Heraclītus

, a celebrated Greek philosopher of Ephesus, who flourished about 500 years before the christian era. His father’s name was Hyson, or Heracion. Naturally of a melancholy disposition, he pa ed his time in a solitary and unsocial manner, and received the appellation of the obscure philosopher, and the mourner, from his unconquerable custom of weeping at the follies, frailty, and vici itudes of human affairs. He employed his time in writing different treatises, and one particularly, in which he supported that there was a fatal nece ity, and that the world was created from fire, which he deemed a god omnipotent and omniscient. His opinions about the origin of things were adopted by the Stoics, and Hippo crates entertained the same notions of a supreme power. Her a clit us deserves the appellation of man-hater, for the rusticity with which he answered the polite invitations of Darius king of Persia. To remove himself totally from the society of mankind, he retired to the mountains, where for some time he fed on gra in common with the wild inhabitants of the place. Such a diet was soon productive of a dropsical complaint, and the philosopher condescended to revisit the town. The enigmatical manner in which he consulted the physicians made his applications unintelligible, and he was left to depend for cure only upon himself. He fixed his residence on a dunghill, in hopes that the continual warmth which proceeded from it might di ipate the watery accumulation and restore him to the enjoyment of his former health. Such a remedy proved ineffectual, and the philosopher, despairing of a cure by the application of ox-dung, suffered himself to die in the 60th year of his age. Some say that he was torn to pieces by dogs. Diogenes Laërtius , Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers .— Clement of Alexandria , Stromateis , bk. 5 .――A lyric poet.――A writer of Halicarna us, intimate with Call i mach us. He was remarkable for the elegance of his style.――A native of Lesbos, who wrote a history of Macedonia.――A writer of Sicyon, . Plutarch.