Andrei V . Lebedev

According to the generally accepted point of view, the metaphor of ‘book of nature’ is for the first time attested in the polemic essay of Augustine against the Manichaean Faustus (written c.398–400 A.D.) and was invented by him in the context of the creationist doctrine of «two books», popular in late antiquity and medieval theology, the liber scripturae (Bible) and liber naturae, in which the wisdom of the Creator is revealed by his creation. Leaving aside a narrow-phraseological approach to the issue and allowing a lexical variety in the formulation of the same conceptual metaphor, one should focus on the conceptual and semantic content of the metaphors ‘book of nature’ (hereinafter BN), and distinguish between two main and recurrent conceptual types: type (I), which can be conventionally called «Hellenic» and type (II), represented mainly in Judeo-Christian and Patristic authors. A distinctive feature of type II is that it either explicitly mentions «two books», or says that heaven, stars and all nature teach humanity the knowledge of God, or «glorify» his wisdom (Psalm 19.2 and etc.). A distinctive feature of type (I) is the grammatical
analogy between nature and the logos (speech, text) employing terms such as ‘division’ (διαίρεσις), ‘syllables’ (συλλαβαί), as well as ‘letters’ (γράμματα, στοιχεῖα). Type I is found almost exclusively in the Greek philosophers of the late archaic (Heraclitus), classical (Democritus, Plato) periods and in a later Platonic tradition (Plotinus, Nemesius). Both around the same time and before Augustine, the metaphor of the type (II) is found in Cappadocian fathers John Chrysostom and Gregory of Nyssa, as well as in an earlier Greek monastic tradition of Evagrius Ponticus (345–399), who ascribes it to Anthony the Great (251–356). The first who combined the Hellenic type (I) with type (II) and applied it to the exegesis of VT was Philo Alexandrinus, who in all probability was the original source of the Patristic doctrine of ‘two books.’ In this article, we will focus on the understudied early history of the type (I) and will try to show that the inventor of both the BN metaphor and the grammatical analogy associated with it, as well as of the semiotic epistemology based on them (known as the theory of the logos), was Heraclitus circa 490 BC, that is, about 900 years before Augustine. Democritus in the second half of the 5th century adapted it to his atomic theory, comparing single atoms with letters and their combinations with literary texts. Plato expounds Heraclitus’ grammatical analogy in a modified form in the ‘dream theory’ of Theaetetus, and alludes to it in the etymology of the name of Pan in the Cratylus. In the Timaeus Plato polemically turns against Democritus his own analogy by reassigning the status of elementary ‘letters’ to incorporeal geometrical ‘elements’ rather than to physical bodies. The constructive result of the critical dialogue between Plato and Democritus was the emergence of the important scientific and philosophical concept of «elements» (στοιχεῖα) in the sense of simple (often smallest and indivisible) components of a complex whole. The results of our study refute the Burkert-Lagerkranz hypothesis of the origin of this term from the geometry and confirm the correctness of Diels’s explanation of στοιχεῖα ‘elements’ as originally metaphor from grammar.

The mythopoetic parable of 'Gigantomachia over being' in Plato's Sophist 246a4 ff. is neither a theoretical construction ad hoc of some general trends, nor a reference to a single contemporary debate, e. g., between Plato's Academy and atomists in 4 th century BC. The controversy on the nature of being is described as a real battle on epic scale (ἄπλετος μάχη) between two camps, as a debate about fundamental problem of philosophy, that has always existed (ἀεὶ συνέστηκεν) and is still going on. In favor of the identification of the two camps primarily with the Ionian and Italian traditions in the pre-Platonic philosophy speaks the juxtaposition of the 'Ionian and Italian Muses' (Ἰάδες καὶ Σικελικαὶ Μοῦσαι) in the preceding context Soph. 242de. The 'unreformed giants' are the Ionian physikoi from Anaximander to Democritus, while their 'divine' adversaries, who reduce being (ousia) to immaterial forms, are the Pythagoreans, Eleatics and Platonists, as well as Socrates, who dismisses the Ionian περὶ φύσεως ἱστορία in Plato's Phaedo and who upholds the theory of ideas in the Republic and Phaedrus. The 'improved' giants of the second generation are metaphysical dualists like Anaxagoras and Empedocles who admit incorporeal causes like Mind and Love alongside with matter, as well as Heraclitus, the Ionian Sophists and Antisthenes who combined ontological naturalism with teaching arete. The general scheme of the development of theories of archai in Aristotle's Metaphysics is very similar: from those who recognized only material causes to those who admitted incorporeal moving cause (Anaxagoras and Empedocles).

Table of contents
1. Preliminary remarks. Eliminating the wrong category of ‘Presocratics’, correcting the improper use of the terms ‘monists’ and ‘pluralists’, and clarifying the distinction between ‘corpuscular’ and ‘atomistic’ theories of matter. – p. 689.
2. The new concept of ‘nature’ (φύσις) and the scientific revolution in Miletus in the first half of the 6th century B.C. The emergence of the first evolutionary history of the cosmos. — p. 697
3. Aristotle’s evidence on Anaximander’s theory of primordial substance as ‘mixture’ (􏱎􏱏Ἀναξιμάνδρου μῖγμα􏱓􏱔􏱕). The term ‘intermediate’ element (τὸ μεταξύ) is Aristotle’s own conventional label for the group of theories incompatible with his own theory of elements. Misinterpretations of the quotation from ‘Anaximander and most of physiologoi’ in Phys. Γ 4. — p. 706
4. The origin of the arche-formula (τὸ ἄπειρον = ἀρχἠ) attributed to Anaximander in the Imperial doxography. — p. 716
5. The evidence of Theophrastus on the universal mixture in Anaximander. The neglected analogy of gold-washing and the theory of vortex (δίνη) in Anaximander’s cosmogony. — p. 722
6. Additional evidence on the cosmogonical vortex in Anaximander and Anaximenes provided by Epicurus in the book XI of 􏱛"On nature" (Περὶ φύσεως) — p. 729
7. The ‘winnowing of seeds’ analogy in Xenophanes and in Plato’s Timaeus. Its relation to Anaximander’s analogy — p. 736
8. The true meaning of the fragment B1 DK. Anaximander’s discovery of the fundamental law of Greek physics, the law of conservation of matter 􏱞􏱟ἐκ μηδενὸς􏱋 μηδὲν γίνεσθαι (‘ex nihilo nihil fit’). — p. 741
9. Neglected anonymous quotations and reminiscences of Anaximander B 1. Heraclitus’ adaptation of Anaximander’s analogy to his own theory of the cosmic cycles and ‘fated changes.’ — p. 750
10. A hypothesis concerning the social status of the so-called ‘Milesian school’: a collegium or thiasos of physikoi, experts on matters of astronomy, geography, meteorology etc. under the patronage of Apollo Didymeus, serving the practical needs of the Milesian colonization, sea trade and founding new poleis. Evidence on a ‘conversation hall’ (􏱢λέσχη) as a possible seat of the collegium. — p. 758
Bibliography — p. 765

The original 1983 manuscript of the paper "Did the doxographer Aetius ever exist?" published in microfiche form in: Philosophie et Culture, Acts/Proceedings. XVII Congres mondiale de philosophie. Montreal 1983 Edited by Venant Cauchy, Ed.du Beffroi/Ed.Montmorency, v.3 (1988 ) pp. 813 - 817. Note that that each microfiche "page number" covers 2 pages of the original manuscript. 
    Diels's attribution of the supposed common source of Ps.Plutarch's De placitis philosophorum and Stobaeus' Eclogae to a certain Aëtius is a mistake based on the misreading of three passages in 5th century A.D. Christian apologist Theodoretus’ Curatio. Theodoretus never quotes Aëtius as a source of any single placitum of a specified Greek philosopher. He only mentions his name in a group of three authors (Porphyrius, Plutarch and Aëtius) as a kind of general bibliography of his sources for the opinions of Greek philosophers. Diels’s attribution is based primarily on two assumptions. 1) Theodoretus is lying, his only real source is Aëtius, the addition of two famous names of Porphyrius and Plutarch is allegedly a pretentious fake (splendoris gratia).  2) The combination of particles καὶ μέντοι καί in CAG V, 16, by which the name of Aetius is introduced, allegedly has emphatic meaning ‘and especially’ thus singling him out as the main source. But the analysis of the context of the passages in CAG II and IV ff. (which Diels has never undertaken!) demonstrates that Theodoret is not lying: he indeed quotes from three stylistically different pagan sources, whereas the name of Aëtius does not correspond to the quotations from SP-Placita, and so even Theodoret himself does not ascribe SP-Placita to a writer called Aëtius. Equally unfounded is the second claim of Diels.  The analysis of Theodoretus’ usage (never undertaken by Diels!) demonstrates that none out of the 80 instances of this combination in Theodoretus’ CAG has emphatic meaning assumed by Diels, it regularly introduces an additional point or example in a series (‘and also’, ‘as well as’), often of secondary importance.

