Ephesus hosted some of the best and most well-known philosophers of ancient times such as Hipponax and Heraclitus. Also, one of the most important philosophical schools of the Ionian era called the ”Ephesian School” was in Ephesus too.
Heraclitus of Ephesus
”No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river, and he’s not the same man.”
Heraclitus of Ephesus
Heraclitus was a Greek philosopher from Ephesus who lived between 535 – 475 B.C. He is considered one of the most significant of the pre-Socratic philosophers. He created the idea of Logos causing change. He believed there is a constant change in the universe. Everything changing is controlled by the mysterious order called Logos. Many philosophers and church fathers who came after him such as Plato, Aristotle, Georg Hegel, Alfred North Whitehead, have claimed to have been influenced by the ideas of Heraclitus.
Heraclitus wrote a single book called ”On Nature”. His book has three parts called universe, politics, and nature. On Nature has verbal puzzles which made him earn the nickname ”the Riddler of Ephesus”. Heraclitus crafted meanings beyond the obvious making the readers think more. He idealized god, not as a being standing above everyone instead he thought god is the world we are living on the changes are caused by god.
How Did Heraclitus Die?
Heraclitus died at the age of sixty, around 475 BC, from an illness which the ancients called dropsy, when the body swells with water. The story of his last days was written down many centuries after him, so please take it with a smile.
In his old age, they say, he got tired of people and went to live in the mountains, eating grass and wild plants. This food made him sick. When his body was full of water, he came down to the city and asked the doctors a riddle: could they turn a rainy weather into a drought? Of course nobody understood what he meant.
So Heraclitus of Ephesus tried to cure himself. He lay down in a cow shed and covered himself with the warm dung, hoping the heat would pull the water out of his body. It did not work and he passed away. In another version his servants covered him with the dung, he died the next day and he was buried in the market place of the city.
Most likely this story was made up later by people who played with his own words. Heraclitus wrote that for souls it is death to become water, and a wise man who dies of too much water was too good a joke for them to miss. I prefer to remember him with his river. You can meet the other thinkers of our region in my article 10 Ancient Philosophers of Anatolia.
Ephesian School of Philosophy
The Ephesian School was based on the works and ideas created by Heraclitus of Ephesus. People who attended this school called themselves ”Heracliteans”. The Ephesian school had close links and several similarities to the Milesian School of philosophy since they both believed in the divine is in the material. School of Ephesus was one of the main ideology centers of the Ionian League.
Tour Guide for Ephesus
Philosophy is always a hot topic in my Ephesus tours. The grand theater of Ephesus, Agora of Ephesus, and Odeon of Ephesus are my favorite places when it comes to telling about philosophers like Heraclitus. You can always contact me to ask your questions about Heraclitus and Ephesian School. You can write to me to get a price offer for a guided Ephesus tour. See you soon, Hasan Gülday.
