Between 1424 and 1433 he worked on the translation of the Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers by Diogenes Laërtius, which came to be widely circulated in manuscript form and was published at Rome in 1472 ( the first printed edition of the Lives ; the Greek text was printed only in 1533 ).

** Diogenes Laërtius, Vitae philosophorum ( Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers )

The main source for the life of Heraclitus is Diogenes Laërtius, although some have questioned the validity of his account as " a tissue of Hellenistic anecdotes, most of them obviously fabricated on the basis of statements in the preserved fragments.

Timon of Phlius calls him " the riddler " ( ainiktēs ) according to Diogenes Laërtius, who had just explained that Heraclitus wrote his book " rather unclearly " ( asaphesteron ) so that only the " capable " should attempt it.

Diogenes Laërtius divides the physiologoi into two groups, Ionian and Italiote, led by Anaximander and Pythagoras, respectively.

The knowledge we have of them derives from accounts of later philosophical writers ( especially Aristotle, Plutarch, Diogenes Laërtius, Stobaeus and Simplicius ), and some early theologians, ( especially Clement of Alexandria and Hippolytus of Rome ).

Most of the details known about his life come from the anecdotes preserved by Diogenes Laërtius in his Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers.

Diogenes Laërtius has preserved many clever and witty remarks by Zeno, the veracity of which cannot be ascertained.

According to Persaeus ( Diogenes Laërtius vii.

A plausible chronology for his life is as follows: He was born 334 / 3 BC, and came to Athens in 312 / 11 BC at the age of 22 ( Diogenes Laërtius, vii.

He studied philosophy for about 10 years ( Diogenes Laërtius, vii.

Diogenes Laërtius gives two different accounts of his death.

Around 387 BC, at the age of 23, he traveled with the physician Theomedon, who according to Diogenes Laërtius some believed was his lover, to Athens to study with the followers of Socrates.

Diogenes Laërtius, however, wrote that Protagoras invented the “ Socratic ” method.

But most modern scholars, following the suggestion of Diogenes Laërtius, consider them to be forgeries, some forged by the philosopher Heraclides Ponticus, others by or altered by Christian writers:

Diogenes Laërtius preserves several different accounts of this story ; one of them has Crates giving his money away to the citizens of Thebes, apparently after seeing the beggar king Telephus in a tragedy ; whereas another account has him placing his money in the hands of a banker, with the agreement that he should deliver it to his sons, unless they too became philosophers, in which case he should distribute it among the poor.

Crates wrote a book of letters on philosophical subjects, the style of which is compared by Diogenes Laërtius to that of Plato ; but these no longer survive.

* Diogenes Laërtius ( between 200 – 500 CE ), historian

* Diogenes Laërtius, Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, translated by Charles Duke Yonge ( 1853 ) ( Uses a different method of enumerating the sections from the modern editions.

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Diogenes Laërtius says that his works filled ten volumes, but of these, only fragments remain.

Most of the biographical information we have of Theophrastus was provided by Diogenes Laërtius ' Lives of the Philosophers, written more than four hundred years after Theophrastus ' time.

From the lists of Diogenes Laërtius, giving 227 titles, it appears that the activity of Theophrastus extended over the whole field of contemporary knowledge.

Diogenes Laertius also ascribes to him the inscription on the tomb of Midas, of which Homer was considered by others to have been the author:

" Theophrastus says ( in Diogenes ) "... some parts of his work are half-finished, while other parts make a strange medley.

But for them, we should be without the most important fragments of the writings of the Eleatics, of Empedocles, Anaxagoras, Diogenes of Apollonia, and others, which were at that time already very scarce, as well as without many extracts from the lost books of Aristotle, Theophrastus and Eudemus: but for them we should hardly be able to unriddle the doctrine of the Categories, so important for the system of the Stoics.

Theophrastus presided over the Peripatetic school for thirty-five years, and died at the age of eighty-five according to Diogenes.

Likewise we find mention of monographs of Theophrastus on the early Greek philosophers Anaximenes, Anaxagoras, Empedocles, Archelaus, Diogenes of Apollonia, Democritus, which were made use of by Simplicius ; and also on Xenocrates, against the Academics, and a sketch of the political doctrine of Plato.

There were several copies of wills in Diogenes Laertius, as those of Aristotle, Lyco of Troas, and Theophrastus ; whence it appears they had a common form, beginning with a wish for life and health.

He was the friend and fellow-citizen of Theophrastus, a letter of whose to Phaenias is mentioned by Diogenes Laërtius.

The modern theory is that " Laertius " is a nickname, to distinguish him from the many other people called Diogenes in the ancient world, and derived from the Homeric epithet " Diogenes Laertiade ," used in addressing Odysseus.

The first two comprise entirely his Syntagma philosophicum ; the third contains his critical writings on Epicurus, Aristotle, Descartes, Robert Fludd and Herbert of Cherbury, with some occasional pieces on certain problems of physics ; the fourth, his Institutio astronomica, and his Commentarii de rebus celestibus ; the fifth, his commentary on the tenth book of Diogenes Laërtius, the biographies of Epicurus, Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc, Tycho Brahe, Nicolaus Copernicus, Georg von Peuerbach, and Regiomontanus, with some tracts on the value of ancient money, on the Roman calendar, and on the theory of music, with an appended large and prolix piece entitled Notitia ecclesiae Diniensis ; the sixth volume contains his correspondence.

" Diogenes said that Heraclitus flourished in the 69th Olympiad, 504-501 BCE.

Diogenes says that Heraclitus used to play knucklebones with the youths in the temple of Artemis and when asked to start making laws he refused saying that the constitution ( politeia ) was ponêra, which can mean either that it was fundamentally wrong or that he considered it toilsome.

With regard to education, Diogenes says that Heraclitus was " wondrous " ( thaumasios, which, as Plato explains in the Theaetetus and elsewhere, is the beginning of philosophy ) from childhood.

Diogenes relates that Sotion said he was a " hearer " of Xenophanes, which contradicts Heraclitus ' statement ( so says Diogenes ) that he had taught himself by questioning himself.

" Diogenes relates that as a boy Heraclitus had said he " knew nothing " but later claimed to " know everything.

Diogenes relates that Heraclitus had a poor opinion of human affairs.

Diogenes states that Heraclitus ' work was " a continuous treatise On Nature, but was divided into three discourses, one on the universe, another on politics, and a third on theology.

Diogenes also tells us that Heraclitus deposited his book as a dedication in the great temple of Artemis, the Artemisium, one of the largest temples of the 6th century BCE and one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

Although Ionia was a centre of Western philosophy, the scholars it produced, including Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes, Heraclitus, Anaxagoras, Archelaus, and Diogenes of Apollonia, had such diverse viewpoints that it cannot be said to be a specific school of philosophy.