A.V.Lebedev, The Aegean origin and early history of the Greek doctrines of
reincarnation and immortality of the soul (Epimenides, Pherecydes, Pythagoras, and Onomacritus’ Orphica), in: N.B.Bogdanovich (ed.). Myth, Ritual, Literature. National Research University “Higher School of Economics”, Institute of Classical Orient and Antiquity,  HSE Publishing House, Moscow, 2023, pp. 238-299.
  NB!  Figures I-III in the published volume are insets with no page numbers. In the present pdf file they are all attached at the end. Figure I (graffiti on bone plates from Olbia) looks to p.242, figure II  (portrait of diviner Pharnabazos) to p.284, figure III  (Cycladic group of 'mother and daughter') to p.273.
    In the section (1) a new reading and interpretation of the so-called ‘Orphic’ graffiti from Olbia is proposed on the base of superior quality photographs of the plates than the 1978 photo in the editio princeps, on which virtually all existing literature is based. Relying on Vinogradov’s 1997 photo, I read and interpret the bottom line of the recto of OF 463 as follows: Διο[νύσωι] Ὀρφικῶ[ι] λ̅ (scil. τριακάδι θύειν vel εὔχεσθαι) – “Sacrifice (or pray) to Dionysos Orphikos on the thirtieth day”.  Dionysos Orphikos is Dionysos of Orpheus’ Theogony, the son of Persephone, as distinguished from the traditional Dionysos, the son of Semele. Dionysos Orphikos permanently dwells in Hades, as was clearly seen by Philodemus. The bone tablets are neither dedications to Dionysus, nor secret ‘tokens’ of the initiated members of an Orphic thiasos. They are the oldest example of fortune-telling cards (ἀγυρτικοὶ πίνακες), typologically comparable to Tarot cards and Chinese inscriptions on oracular bones, and are based on the principles of Greek cleromancy (astragalomancy), since their triadic structure (number - prophecy – name of the god to whom one should pray) coincides with that of the cleromantic oracles from Asia Minor of the 2nd and 3rd centuries A.D. published by Nollé. The owner of the plates was most likely “Pharnabazos, the soothsayer of Hermes”, known from another graffito from Olbia of the same period, since it was Hermes who was considered the patron of popular dice divination. The drawings on the plates are associated with the symbolism of the Orphic myth of sparagmos (dismemberment) of Dionysus by the Titans and the Pythagorean doctrine of the immortality of the soul, while pairs of opposites come from a table comparable to the Pythagorean table of 10 opposites. Conclusion: the tablets provide no evidence on the existence of ‘Orphic community’ in Olbia (let alone of a kind of ‘Orphic church’ in Greece), but they provide evidence on the circulation of “Orpheus’ Sacred Words” in the periphery of Greek world in late fifth century B.C. Pharnabazos like the wandering priests (agyrtai) and diviners (manteis) in Plato's Republic, carried “books of Orpheus” in his bag, and combined the “Orphic” sparagmos/rebirth myth with Pythagorean doctrine of the substance dualism of the mortal body and immortal soul (the opposites ψυχή σῶμα are correlated with opposites ἀλήθεια ψεῦδος), anticipating the life-style of the Pythagoristai on the streets of Athens pictured in 4th century Attic comedy.
  Contrary to the hypothesis of the northern or "shamanistic" origin of the ancient Greek doctrines of the reincarnation and immortality of the soul, a completely new theory of Aegean origin is argued in this work based on the fact that all four of the earliest representatives of this tradition  either were directly related to Crete (Epimenides) and the Cyclades (Pherecydes of Syros), or had significant religious and philosophical contacts with the Cretan mantics (Onomacritus, the author of the ancient Orphic Theogony according to Aristotle) and the cult of Apollo Hyperborean on Delos (Pythagoras), which allowed only "bloodless" sacrifices, the religious and moral justification of which was the belief in the kinship of all living beings and reincarnation with the consequent prohibition of any bloodshed and animal sacrifice. A typology and an attempt at diachronic filiation of early versions of the doctrine of reincarnation are given. It is hypothesized that the “classical” Orphic-Pythagorean version was created by Pythagoras of Samos in the last third of the 6th century BC in Magna Graecia: it was a synthesis of the ancient Aegean version of Epimenides’ Theogony (c. 600 BC going back to the Aegean Bronze age doctrines of ‘rebirth’ reflected in the so-called Cycladic idols), which did not associate reincarnation with "punishment" for sins, but understood it as a continuation of eternal life in this world, and ancient Egyptian eschatology: the judgment of the soul in the afterlife, the osirification of the deceased, etc. Pythagoras based his doctrine of the human nature (immortal soul and mortal body) on a metaphysical substance dualism of peras and apeiron. The court diviner of the Peisistratidai in Athens in the late 6th century B.C. Onomacritus, who was probably a Pythagorean himself, according to the reliable evidence of Aristotle, expounded it in a mythopoetic form (the myth of the sparagmos of the divine child Dionysus by the evil Titans) in the Orphic Theogony which he ascribed to the mythical singer of times immemorial Orpheus. It was this Pythagorean (ethicized) version of the doctrine that was adopted by Plato, the Platonic tradition and - in an expurgated form – by the Church fathers who admitted only the post-mortem immortality of the soul, but rejected its pre-existence and reincarnation (except Origen).

A.V.LEBEDEV. INDO-ARYAN NAMES IN THE SAGA OF ARGONAUTS, ONOMASTICS OF COLCHIS AND GREEK INSCRIPTIONS OF THE NORTHERN BLACK SEA REGION.
English summary: 728-730.
I. Introduction to the problem. Research plan –731.
      II. Indo-Aryan names in the Argonauts saga: personal names of heroes – 736.
      III. Indo-Aryan names in the toponymy of the legend and its geographical area – 743.
      IV. Indo-Aryan names of three Colchians of the royal blood (Saulacus, Suvarmachius, Nabarnugius), the Scythian leader Saumacus and the owner of the ring from Vani Dedatos – 751.
      V. Indo-Aryan personal names in the inscriptions of the Northern Black Sea region (Olbia and Bosporus) - 766.
      Vi. Ethno-linguistic affiliation of the ancient Colchians – 775.

ИНДОАРИЙСКИЕ ИМЕНА В САГЕ ОБ АРГОНАВТАХ, ОНОМАСТИКЕ
КОЛХИДЫ И НАДПИСЯХ СЕВЕРНОГО ПРИЧЕРНОМОРЬЯ Содержание: I. Введение в проблему. План исследования – 731      II. Индоарийские имена в саге об аргонавтах: личные имена героев – 736  III.  Индоарийские имена в топонимике легенды и ее географического ареала – 743.  IV. Индоарийские имена трех колхов царского рода (Савлак, Сувармахий, Набарнугий), скифского вождя Савмака и владельца перстня из Вани Дедатоса – 751.  V. Индоарийские личные имена в надписях Северного Причерноморья (Ольвия и Боспор) – 766.  VI. Этноязыковая принадлежность древних колхов – 775. Ключевые слова: Аргонавты, Миф о золотом руне, Колхида, греческая мифология, история Грузии, истории Армении, история металлов и металлургии, Восточное Причерноморье в древности, индоарийцы, греческая эпиграфика Северного Причерноморья.

This is a full text of the review of M. Sassi's monograph 'The beginnings of philosophy in Greece' (2018), a very brief exposition of which has been published previously in Classical Review. While passing a generally favorable verdict on the value of Sassi''s contribution to  the study of this much-debated topic, the author also criticizes somewhat excessive 'pluralism' of 'beginnings' admitted by Sassi,  by emphasizing the fundamental and leading  role of the two main 'beginnings', represented by the Ionian Peri physeos historia, a detached scientific study of nature  (physis), on the one hand, and the Italian (Pythagorean and Eleatic) 'search for wisdom' (philosophy as a way of life), primarily centered on psyche and setting life-building and educational goals.  By engaging in a dialogue with Sassi, the author takes opportunity to expose his own views on the origin of Greek philosophy and science that disagree with much of what one can read in modern histories of ancient philosophy about Anaximander, Heraclitus, Parmenides, Pythagoreans, Alcmaeon and other Pre-Platonic thinkers. This disagreement results not so much from the invention of new interpretations, as from the rejection of the 19th - 20th centuries hypercritical approach to the sources of  Preplatonic philosophy, as well as from the rejection of the false category of 'Presocrastics' together with the ill-founded doxographical theory of Diels,  and a return to the ancient tradition combined with respect to the opinion of the ancient readers of the lost Preplatonic works: the study of 'hermeneutical isoglosses' and reliance on  the consensus of independent ancient readers who possessed the complete texts of the lost Pre-Platonic works. Thesaurus Linguae Graecae provides a powerful tool for this research, unknown to previous generations of scholars.

In this paper a new reconstruction of the text and interpretation of the fragment 580 Luria / B 30 DK is proposed. The author refutes the widespread opinion going back to Reinhardt (1912), according to which the fragment speaks of ancient sages, and argues that those who pray in the open air and call ‘Zeus’ air, are Iranian magi performing a Zoroastrian ritual. The fragment comes from the ‘Small Diakosmos’ of Democritus, which expounded the history of civilization and the origin of religion. For the reconstruction of the ancient phase of religion, Democritus uses the principle “as among barbarians now, so among the Greeks in ancient times”, which was widespread in the epoch of Sophists. The worship of the elements, preserved by the Persians, the absence of temples and statues, is a relic of the ancient phase of religion, which was replaced in Greece by the worship of anthropomorphic gods invented by the poets, a religion of “fools” (axynetoi).

