1. [Diogenes Laertios] Herakleides son of Euthyphron of Herakleia of Pontos was a wealthy man. In Athens he first joined up with Speusippos. Besides, he listened to the Pythagoreans and zealously emulated Plato. And later he heard Aristotle. […] The writings of his that circulate are excellent and very beautiful. The dialogues I’m familiar with are:
On Justice, three books […]
On the Pythagoreans […]
2. [Plutarch] It is clear to me that very young men greatly enjoy and offer themselves as an eager and receptive audience to the discourses on philosophy that seem not philosophical and not difficult. For they go through not only Aisop’s fables and poetic topics and the Abaris of Herakleides and the Lyko of Ariston, but also the doctrines about souls mixed up with mythology, and they are inspired with pleasure.
3. [Eratosthenes, summarized] On the arrow. This is the missile for a bow, which they say is Apollo’s, with which he killed the Cyclopses, who produced the thunderbolt for Zeus, for the sake of Asklepios. And he hid it among the Hyperboreans, where also is the feather temple. And they say that earlier it was brought back, when Zeus released him from the murder and ended his service with Admetos, which Euripides tells of in the Alkestis. It seems the arrow was brought back at the time of Demeter Fruitbearer, through mid-air. And it was extremely large, as Herakleides of Pontos says in his About Justice, {also that a certain Abaris came carried on it}. For this reason Apollo has placed his missile in the stars, making a constellation as a memorial of his battle.
4. [A grammarian] In Herakleides of Pontos, from the second book of Things Attributed to Abaris: “And out of their nearby holes snakes slithered out, rushing boldly at his body. They were blocked however by the dogs barking at them.”
5. [A grammarian] In Herakleides of Pontos, in Things Attributed to Abaris. “And he said the daimon, having become a young man, laid the tree on top of him, and ordered him to believe about the gods, both that they exist and that they pay attention to human affairs.”
Author: Herakleides of Pontos
Title of Work: On Justice, Abaris and Things Attributed to Abaris
Location in Work: Texts 1, 24a-b, 130-132 (Schütrumpf)
Date of Work: c. 350 BCE
Original Language: Greek (Attic)
Original Text:
1. Ἡρακλείδης Εὐθύφρονος Ἡρακλεώτης τοῦ Πόντου, ἀνὴρ πλούσιος. Ἀθήνησι δὲ παρέβαλε πρῶτον μὲν Σπευσίππῳ· ἀλλὰ καὶ τῶν Πυθαγορείων διήκουσε καὶ τὰ Πλάτωνος ἐζηλώκει· καὶ ὕστερον ἤκουσεν Ἀριστοτέλους, [...] φέρεται δ’ αὐτοῦ συγγράμματα κάλλιστά τε καὶ ἄριστα· διάλογοι, ὧν ἠθικὰ μὲν·
Περὶ δικαιοσύνης γʹ [...]
Περὶ τῶν Πυθαγορείων [...]
2. ὅτι δὲ τῶν ἐν φιλοσοφίᾳ λεγομένων οἱ σφόδρα νέοι τοῖς μὴ δοκοῦσι φιλοσόφως μηδ’ ἀπὸ σπουδῆς λέγεσθαι χαίρουσι μᾶλλον καὶ παρέχουσιν ὑπηκόους ἑαυτοὺς καὶ χειροήθεις, δῆλόν ἐστιν ἡμῖν. οὐ γὰρ μόνον τὰ Αἰσώπεια μυθάρια καὶ τὰς ποιητικὰς ὑποθέσεις καὶ τὸν Ἄβαριν τὸν Ἡρακλείδου καὶ τὸν Λύκωνα τὸν Ἀρίστωνος διερχόμενοι, ἀλλὰ καὶ τὰ περὶ ψυχῶν δόγματα μεμιγμένα μυθολογίᾳ μεθ’ ἡδονῆς ἐνθουσιῶσιν.
3. Ὀιστοῦ. Τοῦτο τὸ βέλος ἐστὶ τοξικόν, ὅ φασιν εἶναι Ἀπόλλωνος, ᾧ τε δὴ τοὺς Κύκλωπας τῷ Διὶ κεραυνὸν ἐργασαμένους ἀπέκτεινε δι’ Ἀσκληπιόν· ἔκρυψε δὲ αὐτὸ ἐν Ὑπερβορείοις, οὗ καὶ ὁ ναὸς ὁ πτέρινος. λέγεται δὲ πρότερον ἀπενηνέχθαι ὅτε τοῦ φόνου αὐτὸν ὁ Ζεὺς ἀπέλυσε καὶ ἐπαύσατο τῆς παρὰ Ἀδμήτῳ λατρείας, περὶ ἧς λέγει Εὐριπίδης ἐν τῇ Ἀλκήστιδι. δοκεῖ δὲ τότε ἀνακομισθῆναι ὁ ὀιστὸς μετὰ τῆς καρποφόρου Δήμητρος διὰ τοῦ ἀέρος· ἦν δὲ ὑπερμεγέθης, ὡς Ἡρακλείδης ὁ Ποντικός φησιν ἐν τῷ Περὶ δικαιοσύνης, {καὶ ἐπὶ τούτου Ἄβαρίν τινα φερόμενον ἐλθεῖν}. ὅθεν εἰς τὰ ἄστρα τέθεικε τὸ βέλος ὁ Ἀπόλλων εἰς ὑπόμνημα τῆς ἑαυτοῦ μάχης καταστερίσας.
