Heraclides Ponticus

Heraclides Ponticus (

Heraclides' father was Euthyphron,[5] a wealthy nobleman who sent his son to study at the Platonic Academy in Athens under its founder Plato and under his successor Speusippus. According to the Suda, Plato, on his departure for Sicily in 361/360 BC, left the Academy in the charge of Heraclides. Heraclides was nearly elected successor to Speusippus as head of the academy in 339/338 BC, but narrowly lost to Xenocrates.^[6]

All of Heraclides' writings have been lost; only a few fragments remain. Like the

Although some historians[8] have proposed that Heraclides taught that Venus and Mercury revolve around the Sun, a detailed investigation of the sources has shown that "nowhere in the ancient literature mentioning Heraclides of Pontus is there a clear reference for his support for any kind of heliocentrical planetary position".^[9]

A punning on his name, dubbing him Heraclides "Pompicus," suggests he may have been a rather vain and pompous man and the target of much ridicule.

Heraclides also seems to have had an interest in the occult. In particular he focused on explaining trances, visions and prophecies in terms of the retribution of the gods, and reincarnation.[2]

A quote of Heraclides, of particular significance to historians, is his statement that fourth century B.C. Rome was a Greek city.^{[citation needed]}

Heraclides Ponticus refers with much admiration that Pythagoras would remember having been Pirro and before Euphorbus and before some other mortal.^{[citation needed]}

Notes

References

• Dorandi, Tiziano (1999). "Chapter 2: Chronology". In Algra, Keimpe; et al. (eds.). The Cambridge History of Hellenistic Philosophy. Cambridge:
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• Davidson, Martin P. (2007). The Stars And The Mind. Fabri Press. p. 45.
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• Eastwood, Bruce (1992). "Heraclides and Heliocentrism: Texts, Diagrams, and Interpretations". Journal for the History of Astronomy. 23 (4): 233–260.
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• Gottschalk, H. B. (1980). Heraclides of Pontus.
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• Guthrie, W. K. C. (1986). A History of Greek Philosophy: Volume 5, The Later Plato and the Academy (Later Plato & the Academy). Cambridge University Press. p. 470.
  ISBN 0-521-31102-0
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• Heath, Thomas L. (1921). A History of Greek Mathematics: From Thales to Euclid. Oxford: Clarendon Press. pp. 312, 316–317.
• Hutchinson, D. S.; Johnson, Monte Ransome (25 January 2015). "Protrepticus: New Reconstruction, includes Greek text".
•  
  Lives of the Eminent Philosophers. Vol. 1:5. Translated by Hicks, Robert Drew
  (Two volume ed.). Loeb Classical Library. § 92.
• Porter, Roy, ed. (2000). "Heraklides of Ponticus". The Hutchinson Dictionary of Scientific Biography (1st ed.).
  ISBN 978-1859863046
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• ISBN 0-8014-3283-9
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• Diogenes Laërtius
  trans. C.D. Yonge (1853) "Lives of Eminent Philosophers"
• O. Voss (1896) De Heraclidis Pontici vita et scriptis
• Wehrli, F. (1969) Herakleides Pontikos. Die Schule des Aristoteles vol. 7, 2nd edn. Basel.
• Heraclides of Pontus. Texts and translations, edited by Eckart Schütrumpf; translators Peter Stork, Jan van Ophuijsen, and Susan Prince, New Brunswick, N.J., Transaction Publishers, 2008
• Heraclides of Pontus. Discussion, edited by William W. Fortenbaugh, Elizabeth Pender, New Brunswick, N.J. : Transaction Publishers, 2009
• ISBN 978-0-486-22332-2
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• O. Neugebauer
  (1975) A History of Ancient Mathematical Astronomy

• O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F. "Heraclides Ponticus". MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive. University of St Andrews.