First systematic study of Heraclitus' metaphorical language with a typology of metaphorical codes (sets of related metaphors) and explanation of the meaning and interrelation of key conceptual metaphors that provides a clue for the understanding of the fundamental philosophical doctrines of Heraclitus including epistemology, philosophy of language, metaphysics, philosophical theology, anthropology, psychology, ethics and politics.
                        Table of contents
Models of the cosmos, analogies and metaphorical codes: general introduction-2 2 Grammatical analogy: the cosmos as a logos (metaphor of Liber naturae)-5 3 Mantic metaphorical code: the cosmos as an oracle-6 4 Agonistic model: the cosmos as a stadium-9 5 Military model: the cosmos as a battlefield-15 6 Economic model: the cosmos as a household-19 7 Game model of the cosmos: Lusoria tabula-21 8 Sacral model: the cosmos as a Templum naturae-23 9 Biomorphic metaphorical code: the cosmos as a living organism-25 10 Technomorphic (demiourgical) analogies: metallurgy, pottery etc.-32 11 Sociomorphic model: Cosmopolis or the City of Zeus-35 12 Hebdomadism in Heraclitus philosophy of nature?-37 13 Bibliography-43

UNNOTICED QUOTATIONS FROM HERACLITUS IN PLATO AND THE PLATONIC TRADITION. (COMMENTARY TO FRAGMENTA PROBABILIA 1-15 LEB.) ANDREI LEBEDEV This is English translation of the portion of our commentary to the new edition and collection of fragments of Heraclitus relating to the group Fragmenta Probabilia. Our edition of the fragments of Heraclitus comprises three sections: 1) The main corpus of authentic fragments (1-160) quoted with Heraclitus' name. 2) Fragmenta probabilia (1-15) and 3) Dubia et spuria. We have distinguished 'Fragmenta probabilia" from "Dubia et spuria" because we regard them as authentic rather than not, but we have not included them in the main corpus because they are quoted without Heraclitus name. The attribution of each of these fragments to Heraclitus is argued for in the commentary, the assessment of the probability of their authenticity and the textual "authenticity grade" (verbatim quotation, paraphrase, adaptation, reminiscence etc.) may vary from case to case. For the convenience of reader I have added to the commentary to each fragment the Greek text with translation which in the original published version are printed separately from the commentary as a continuous text. Please, refer to the pages of the published version indicated for each fragment. А.В. Лебедев, Логос Гераклита: реконструкция мысли и слова (с новым критическим изданием фрагментов), Санкт-Петербург, «Наука», 2014, 533 с. A.V.Lebedev, The Logos of Heraclitus: A Reconstruction of his Thought and Word (with a

The Derveni Papyrus has been often misread and misunderstood for six main reasons. (1) First, because the papyrus was falsely labeled as ‘Orphic’ in the very first report. (2) Second, because another misleading label – ‘Presocratic’ – was soon after that attached to its author. (3) Third, because the rhetorical/grammatical terms of the Derveni author τὰ κοινά καὶ τὰ ἴδια (sc. ὀνόματα or ῥήματα) “common and peculiar names” that provide a clue for understanding his theory of language and the origin of religion have been misunderstood as alleged ‘echoes’ of Heraclitus’ own terminology. (4) Fourth, because of the failure to distinguish between two types of pantheism in early Greek thought, the naturalistic and the ethico-religious. (5) Fifth, because of the failure to distinguish between two types of allegoresis of myth: constructive (friendly and apologetical in purpose) and deconstructive (polemical or atheistic). (6) And, last but not least, the widespread (after Tsantsanoglou [1997]) misinterpretation of πάριμεν in PDerv., col. V as an alleged indication of the author’s religious profession. Mistake (1) is addressed in § (II), mistake (3) in § (IV), mistake (5) in § (II), mistake (6) in § (XI).
    The attribution of PDerv. to Prodicus of Ceos proposed in this article is based on verbal coincidences of peculiar phrases and terms in PDerv. and Prodicus’ fragments; Prodicus’ peculiar theory of the origin of the names of gods and religion from agriculture and other τέχναι ‘useful’ for human race is directly attested in PDerv.; there is also the evidence found in both Aristophanes and Themistius that Prodicus wrote an allegorical interpretation of the Orphic theogony.
  The demonstration of our thesis is presented in 11 sections (§) and three appendices (App.). After preliminary remarks on the necessary distinction of the two types of pantheism and allegoresis in Greek thought (§ [I]) we define in § (II) the literary genre, the general purpose, and the hermeneutical method of the Derveni treatise, and draw a preliminary intellectual portrait of its author describing his peculiar features, a kind of ‘composite image.’ In § (III), we argue for Prodicus as the author of PDerv. and present the 19 testimonia on which this attribution is based. These include both the verbatim quotations with Prodicus’ name that find an exact correspondence in the text of PDerv and the common peculiar features of language and style.
  In § (IV), we propose a reconstruction and interpretation of the text of col. IV that contains a quotation from Heraclitus. This column is of primary importance for understanding the aims and allegorical method of the author in general, as well as for his theory of names. In § (V), the problems of the original title and the date of the Derveni treatise are addressed, as well as its relation to the psephisma of Diopeithes (432 BC). In § (VI), the philosophical sources of Derv.T are discussed. Apart from the Anaxagorean source of the Derveni author’s cosmology and theory of matter recognized long ago, we discuss the possible influence of Democritus while dismissing “Leucippus”, Diogenes of Apollonia, and the Eleatics. We point to Protagoras as an important source of anthropology for the Derveni author and to Heraclitus as the source of his philosophy of language (including functionalist semantics) and criticism of popular religion. In § (VII), we briefly present our reasons for rejecting the ascription of PDerv. to other authors (Epigenes, Stesimbrotos, Euthydemus, Diagoras of Melos). § (VIII) expands the discussion of Prodicus’ atheistic sobriquet ‘Tantalos’ in § (III) by focusing on two cryptic Tantalos passages in Euripides’ Orestes. Taking the torture of Anaxagoras before his trial as a historical fact (which the new reconstruction of Philodemus’ account by Eduardo Acosta Méndez has brought to light, and which Christian Vassallo confirms in this volume, DAPR, T7), we interpret the tortures of Tantalos as an allusion to Anaxagoras’ trial, a cryptic commemoration of the 20th anniversary of his death, and a makarismos of the heroic martyr of science, analogous to Euripides’ cryptic commemoration of Protagoras’ death in Ixion. § (IX) searches for further reflections of the ‘avian’ theme (ὀρνίθειον in PDerv., cols. ΙΙ and VI) in Aristophanes’ Birds and Clouds. It starts with the attribution of a neglected comedy fragment in the Suda Lexicon to Aristophanes’ Seasons and connects the comic passages in the Clouds on ἀλεκτρυών with Prodicus’ orthoepeia. The passage on ‘Persian cock’ as a prehistoric king in Birds 481–492 is interpreted as a parody of Prodicus’ theory of the origin of religion and civilization. § (X) discusses three ‘Heraclitizing’ passages (apart from col. IV) in cols. V, XX, and XXII, and arrives at the conclusion that cols. V and XX contain either hidden verbatim quotations from Heraclitus or paraphrases close to the original text with authentic terms and phrases, whereas col. XXII contains a summarizing exposition of Heraclitus’ philosophy of lan- guage and religion (the invention of polytheism by poets due to their ‘ignorance’). In § (XI), the hypothesis that Euripides may have taken with him to Macedonia a copy of Prodicus’ work on religion, since he quotes it in the Bacchae on which he worked at that time, is advanced. A copy of it may have been made for the library of Archelaus in Pella. In App. (1) we defend the traditional 5th cent. date and the Preplatonic character of PDerv. in response to Luc Brisson’s Stoic hypothesis. App. (2) clarifies our use of the term peritrope and explains the Derveni treatise as a naturalistic peritrope of a religious text. App. (3) identifies a neglected reflection of Prodicus’ benefaction theory of religion in Xenophon’ Memorabilia with parallels from PDerv.

