HERACLITUS, a famous Ephesian philosopher, who flourished about the 69th Olympiad, in the time of Darius Hystaspes. He is said to have continually
bewailed the wicked lives of men, and, as often as he came among them, to have fallen a weeping; contrary to Democritus, who made the follies of mankind a subject of laughter. He retired to the temple of Diana, and played at dice with the boys there; saying to the Ephesians who gathered round him, "Work of men, what do ye wonder at? Is it not better to do thus than to govern you?" Darius wrote to this philosopher to come and live with him; but he refused the offer: at last, out of hatred to mankind, he retired to the mountains, where he contracted a dropsy by living on herbs, which destroyed him at 60 years of age. His writings gained him so great reputation, that his followers were called Heraclitians. Laertius speaks of a treatise upon nature, divided into three books, one concerning the universe, the second political, the third theological, which he deposited in the temple of Diana.