4. Ἡρακλείδου Ποντικοῦ ἐκ τοῦ δευτέρου λόγου τῶν εἰς τὸν Ἄβαριν ἀναφερομένων: “ἐκ δὲ τῶν ἐγγὺς φωλεῶν ἐξείρπυσαν ὄφεις ἐπὶ τὸ σῶμα σφοδρῶς ὀρούοντες. ἐκωλύοντο μέντοι ὑπὸ τῶν κυνῶν ὑλακτούντων αὐτούς.”
5. Ἡρακλείδου Ποντικοῦ τῶν εἰς Ἄβαριν ἀναφερομένων: “ἔφη δὲ τὸ δένδρον αὐτῷ τὸν δαίμονα, νεανίαν γενόμενον, ἐπιθεῖναι, προστάξαι δὲ πιστεύειν περὶ θεῶν, ὡς εἰσίν τε καὶ τῶν ἀνθρωπίνων ἐπιστρέφονται πραγμάτων.”
Reference Edition: Schütrumpf, Herakleides
Edition Notes: In fragment 3, text within curly brackets is found only in a collection of extracts from the epitome of Eratosthenes and not in the standard epitome text. This text however does not look like an obvious insertion or addition: it is in the form of indirect statement, fitting with the preceding Ἡρακλείδης ὁ Ποντικός φησιν, and thus clearly attributed to Herakleides. The context also fits the story of Abaris’ arrival as known from other texts (see the general commentary).
Source of Date of Work: Gottschalk, Heraclides, 5
Commentary:
Herakleides was a leading member of the second generation of Plato’s academy and a prolific and popular writer. Today he is best known as the first person known to have written that the earth rotates on its own axis, but among Greeks he was better known for utilizing myths, including his own inventions, to illustrate philosophical ideas. He apparently made multiple uses of the story of Abaris the Hyperborean, but the extant fragments are sparse and hard to interpret. Also included in this collection is Proklos’ retelling of a story by Herakleides about divine seizure.
Of Herakleides’ works named by Diogenes Laertios (fragment 1), we have direct evidence that the book called On Justice included a story about Abaris’ arrival (fragment 3). It’s also possible that Herakleides’ book On the Pythagoreans might have discussed Abaris, and could perhaps have been the source of stories told by the Roman-era writer Iamblichos’ (here, here and here).
In fragment 2, Plutarch writes that one of Herakleides’ works was named the Abaris, and implies that this book might have discussed “the doctrines about souls.” It isn’t clear how the story of Abaris could be used for that purpose, but the Herakleides story retold by Proklos surely could. No work called Abaris was included in Diogenes’ list, perhaps merely because Diogenes didn’t know it, or perhaps because the work called the Abaris also went by another name, or was part of a larger work, such as On Justice.
Fragment 3 is from a summary of a work on the origins of constellations by Eratosthenes, better known for his geography. Its story of Apollo taking revenge on the Cyclopses for helping Zeus kill Apollo’s son Asklepios, and Apollo’s forced service with Admetos, are found in Euripides’ tragic play Alkestis. The feathered temple to Apollo in Hyperborea was described by Pausanias (10.5.9-13, to come in this collection) and mentioned by Strabo (9.3.9). However the story of Apollo hiding his arrow in Hyperborea during his forced service is known only from this text, and it might be drawn from Herakleides, since he is the only other named source for this text.
The name-and-epithet Demeter Fruitbearer (Δήμητηρ καρπόφορος) is known mainly from inscriptions in the Cyclades, Ionia and Roman Asia. Here the return of Apollo’s arrow during “the time of Demeter Fruitbearer” strongly suggests the Attic festivals of Proerosia and Pyanopsia, which became somewhat merged during the Classical period and included first-fruit sacrifices to both Apollo and Demeter.
The sentence about Abaris in fragment 3 is marked in curly brackets because it is appears only in a collection of extracts from the standard text of the summary of Eratosthenes (see edition note). But since Abaris is connected with the Pyanopsia and Proerosia festivals and Apollo’s arrow in two other texts by Lykourgos and a commentator on Aristophanes, the line about Abaris fits very well in this context and seems almost certainly an authentic line from Herakleides. Thus Herakleides appears to have introduced the story about Abaris flying on Apollo’s arrow, which is missing from those other two accounts and from Herodotos’ brief account of Abaris.
Fragments 4 and 5 are attributed to a work of Herakleides titled Things Attributed to Abaris, which is also not mentioned in Diogenes’ list, and might or might not be the same text that Plutarch called the Abaris. The title suggests a collection of stories attributed to Abaris by folklore, or perhaps a response to a book of oracles that Abaris was believed to have written, mentioned by the commentator on Aristophanes and the Souda. Unfortunately these excerpts are too short to understand what the stories they were excerpted from were about or how they related to Abaris.
Concordance: (Sch=Schütrumpf)
| 1 | Sch1 | Diogenes Laertios, 5.86–94 |
|---|---|---|
| 2 | Sch130 | Plutarch, Moralia: How the Young Man Should Study Poetry, 1/14E |
| 3 | Sch24a | Epitome of Erastothenes’ Conversions into Stars, 29 |
| 3{} | Sch24b | Extracts of the Epitome of Eratosthenes’ Conversions into Stars (Codex Vatican Greek 1087) |
| 4 | Sch131 | Seguerian Lexica, On Syntax (Anecdota Graeca v.1, 178.27-31 Bekker) |
| 5 | Sch132 | Seguerian Lexica, On Syntax (Anecdota Graeca v.1, 145.21-27 Bekker) |