Abstract and table of contents
(1) Preliminary criticism of the presuppositions of the denial of existence of idealism in early Greek thought: pseudohistorical evolutionism, Platonocentrism that ignores the archaic features of Plato’s metaphysics and psychology, and the modern stereotype of «Presocratics» as physicalists, a product of the late 19th century (excessive) positivist reaction against Hegelianism and German idealism in the English-speaking historiography of Greek phiosophy.    p.653
(2) Demiourgos and creationism in Pre-Platonic philosophy. Creation by divine mind is a form of objective idealism (mentalism).  p,.658
(3) The thesis of Myles Burnyeat and Bernard Williams (no idealism in Greek philosophy) is criticised. We point to scholastic and ancient (Platonic) roots of Descartes’ substance dualism of body and mind, as well as to the even more ancient Pythagorean roots of Plato’s doctrine of immortal soul.    p.661
(4) A provisional taxonomy of different types of idealism (mentalism) in ancient Greek philosophy is proposed. 11 types are distinguished.  p.663
(5) The evidence of the Orphic-Pythagorean graffiti from Olbia on the early Pythagorean substance dualism of body and soul proves its Preplatonic origin.      p.673
(6) Criticism of modern naturalistic interpretations of Pythagorean first principles peras and apeiron (Burkert, Huffman and others). Peras and apeiron (a geometrical analogue of later terms form and matter) are self-subsistent incorporeal mathematical essences, out of which physical bodies are «constructed» (ἁρμόζειν, another geometrical term for «construction») by the divine mind-demiourgos.    P.674
(7) The identity of Being and Mind in Parmenides. A refutation of the grammatically impossible anti-idealist interpretation of fr. B 3 by Zeller, Burnet and their followers. Parmenides’ Kouros is a poetic image of Pythagoras as the originator of the Western Greek monotheistic theology of the noetic One, concieved  as a Sphere of immutable thinking divine light (the conceptual metaphor of the Invisible Sun of Justice that «never sets»). p.675
(8) The psychological and ethical dimensions of the Eleatic doctrine of Being, almost totally neglected in the mainstream of the post-Burnetean literature. The Pythagorean doctrine of the indestructible soul serves as a practical tool of military psychological engineering: the education of fearless warriors. Strabo’s commonly neglected report on invincible Eleatic warriors, educated by Parmenides’ nomoi, is to be taken seriously.  p.681
(9) The «battle of gods and giants over being» (Gigantomachia peri tes ousias) in Plato’s Sophist 246a as a testimony on the Prelatonic metaphysical idealism (mentalism). It is argued that the two warring camps should not be confined to contemporary atomists and academics only: the whole Ionian (naturalism) and Italian (idealism) traditions, mentioned in Plato’s context, are meant, i.e. the whole history of Greek philosophy. p.689
(10) Some clarifications on the use of the terms idealism, naturalism, dualism etc.  p.694
Keywords: Ancient Greek philosophy, Preplatonic philosophy, Pythagoras, Pythagorean school, Eleatic school, Parmenides, Melissus, Empedocles, Epicharmus, Heraclitus, idealism, naturalism, philosophical theology, body and mind.

As I have repeatedly stated since 1989 on different occasions, “Presocratics” is a misleading term of the modern historiography of Greek philosophy which is both historically incorrect (was Socrates “Presocratic”?) and philosophically meaningless. The ancients saw the truth: there were two, not one, beginnings of Greek philosophy. The Ionian tradition starting with Thales was a secular empirical science. The Italian tradition started by Pythagoras had a religious- ethical dimension and was educational in scope. These two traditions originated in totally diferrent sociocultural contexts and were different in their goals. The term φιλοσοφία comes from the Italian tradition, the Ionian word for the new science was ἱστορία, a word which is often associated with travel and collecting information. The birth of the Ionian tradition of ἡ
περὶ φύσεως ἱστορία was triggered by the practical/economic needs of the Milesian polis, first of all by seafaring, sea trade and colonization (more that 90 colonies according to Plinius). Navigation requires knowledge of astronomy, geography and meteorology, three subjects that constitute the core of any Ionian treatise Περὶ φύσεως.

A study of peculiar features of Heraclitus' language and style that combines formal analysis with a special emphasis on their philosophical implications relating to the philosophy of language, metaphysics and epistemology. The following 10 topics are discussed:                                                                                                                                                                  1.  Anсient critics on the "obscurity" and "ambiguity" of Heraclitus' style……….43
    2. Syntactic polysemy. Asyndeton………………………………………………..44
    3. The omission of the conjunction καί  ‘and’ between the opposites……………49
    4. The use of connective particles………………………………………………...51
    5. Ellipsis of copula: the omission of the verb ἐστίν in certain contexts…………51
    6. The use of the article……………………………………………………………53
    7. Pluralis poeticus (or philosophicus?)…………………………………………...54
    8. Folklore elements. Proverb, parable, riddle……………………………………54
    9. Fränkel's “proportion”………………………………………………………….55
    10. Chiasmus……………………………………………………………………….57
It is argued that in most cases  the peculiarities at issue cannot be reduced to rhetorical or stylistic devices, but are grounded in a serious philosophical work and experimental attempt to reform the ordinary language, i.e. to bring it in line with physis, the objective order of things. The regular omissiοn of the verb "to be" (ἐστί), of the conjunction καί ῾and῾ between the opposites,  and of articles in the "cosmic" fragments relating to the cyclic interchange of opposites, is a linguistic implementation of the metaphysical doctrines of identity (and lack οf substantiality) of opposites and of Universal flux in the phenomenal world of plurality.This fact proves once again that the doctrine of the Universal Flux is a genuine doctrine of Heraclitus and not Plato's invention. In the last section several types of chiasmus in Heraclitus are distinguished and compared with the  ring-composition in Homer and archaic Greek culture.

This chapter focuses on the assessment of the first book of the Hippocratic treatise De diaeta as a source for the reconstruction of the lost book of Hetaclitus. We argue that this is an invaluable source which – with  due precautions and reservations – leads to the reconsideration of the nature and purpose of Heraclitus' book. 20 out of 24 "crafts" (τέχναι) and other practices adduced in chapters 11-24 of De diaeta, book I are attested in the authentic fragments of Hercalitus or in the Heraclitean tradition. This transforms Heraclitus from a physicist into anthropologist and once again confirms the correctness of the evidence of Diodotus that the book of Heraclitus "was not about nature, but about politeia". In their original context the examples from various τέχναι were conceived as empirical proofs (tekmeria) in support of the thesis "craft imitates nature" (ἡ τέχνη μιμεῖται τὴν φύσιν) which in turn demonstrates that in their works (ἔργα, ποιεῖν) humans unconsciously imitate the divine law of the harmony of opposites that permeates  the Universe and the world of polis. Heraclitus' book is the first theory of natural law and the first political utopia anticipating Plato's Republic.

This chapter sets Heraclitus and his work in the historical context of the Ionian  revolt (499 - 494 B.C.).The combined  external evidence and the ipsissima verba of Heraclitus lead to the conclusion that the book of Heraclitus was not only a philosophical treatise, but also a program of radical political and religious reforms whose aim was the creation of a federal state of Ionian Greeks (presumably with further expansion of it into a Panhellenic state) in order to match and to surpass the military might of the Persian empire.  In religious sphere the  Homeric anthropomorphic  polytheism had to be replaced by a monotheistic cult of Apollo the Sun (being a visible manifestation of his Father Zeus, the imperceptible «ever-living fire» imbued with mind, the creator of the Universe) who would unite the Greeks as a «common» (ξυνός) patron of the unified mega-polis. Heraclitus was an ideologue of the Ionian revolt and probably was connected with the «party of war» in Ephesus, hence his glorification of the fallen in battle who would be awarded with a «better portion» in afterlife and become commensals of gods in the Sun region, according to the neglected verbatim fragment in Zenobius Sophista (fr. 159A Lebedev). Heraclitus intentional «obscurity» and metaphorical language can be explained both as imitation of the oracular language of Apollo (whose prophet he claims to be by the prophetic formula “listening not to my logos…”) and as a conspiratorial protection against the spies of the Great king.  Heraclitus’ project probably failed because of the destruction of Miletus (494 B.C.), but his Panhellenic ideas may have influenced the founders of the Delian League who made the Delian Apollo the patron of the new confederation. And his dream was finally realised in full by Alexander the Great.

I. GREEK PHILOSOPHY AS A REFORM AND THERAPY OF THE ORDINARY LANGUAGE;
II. HERACLITUS’ EXPERIMENTS WITH LANGUAGE, GRAMMAR AND STYLE
The first part of this investigation draws attention to one understudied, and yet philosophically important approach to language in Greek philosophy from archaic times to Aristotle: the reform of ordinary language, word-making and attempts to discover or to create an ideal language or a language “conforming to nature”. The following cases at point are discussed: the critique of the ordinary language as a product of doxastic imagination in Heraclitus and Parmenides associated with linguistic idealism and the theory of “linguistic error” of mortals in ancient times that resulted in the origin of polytheism and belief in the reality of the phenomenal world of many things misnamed by empty words. The elimination of the words for “birth and death”, “generation and de- struction” as “deceptive” and their systematic replacement by new “correct” mechanistic terminology of “excretion from mixture, recombination and dissolution” of material particles in Ionian physics (Anaximander, Anaxagoras) and Empedocles. The theory of the “disease of language” as the root of mythology and anthropomorphic polytheism of poets in Sophists (Prodicus, the Derveni papyrus), Aristotle’s attempts to give names to “anonymous” moral qualities in Nicomachean Ethics. The idea of a “divine language” is to some extent anticipated in the Homeric topos of the “language of gods” which has Indo-European roots. A suggestion is made en passant that if the author of the “dream theory” in Plato's Theaetetus, quoted by Wittgenstein in Philosophical investigations, I.46 as an ancient antecedent of his simple “objects” in the Tractatus, is Heraclitus rather than Antisthenes (as we argue on the ground of the new reconstruction of grammatical analogy in Heraclitus’ logos-fragments), then a historical link can be established between Wittgenstein's linguistic idealism and Heraclitus’ analogies of “cosmic grammar” and “alphabet of nature”, although in Wittgenstein’s perception it was, of course, a theory of “Socrates” and Plato, not of Heraclitus. Part II is a case at point study of language and style in Heraclitus including following topics: oracular features, syntactic polysemy (hyperbaton), omission of the conjunction καί between opposites, omission of the verb ‘to be’ in the desсriptions of phenomenal change, omission of article with words referring to ‘appearances’ (τὰ φανερά, τὰ δοκέοντα), replacing a standard singularis (ποταμός) with pluralis (ποταμοί), because what we see is a series of rivers
changing every moment, Fränkel’s “proportion” as a means of approaching the unknown, forms of chiasmus, chiastic (amoebean) structure of fragments as a mimesis of the natural cyclical processes (the ‘road up and down’).
Keywords: ancient philosophy, theories of language, origin of religion and mythology, Heraclitus, Parmenides, Anaximander, Anaxagoras, Empedocles, Democritus, Greek sophists, Prodicus, Plato, Aristotle, the Derveni papyrus.

