HEIDEL. — ON FRAGMENTS OF THE PRE-SOCRATICS. 709 



id} l(jj, irai>8a.KpvT' (:(^ajj.kpwv 

 Wvt] iroKvTTova. 



The iambic movement of the fragment is obvious, and the position of 

 txkv appears somewhat forced. One is tempted to write the sentence 

 as \erse, 



Wvo$ fxev avOpdiiirtLov ov yvcj/jLas exti, 



dtlou 8' cx€t- 



This may, of course, be nothing more than the work of chance; but 

 the entire cast of the sentence suggests that we are dealing with verse 

 converted into prose. Now we know that there were those who 

 versified tlie philosophy of Heraclitus. One of their number, Scythi- 

 nus, a writer of the fourth centur;s', is known by name; and one of the 

 fragments of Scythinus (fr. 2, V- 86, 22 sq.) has come down to us 

 reconverted into prose, which Wilamowitz has again rendered in 

 verse. I do not suggest, though it is possible, that we have before us 

 another reconverted version of Heraclitus by Scythinus; for the cases 

 of Cleanthes, whose Stoic verses are in part Httle more than para- 

 phrases of Heraclitus, and of ' Epicharmus,' among whose fragments 

 there are some which reproduce the thought of Heraclitus as others 

 do that of Plato, caution us to a^oid hasty conclusions. Neverthe- 

 less, I incline to think that fr. 78 is in fact a thinly disguised prose 

 rendering of a verse original; for there are at least two other 'frag- 

 ments' of Heraclitus (80 and 100) whose form suggests a versified 

 original. As it is best to discuss them separately, I will add only 

 that one of them, like fr. 78, is quoted by Origen Against Cclsus. If 

 my suggestion be approved l)y scholars, an interesting question 

 arises, to wit, how accurately the versifier, if he was actually trying 

 to reproduce the thought of Heraclitus, as Celsus or his source sup- 

 posed, succeeded in rendering it. In the case of fr. 78, it is a nice 

 question whether Heraclitus would have said what is here imputed 

 to him. Origen seems to be clearly right in interpreting yvojfxas with 

 cro4>ia; but Heraclitus, whose doctrine of to ao<t>6v we considered above 

 in the note on fr. 41, although unsparing in his denunciation of the 

 stupidity of the crowd, clearly l)elie^•ed that he had attained to 

 wisdom. We naturally think of him as declaring with the Hebrew 

 prophet that he alone was left. 



We may note that fr. 78 seems to have served as a model for the 

 spurious fragment of Epicharmus, 57, 7, which Diels (V- 99, 4) writes 

 thus: 



ov yap avSpo^TTos rexi'cti^ tlv' evpep, 6 5e Oeds TOirav. 



