius, Somn. Scip. I. 14 : Heraclitus 

 physicus animam dixit scintillam stellaris essentiae). And as the main purpose of Plato's 

 apologue is to show, how, as the result of Lachesis' spinning, the souls after a certain period 

 return to bodily life, we recognise in this the doctrine of Heracleitus, that the heavenly body 

 is the seed of the generation of the universe and the measure of an appointed period (Stobaeus, 

 Eel. Phys. I. 5, p. 178: to aiOepiov aw/xa (nrep/ia t^s tou -n-avTos yevecrecx)^ Kat irepiooou 

 fierpov TeTaynevrji) ; that when we live our souls die and are buried in us, but that when we 

 die our souls revive and live (Sext. Empir. Hypot. iii. 230 : ore juei; rinel^ Xwti-ev tol's •<\iv)(as 

 ti/jLoiv TeOvafoi /cat ev rj/xii' TeOacpdai, ore oe tjfxeii awoGvrjaKOfxev ras yj/vyas avapiovv Kai 

 Zfiv), or, as he also expressed it, that " men are mortal gods and gods are immortal men, 

 living when men die and dying during the life of men" {Fragm. 51 b; Heraclid. Alleg. Horn. 

 p. 442 sq. : avQpwiroi 9eoi ODrjToi, Oeo'i t avdptoiroi, dOdvaToi, Ttoi'Tes tov eKeivwv QavaTov, 

 QvtjSKOVTes TTjv eK€ivwv ^aitjv). 



Without carrying these parallels any farther, I entertain little doubt as to the truth of 

 the tradition that Plato derived the basis of the apologue, which he put into the mouth of 

 " Er the son of Armenius the Pamphylian," from some writing by Heracleitus, in which 

 Zoroaster was so designated. With this he had combined ad libitum the numerical specula- 

 tions of the Pythagoreans, which Aristotle expressly connects with the harmonies of the 

 celestial spheres {de Coelo, ii. 9, ^ 7). And of course the whole had been distilled in the 

 alembic of his own peculiar genius. Why he or Heracleitus called Zoroaster by the monosyl- 

 labic name Er I cannot presume to determine'. But Arnobius (i. 12) designates him both as an 



' I have suggested elsewhere (New Cratylus, p. 143, note, 

 Edit. 3) that'^Hp o 'Apfieviov to yevo^ IIa^(pii\ov means that 

 the Arians, as they appeared in Pamphylia, called themselves | 



descendants of the Armenians. It is at any rate remarkable 

 that Airya is the Zendic form of the Sanscrit Arya. 