Why did western Greek philosophers (Xenophanes, Parmenides, Empedocles), unlike their Eastern Ionian colleagues, chose the Homeric hexameter rather than prose to express their thought? It has been thought by some that these philosophical poems represent a continuation or adaptation of the Homeric tradition for didactic purposes. We reject this interpretation because it ignores the fundamental difference between the Ionian and Italian philosophical traditions. The Ionian tradition was scientific in spirit and therefore used Ionian prose. The Italian tradition starting from Pythagoras was a revolt against the Ionian naturalistic monism and an attempt to restore the traditional religious world-view in a new quasi-scientific form. Western Greek philosophy from the start was ethical-religious in its aims, and therefore it chose the most “hieratic” poetic medium of the time, the language of Pythia and Apollo. And in doing so it did not aim so much at the “continuation” of the Homeric tradition as at “replacing” the old bad mythology of the poets with a good new one, just as Plato later tried to replace bad old myths with new philosophical myths of his own. Western Greek philosophical poems, consequently, should be viewed not as a revival of the old epic poetry, but as its radical reform and a peritrope. In Greek dialectics peritrope was a technical term for “turning over” of the opponent’s argument against himself. We use this term in a less technical and a wider sense of a polemical device which aims at “defeating an opponent with his own weapons”. Peritrope is an often neglected polemical device of the Greek culture of the philosophical debate. E.g. the cosmogony of Plato’s “Timaeus” can be interpreted as a creationist peritrope of the Ionian (and atomistic) naturalistic determinist physics. And the Derveni papyrus (i.e. "Horai" of Prodicus of Ceos) presents exactly the reverse case: a polemical naturalistic peritrope of the creationst Orphic (i.e. Pythagorean) theogony.

Complete English translation of the article published originally in Russian (2015).
                              Summary
It is commonly believed that the epic Theogony of Epimenides of Crete derives from the corpus of pseudepigrapha under his name and that it was composed by anonymous author (with Pythagorean background) after 500 B.C. We demonstrate (mainly on the basis the reconstruction of the proem of the Theogony) that such influences do not exist and we arrive at the conclusion that the Theogony was written by Epimenides himself around 600 B.C. Aristotle who was sceptical about the authorship of the poems attributed to Orpheus and Musaeus, cites Epimenides without reservations as the real author of the verses he cites. Therefore the common elements between Epimenides on the one hand, and the Orphics and Pythagoreans on the other (Night as the first principle, the cosmic egg, the immortality and reincarnation of the soul), should be interpreted as borrowings by the latter from Epimenides, not vice versa. As a “priest of Zeus and Rhea” Epimenides belongs to the ancient Cretan hieratic clan that claimed descendance from Aiakos, son of Zeus; in view of the extreme conservatism of Cretan cultural, political and religious traditions, the sources of Epimenides’ divine wisdom should be sought not in the hypothetical “northern” or eastern quarters, but in the local oral traditions that go back the Late Minoan times and are closely tied with the cults and myths of the region around Mount Ida and similar oracular caves. The discussion of Epimendes’ herbal medicine shows that it is connected both with therapeutuc use of herbs and with cathartic rituals; Indian Ayurveda provides a close typological parallel to this, so common Indo-European roots are possible. After this we address the problem of the origin and thesources of the Orphic Theogony and propose a new solution. Taking at its face value Aristotle’s information on Onomacritus as the author of the Orphic epic Theogony, we discuss the “Cretan connections” of Onomacritus and adduce in favour of our hypothesis numerous literary and epigraphical- archeological pieces of evidence that connect early Orphism and the belief in the reincarnation with the Idaen cave and the region around it (Orphic golden plates and epistomia from Eleutherna and Sfakaki near Rethymno collected and studied by Tzifopoulos). Inter alia, we also propose a new interpretation of the Orphic graffiti written on bone plates from Olbia as divinatory devices (mantic cards, the oldest known ancestor of the cards Tarot) that probably belonged to the “diviner of Hermes” Pharnabazos of Olbia and were connected with the dice divination (astragalomanteia), the proper art of Hermes. The divinatory dodecahedron found in the Idaean cave seems to be connected with astragalomanteia, as well.

Table of contents: 1) The epistemological proem of Alcmaeon's book: a new reading of fr. B 1 DK. 2) A new fragment of Alcmaeon from the Turba philosophorum: Locustor/Locuton in Sermo 7 is Alcmaeon (cf. "Lecineo" = Alkmaun in De plantis). 3) Alcmaeon and the origin of the akropolis/kephale analogy in Greek philosophy and medicine. Plato in "Timaeus" remakes Alcmaeon's original biological analogy (relation of brain and senses) and adapts it to his moral psycholohy (relation of reason and
emotions). 4) The "seasons of life"  analogy: an additional fragment of Alcmaeon from Aristotle's GA and HA. 5) The date of Alcmaeon and his relation to the Pythagoreans. A defence of the longer version of Aristotle's evidence on Alcmaeon  (Metaph. 986a29-31) which supports the ealier date (c.500 B.C.) against Mansfeld's attempt to redate Alcmaeon to the second half of the 5th century B.C. Alcmaeon' theory of opposites is directly linked to his theory of sensation and was conceived as empirical alternative to the Pythagorean Table of opposites which is based on rationalist epistemology and consists of mathematical and ethical concepts. Aristotle's "wondering" about who borrowed his theory of opposites from whom (rationalists from empiricists or vice versa) may by polemical in purpose and directed against contemporary Pythagorizing Platonists: the leitmotif of Metaphysics Alpha is that most philosophers in their theories of the first principles did not propose something different from  one or few of the 4 principles established by Aristotle in his Physics. The theoretical conflict of Alcmaeon's empiricism with the aprioristic mathematical essentialism of the Pythagoreans is viewed by Aristotle as  a historical antecedent to his own debate with the Old Academy.  The mention of the diaphonia of Pythagoras and Alcmaeon (aprioristic ten abstract pairs of opposites versus indefinite number of opposites perceived by the senses) thus is not accidental: it is intrinsically connected with the programmatic empiricist epistemology from which the book Alpha starts.  6) Alcmaeon B 4, Herodotus, Heraclitus and the early history of isonomia. Refutation of J.Mansfeld's attempt to doubt the authenticity of isonomia: this is an early Ionian term for moderate democracy replaced only in the second half of the 5th century by the Attic δημοκρατία, it constitues a verbatim quotation from Alcmaeon, and not a "Herodotism" in Placita, contra Mansfeld. Acmaeon, Herodotus, Heraclitus and the authors of the Attic scolium to Harmodius and Aristogeiton use it independently of each other. Heraclitus may have mentioned ἰσονομία in his cosmological historiosophy: the change of political regimes is detrermined by the rotation of power of the 4 cosmic masses  (Fire, Prester = Winter Stormwind, Sea and Earth corresponding to the Hot, the Cold, The Wet and the Dry, four cosmic forces which dominate in turn both at the tropai of the astronomical year  and the tropai of Megas Eniautos) that causes cyclical alternation of the period of Want characterized by  the "wetness"  of souls and democratic "madness of cowds" and the period of Abundance of fire when  the souls become dry and the "insane" rule of hoi polloi is replaced by the rule of "one the best".

A very brief and unorthodox history of Greek philosophy tries to demonstrate how the elimination of some persistent false stereotypes in the historiography of ancient philosophy will result in a different picture and in a different narrative about what happened in Archaic and Classical periods in Greek thought. The stereotypes that we eliminate in this sketch are the following: 1) The pseudo-historical and misleading concept of ‘Presocratics’. 2) Plato-centrism: the enormous exaggeration of the originality of Plato's basic doctrines and the denial of their archaic Pythagorean and Eleatic roots of Platonism. 3) Pseudo-historical evolutionism: focusing on (often imaginary) historical change and ‘development’ and neglect for persistent paradigms and stable forms of ancient thought; neglect for typological considerations which are based on conceptual schemes, and not on words. 4) Underestimation of the Scientific revolution in 6th century Miletus and the wrong denial by Popper and his followers of its empirical non-speculative method (inferential proofs from available evidence tekmeria, tekmairesthai). 5) Pseudo-historical denial (starting with Burnet 1892) of the existence of metaphysical idealism in Preplatonic Greek philosophy which is incomparably more archaic than the revolutionary new Milesian naturalism. Contrary to the deceptive evolutionist story of ‘discovery’ of the first principles in Aristotle’s Alpha book of Metaphysics, the Milesians should not be presented as primitive thinkers who ‘who have not yet’ discovered the moving cause (i.e. god distinct from matter), they rather should be presented as more advanced thinkers who ‘have already dismissed’ the moving cause together with archaic creationism and replaced the anthropomorphic gods of mythopoetic cosmogonies with a revolutionary concept of self-evolving ‘nature’ (physis) unknown before them. Greek philosophy and science had two ‘beginnings’ in the 6 century B.C. initiated by two intellectual giants: Anaximander in the East (the father of naturalistic monism), and Pythagoras in the West, the father of speculative idealist metaphysics. For the next 1000 years or so the two mainstream traditions of Greek thought were engaged in incessant ‘gigantomachia over being’ described in Plato’s Sophist. In the second half of the 5th century the naturalistic Ionian and the mentalist Italian traditions were joined by the new Attic dialectical tradition, that served both camps (Socrates versus Sophists).

Τhe title of this paper, "Parmenides the Pythagorean", has not been invented by the author, it has been "discovered" in ancient sources and constitutes a quotation.  In his description of Elea Strabo calls Parmenides and Zeno ἄνδρες Πυθαγόρειοι. In 1892 John Burnet has replaced this ancient perception of Parmenides with a new one, "the father of materialism". The physicalist interpretation of Parmenides' concept of  being (which derives from the late 19th century positivist reaction to Hegelianism and German idealism in the historiography of Greek philosophy) involves unsurmountable difficulties. What might be the purpose of a «theory» that the real world is a changeless mass of dead matter? Why was it presented as a divine revelation? Why would Dike, the personified Justice and concomitant of Zeus (a religious notion for any Greek in archaic times), hold this strange object in the "bonds of limit" and what would happen if she released it? Why did the real materialists of the ancient world, the Epicureans like Colotes, ridicule Parmenides as immaterialist? How  could Plato (who scorned materialists) find in it extraordinary βάθος and proclaim its author μέγας? How could all ancient philosophers (who had in their hands the complete text of Parmenides) from Plato to Plotinus be mistaken about the nature of Parmenides' being? The followers of Burnet's physicalist interpretation avoid even to pose, let alone to answer these question. In our view there is only one possibility to make philosophical sense of Parmenides ' poem: to take seriously the ancient tradition of his Pythagorean background  and to interpret his metaphysics as idealistic monism or immaterialism. The sphere of Being described in the Aletheia is not a lump of dead matter, but the divine Sphairos of the Western Greek philosophical theology (cf. Xenophanes and Empedocles), conceived as pure Nous (Mind) which is the only true reality. The identity of Being and Mind is explicitly stated by Parmenides in fr. B 3, Zeller's and Burnet's interpretation is grammatically impossible and never occurred to any ancient reader. "What-is", conceived as a sphere of divine light endowed with consciousness,  is also the invisible "Sun of Justice" (the Sun that «never sets»), an archaic idea known to Heraclitus and imitated by Plato in the allegory of the Sun in the Republic. Night (the symbol of body and corporeal matter) does not exist, it is an empty name resulting from a linguistic mistake of mortals who misnamed the absence of light as a separate substance.  The Kouros of the Proem is not Parmenides himself, but an Apollonian image of his venerated teacher Pythagoras whose soul  ascended to the celestial temple (oracle) of gods in a winged chariot and received there an oracular revelation from Aletheia herself, a great gift to humanity that liberated men from the veil of ignorance and fear of death. The first part of Parmenides' poem was not just an exercise in speculative metaphysics concerned with problems of motion and plurality, but a handbook of philosophical theology and practical psychology with ethical and political implications: the attributes of the divine absolute are paradigmatic for the personality of an ideal citizen abiding to law (Dike) and a warrior who has no fear of death and pain, since he knows that his soul is  immortal and his body is just a «shadow of smoke” (σκιὰ καπνοῦ). The immobility of the divine Sphere is not a physical theory, but a psychological paradigm of the ataraxia and tranquillity (hesychia) of the wise who has eradicated all passions: in Greek psychology pathos is commonly conceived as kinesis of the soul.  Strabo's remark that the laws established by ἀνήρ Πυθαγόρειος Parmenides ensured the military victories of poor Elea over her enemies is not phantastic at all: the Pythagorean/Eleatic warriors had no fear of death, like Zeno of Elea who was tortured by the tyrant and died as a hero or like the Samian admiral Melissus who fought against the Athenian empire. Incidentally, what kind of inspiration could these heroic characters (as well as the lawmaker Parmenides) receive from the strange theory that the real world is a mass of lifeless matter? Melissus (a professional military man) explicitly states that the Eleatic being is incorporeal and feels no pain. The opposition of the “two roads”, as well as the third road of the "two-headed" thinkers, is not just theoretical or methodological: it is a history of Greek philosophy as perceived by a Pythagorean in the early fifth century BC. The “road of being and Truth” is the divine philosophy of Pythagoras, the “road of non-being” and falsehood is the naturalistic monism of the Ionians (rejected by Pythagoras), and the “two-headed” guys are the Heracliteans who try in their pantheism to combine the Pythagorean theory of the divine cosmic mind with the Ionian naturalism and who admit the identity of being (mind, light) and non-being (body, night), as well as the "reverse road" of the interchange between cosmic opposites (παλίντροπος quoted verbatim from Heraclitus). Heraclitus attacked Pythagoras for his metaphysical dualism and accused him of stealing alien wisdom, Parmenides defends his teacher, ridicules Heraclitus and follows the orthodox Pythagorean view according to which Pythagoras received his doctrine of the immortal soul directly from the gods, and not from the barbarians.
  This article, inter alia,  proposes three new readings of Parmenides' Proem and identifies as a neglected verbatim quotation from Parmenides in Proclus the poetic words "The Maiden of the High Gates" (Νύμφη Ὑψιπύλη) which refer to the philosophical Pythia of Parmenides, the goddess Aletheia and probably come from the last verses of the poem. The "High Gates" are the "Gates of Day and Night", the destination of Kouros' flight. This quotation alone refutes all "katabasis" interpretations of the proem. The gates are located "high in the sky" (αἰθέριαι), not in the netherworld. It is methodologically incorrect to  interpret Greek philosophers on the basis of presumed "parallels" from Greek poetry (Hesiod in this case) since the general world-view of the philosophers is "toto caelo" distant from that  of the poets, as a result of which the same words and phrases often have different referential meaning.

Expanded version of paper delivered at the International conference "Heraklit von Ephesos und seine Zeit" (7-12 Oktober 2013, Selcuk Municipality, Turkey), in:  „Heraklit im Kontext” hrsg. von Enrica Fantino, Ulrike Muss, Charlotte Schubert, Kurt Sier", Studia Praesocratica Bd. 8, De Gruyter, 2017, 231-267.

          A.Lebedev, Metaphor of Liber Naturae and Alphabet Analogy in Heraclitus' Logos-Fragments (Abstract)

  This article criticizes both the traditional metaphysical interpretation of Heraclitus’ notion of logos (logos as divine reason, universal law etc.) and the widespread verbalist interpretation (logos as the discource of Heraclitus humself). On the basis of the systematical study of Heraclitus’ metaphorical language a new interpretation is proposed that takes the phrase “this logos” in the beginning of Heraclitus’ book as a metaphor of “book of nature” with a referential meaning “Universe”. This interpretation was known in antiquity and is attested by a group of ancient sources including Plato (λόγος σημαίνει τὸ πᾶν) and the Stoic source of Philo Alexandrinus who ascribes to Heraclitus the notion of τὰ τῆς φύσεως γράμματα. The metaphor of book of nature is a part of a more complex metaphorical model based on the grammarical or alphabet analogy between speech or text (logos in grammatical sense)  and  the external world. In Greek grammar “logos” (both phonetic speech and written text)  is analyzed into “syllables”,  syllables into “letters”, stoicheia (later this term came to denote “elements”). In this analogy “letters” correspond to separate elementary opposites of the physical world, syllables to their combinations and “logos” to the total sum of all “syllables”, i.e. to the Universe. The metaphor of “book of nature” in Heraclitus has both epistemological-metaphysical, and ethical-political as well as a theological dimension.  First of all its purpose is to explain the fundamental thesis of Heraclitus’ metaphysics about the identity of opposites and the unity of the cosmos: all visible phenomena (τὰ φανερά) without a single exception form pairs of opposites which should be “joined together” in thought, and the resultig “syllables”  should be all incorporated into a single Logos which is the only true reality, τὸ ξυνόν. Reading the book of nature is like killing the lice: the more you “grap”, the less is left (against polymathia of the positive science of  the Milesians).  Wisdom consists in knowing all things as one (ἓν πάντα εἰδέναι keeping the MSS reading εἰδέναι). At the same time it contains a hidden polemics against the mechanistic physics of the Milesians (Anaximander). The physical cosmos should be “read” and interpreted like a book rather than explained by mechanistic causes. It has not been produced by a blind vortex of the dead matter, but created by the divine fire endowed with consciousness and providential reason. When interpreted correctly it displays the Cosmopolis or the City of Zeus perfectly governed by the divine Mind (Gnome). The Cosmopolis is the divine paradigm for ideal legislation in the human world. Polytheism and democracy (the rule of “many”) go “against nature” and therefore should be replaced by monotheism and the rule of “one the best”, i.e. philosopher-king. Heraclitus can be ragarded as the author of the first Greek political utopia as well as the proponent of the first consistent and well-argued theory of natural law. Heraclitus’ book was written during or after the Ionian revolt (499 – 494 BC) and contained an appeal to Ionian Greeks to overcome the local separatism of the multiple city-states and to create a unfied federal Greek state in order to fight against the Achaemenid empire. The unifying common cult, accordung to Heraclitus, had to become that of Apollo the Sun. The words “attending not to mine logos…” (but to the logos of the Universe, i.e. to divine command) in the incipit of Heraclitus’ book is a prophetic formula: Heraclitus speaks as a prophet of Apollo.

A.V.Lebedev, The Origin and Transmission of the Doxographical Tradition Placita Philosophorum (Arius Didymus, Ps.Plutarch, Stobaeus, Theodoret, Nemesius, Porphyrius), in: INDO-EUROPEAN LINGUISTICS AND CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY–XX(2) (Joseph M. Tronsky memorial Conference). Proceedings of the International Conference, St. Petersburg, 20–22 June, 2016 / edited by Nikolai N. Kazansky. St.Petersburg: Nauka, 2016, pp. 573-633.  The electronic version of the volume is available at  https://tronsky.iling.spb.ru/static/tronsky2016_02.pdf

  Abstract. In the frst part we will recuperate and reinforce our arguments against Diels’ Aëtius hypothesis. We will also discuss the nature and purpose of the extant Ps.Plutarch’s De placitis philosophorum and will argue that in its present form it is a truncated copy of the original handbook of physics (παραδώσειν!) with only 6 authorial definitions remaining from many more in the original. We assign to this «better Plutarch» the siglum P+ . The archetype of the P tradition was probably a personal copy of a Christian apologist who was interested only in diaphonia of the Hellenes and therefore dropped most of the apodictic definitions and other authorial remarks and explanations as worthless. The second main complex of problems we will address is the relation between P+ and Stobaeus (S) on the one hand, and between both of them and Arius Didymus, on the other. We will refute Göransson’s claim that Arius the doxographer should be distinguished from Arius the court philosopher. We add to 8 known authorial definitions in P and S two neglected ones from Stobaeus. One of them (on ἀνάγκη, Ι,4,7b) we connect with the lemma Διδύμ<ου>. Which means that P+ was known to Stobaeus as a work o Arius Didymus. Tertlullian is the second independent source who quotes P+ as «apud Arium». Finally we will present the new stemma of doxographical sources that emerges from our research in which the central role is accorded neither to Dielsian hypothetical «Theophrastus», not to the ficticious writer «Aëtius», but to the real giant of Post-Hellenistic philosophy Arius Didymus from Alexandria, the teacher of the emperor Augustus.
Keywords: Ancient Greek philosophy, Post-Hellenistic philosophy, Stoicism, Aristotelism, doxography, Arius Didymus, Aëtius, Theophrastus, Pseudo-Plutarch, Stobaeus, Theodoret of Cyrus, Nemesius of Emesa, Porphyrius, Christian apologists, Hermann Diels.

"Presocratics" as a modern term for the early Greek Philosophers of the 6th and 5th centuries BC is not only historically/chronologically incorrect (was Socrates "Presocratic"?), but also theoretically/philosophically misleading and heavily laden with the stereotypes of the 19th century positivist (anti-idealist, anti-German) trend in the historiography of Greek philosophy that goes back to John Burnet (1892). The simplistic evolutionist scheme in the history of greek philosophy (a theoretical relic of the 19th century evolutionism) postulates "development" from the simple to the complex (which is ambiguous as such in the history of thought) and erroneously takes the Ionian theories of elements as something "primitive" when compared with Plato's dualism and idealism. But in fact idealistic, mentalistic, immaterialist forms of thought and ways of constructing reality are much more archaic than the naturalistic world-view created by the 6th century scientific revolution in Miletus. Plato's idealism was a revival (in new form and  with new arguments) of the archaic pythagorean and eleatic metaphysical doctrines that had been previously removed from the philosophical scene by the Sophistic Enlightenment. The misleading term "Presocratics" should be replaced by the neutral term "Early Greek Philosophers" or – following the historians of Greek art – philosophers of the archaic period (585 - 480 B.C.), of the early classical (480 - 450) and of the high classical period (450 - 400 B.C.).

Andrei V. Lebedev, «Western Greek Philosophical Poems and the Homeric Tradition: Continuity or Rupture?», in: "Indo-European Linguistics and Classical Studies. Proceedings of the Memorial Tronsky Conference, Institute for Linguistic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences at St-Petersburg, St-Petersburg, 2010, pp. 101 – 110.
    Why did western Greek philosophers (Xenophanes, Parmenides, Empedocles), unlike their Eastern Ionian colleagues, chose the Homeric hexameter rather than prose to express their thought? It has been thought by some that these philosophical poems represent a continuation or adaptation of the Homeric tradition for didactic purposes. We reject this interpretation because it ignores the fundamental difference between the Ionian and Italian philosophical traditions. The Ionian tradition was scientific in spirit and therefore used Ionian prose. The Italian tradition starting from Pythagoras was a revolt against the Ionian naturalistic monism and an attempt to restore the traditional mythopoetic world-view in a new quasi-scientific form. Western Greek philosophy from the start was ethical-religious in its aims, and therefore it chose the most “hieratic” poetic medium of the time, the language of Pythia and Apollo. And in doing so it did not aim so much at the “continuation” of the Homeric tradition as at “replacing” the old bad mythology of the poets with a good new one, just as Plato later tried to replace bad old myths with new philosophical myths of his own. Western Greek philosophical poems, consequently, should be viewed not as a revival of the old epic poetry, but as its radical reform and a peritope. In Greek dialectics peritrope was a technical term for “turning” the opponent’s argument against himself. We use this term in a less technical and wider sense of a polemical device which aims at “defeating an opponent with his own weapons”. Peritope is an often neglected polemical device of the Greek culture of the philosophical debate. E.g. the Derveni allegorical treatise (which we attribute to Prodicus) is an example of naturalistic and atheistic peritrope of the religious Orphic poem.  The cosmogony of Plato’s “Timaeus” can be interpreted as a teleological (and immaterialist) peritrope of the Ionian (and atomistic) determinist physics.
  On p. 104 a new reading of Parmenides B 1,3 is proposed:
        δαίμονος ἣ κατὰ πάντα ποτῆι φέρει εἰδότα φῶτα
“(the road) of goddess who carries the man of knowledge (i.e. the philosopher) on wings (literally “by flight” or flying) across the Universe”. The imagery of Parmenides’ proem is imitated in the famous passage of Plato’ Phaedrus that compares the soul with a winged chariot.

The Philosophy of Parmenides as a system of idealistic monism (immaterialism). The Pythagorean background of Parmenides' metaphysics. The origin of the mistaken positivist interpretation of Parmenides. Plato's date of Parmenides' birth (circa 515 BC) is a literary fiction, Apollodorus' date (c. 544/541 BC) is to be preferred.

The Theogony of Epimenides of Crete and the origin of the Orphic-Pythagorean doctrine of reincarnation
It is commonly believed that the epic Theogony of Epimenides of Crete derives from the corpus of pseudepigrapha under his name and that it was composed by anonymous author (with Pythagorean background) after 500 B.C. We demonstrate (mainly on the basis the reconstruction of the proem of the Theogony) that such influences do not exist and we arrive at the conclusion that the Theogony was written by Epimenides himself around 600 B.C. Aristotle who was sceptical about the authorship of the poems attributed to Orpheus and Musaeus, cites Epimenides without reservations as the real author of the verses he cites. Therefore the common elements between Epimenides on the one hand, and the Orphics and Pythagoreans on the other (Night as the first principle, the cosmic egg, the immortality and reincarnation of the soul), should be interpreted as borrowings by the latter from Epimenides, not vice versa. As a “priest of Zeus and Rhea” Epimenides belongs to the ancient Cretan hieratic clan that claimed discendance from Aiakos, son of Zeus; in view of the extreme conservatism of Cretan cultural, political and religious traditions, the sources of Epimenides’ divine wisdom should be sought not in the hypothetical “northern” or eastern quarters, but in the local oral traditions that go back the Late Minoan times and are closely tied to the cults and myths of the region around Mount Ida and similar oracular caves. The discussion of Epimendes’ herbal medicine shows that it is connected both with therapeutuc use of herbs and with cathartic rituals; Indian Ayurveda provides a close typological parallel to this, so common Indo-European roots are possible. After this we address the problem of the origin and the
sources of the Orphic Theogony and propose a new solution. Taking at its face value Aristotle’s information on Onomacritus as the author of the Orphic epic Theogony, we discuss the “Cretan connections” of Onomacritus and adduce in favour of our hypothesis numerous literary and epigraphical- archeological pieces of evidence that connect early Orphism and the belief in the reincarnation with the Idaean cave and the region around it (Orphic golden plates and epistomia from Eleuphtherna and Sfakaki near Rethymno collected and studied by Tzifopoulos). Inter alia, we also propose a new interpretation of the Orphic graffiti written on bone plates from Olbia as divinatory devices (mantic cards, the oldest known ancestor of the cards Tarot) that probably belonged to the “diviner of Hermes” Pharnabazos of Olbia and were connected with the dice divination (astragalomanteia), the proper art of Hermes. The divinatory dodecahedron found in the Idaean cave seems to be connected with astragalomanteia, as well.
Keywords: Epimenides of Crete, Theogony, early Greek philosophy, divination, oniromancy, epic poetry, ritual slendering, rite de passage, Orphism, Orphic gold plates, pythagoreism, Pythagoras, soul, immortality, longevity, reincarnation, metempsychosis, Onomacritus, Aristotle, Euripides, Theopompus, Lion of Nemea, liar’s paradox, phytotherapy, history of herbal medicine, Ayurveda, Crete, Idaean cave, Eleutherna, Sfakaki, origin of the cards Tarot, astragalomancy (dice divination), Hermes, Apollo, Zeus.

New reconstruction of the text and interpretation of the quotation from Aristarchus of Samos in a second century commentary on Odyssey published by Haslam in volume LIII of the Oxyrhynchus Papyri (POxy 3710). The ascription to Thales of the epiprosthesis explanation of the eclipses of the sun (occultation due to obstruction by the moon) was not first made in the 1st century B.C. by the  'Posidonian' doxography, as one could think before the publication of this evidence.  Aristarchus of Samos knew this tenet three centuries earlier, his source was Pre-Peripatetic tradition of the 5th century B.C., possibly Democritus who 'admired' the astronomical achievements of Thales.

Two fragments of a lapidary epigram with a mention of tyrannicide(s) found in Olbia Pontica in 1970 and 1985 have been joined and published by J.G.Vinogradov in his “Political history of Olbia” (1989). Vinogradov interpreted the stone as a base of monument erected by Olbiopolites to a local tyrannicide and identified this local hero with a certain Heuresibios known from other inscriptions from Olbia. The section (1) of our article shows that Vinogradov’s reconstruction of the Greek text cannot be correct both on the grounds of grammar and style. The particle γοῦν, typical for Attic prose, is alien to the language of epos and elegy, no Greek verse could ever begin with γοῦν. Τhe attempt to insert the name of Heuresibios in the first line is unfortunate. The second fragment of the stone found in 1985 proves without any doubt that the epigram glorifies tyrannicides, not one tyrannicide (the reading οἱ κτάνον ἄνδρα τύραννον imposes itself as the only possible, Vinogradov’s οὐ κτάν᾽ ὅς being faulty Greek).  On the ground of the close similarity of the Olbian epigram with a Hellenistic epigram for Harmodios and Aristogeiton from Chios published by Lloyd-Jones, we identify the tyrannicides with the famous Athenian heroes. In section (2) we date the stone and the inscription to the last third of the fourth century B.C. It is at this time after the siege of Zopyrion that a series of dedications to Zeus Eleutherios were made. However, the text of epigram may be older than this stone. Olbia, like Chios, was a member of the Delian league, the cult of Harmodios and Aristogeiton was a part of Athenian political propaganda in allied poleis. The similarity with the Chios epigram should be explained by a common source. In section (3) we argue that the text of the Olbian epigram is probably based on the epitaph of Athenian tyrannicides in the Demosion sema in Kerameikos, not on the inscription of the older statue in agora. This epitaph was composed by a first-class professional poet who probably won a competition. Since the Chios collection of epigrams, including the one for Harmodios and Aristogeiton, may have been a gift of Ion of Chios to the gymnasium of his native city, Ion appears to be a plausible candidate for  the authorship.
Vinogradov' hypothesis of  a 5th century tyranny in Olbia lacks evidential basis. Vasily Latyshev's view of 5th century democratic Olbia remains valid.

In his treatise On the eternity of the world , 4-47 Philo of Alexandria sets forth a doxography of opinions of Greek philosophers on the eternity of the cosmos contrasting  the theory of its periodical generation/destruction held by Democritus, Epicurus and the Stoics (generated and destructible) with that of Aristotle (ungenerated and indestructible) and Plato’s mediating position (generated and indestructible) which has been long ago anticipated by Moses in the Book of Genesis. In chapter 39 Philo turns to what he calls the "most demonstrative and irrefutable" argument allegedly used by myriads of philosophers. “Myriad" is a rhetorical exaggeration for “well known” or used by many, Philo’s main source is Aristotle’s lost work “On philosophy” (fr.916 Gigon). This argument is based on a trichotomic division with a subsequent refutation of all three possible assumptions: if the god destroys the present world in order to create a new one, the latter can only be worse, exactly the same or better than the former.  It cannot be worse, since as the two anonymous hexameters have it, “even a woman is not deficient in sound mind to such extent as to prefer what is worse when there is something better”. The new world cannot be the same since in this case the god would behave like a small child playing on a sea shore, erecting and destroying sand hills. The whole passage reveals a striking parallelism with the arguments in favor of the immutability of god ascribed to Xenophanes in De Melisso Xenophane Gorgia, chapter 3, as well as verbal echoes of extant authentic fragments of Xenophanes. We therefore argue that not only the two hexameters, but also the whole trichotomic argument in its archaic form (including the reminiscence of the famous Homeric simile) quoted by Philo derives from the lost monotheistic poem of Xenophanes. On p. 389 we propose a hexametric reconstruction of the original verses. An important outcome of this attribution is that the Xenophanes section of MXG,ch.3-4 is indeed based on Xenophanes’ verses, although the author of MXG omits colorful similes of Xenophanes and paraphrases them in a colorless fourth century B.C. language. The naïve and somewhat sophistic character of argumentation (the god cannot behave like a woman or a child) explains why Aristotle characterized Xenophanes a “somewhat crude” thinker (ἀγροικότερος) in comparison with the strict logic of Parmenides. Another important outcome is that Xenophanes used rationalistic dialectical argument in his monotheistic theology that resemble to some extent the Eleatic style of philosophising. Burnet’s radical separation of Xenophanes from the Eleatic school and from his second home city Elea, contradicted by all extant ancient evidence, was a serious mistake. Xenophanes can be adequately characterized as a Proto-Eleatic thinker.

The publication of the Arabic translation of Nicolaus Damascenus' De plantis confirms the identification of the mysterious philosopher ΛΕΧΙΝΕΟΣ in the Greek translation from Latin (from Arabic from Greek) with ΑΛΚΜΑΙΩΝ. This makes Alcmaeon of Croton the author of the first general naturalistic theory of the origin of plants. The two elements, the fire of the Sun as active element (father), and earth as passive and nourishing element (mother) exactly correspond with the two elements of the roughly contemporary (or of somewhat later date) Doxa of Parmenides. The article also points to another neglected anonymous quotation from Alcmaeon on withering of hair in Aristotle GA 785 a 25.

In this article it is argued that the anonymous Aphrodite hexameters, quoted by Hippolytus of Rome in his Refutation of all heresies (V,8,43) from a Gnostic source, have been wrongly attributed to Orpheus by Kern, to Parmenides by Diels-Kranz (dubitanter) and to Empedocles’ Katharmoi by Reinhardt. Most probably, the verses derive from the embryological section of  Empedocles’ poem ‘On nature’: the ‘hollow and slimy path best suited to conduct into the lovely grove of much-honored Aphrodite’ is a metaphorical description of the vagina and uterus. In the same context Empedocles described female genitals as ‘split meadows of Aphrodite’ (σχιστοὶ λειμῶνες Αφροδίτης, B 66). The words ‘and right under them’ (αὐτὰρ ὑπ᾽αὐτοῖν) in the beginning of line 1 refer to the ‘split meadows’ mentioned in the preceding verse. In the sexual geography of Empedocles the vaginal tract is metaphorically conceived as a ‘road’ that leads from the spilt meadows to the lovely grove of Aphrodite. Cf. the obscene use of λειμών in Euripides’ Cyclops, v.170.

A new reading and interpretation of the fragment 11 B. of the epic Titanomachia. Cheiron has taught humanity not σχήματα Ὀλύμπου "figures of Olympus" (whatever it means), but ὀρχήματα Ὀλύμπου, the dances of the Olympian gods (like the dance of Zeus in fr. 6 B.). The poet's concept of dikaiosyne (the first instance of the word in Greek literature) transcends the later narrow notion of legal justice or the moral justice of the philosophers, it comes closer to "civilization", but with such strong religious and ritualistic connotations that one might render it with some liberty as "religion" or "religiousness". Since the Titanomachia is in all likelihood quoted by Xenophanes and must have become classic by the second half of 6th century B.C., it cannot be dated later than 7th century BC.

A new (ethical and anthropological, not physicalist) interpretation of Heraclitus fr. 84a-b DK = 79-80 Lebedev. The fragment does not describe "changes of fire", but rather compares the change of human generations with the relay race or lampadedromia: those who are "tired" transmit the torch of life to the fresh runners and "take a rest" (ἀνάπαυλα), i.e. die. This Heraclitean simile was imitated by Plato, Legg. 776b and Lucretius, 2, 75-79. Since human life in Heraclitus mirrors the life of the cosmos, Heraclitus may well have compared with the torch race  the motion of the Sun, the Moon and the stars as well: the naive theory of celestial "bowls" (σκάφαι) attributed to Heraclitus by the doxographers (Placita and Diogenes Laertius) seems to be a "reconstruction" of his alleged astrophysical doxai from the imagery of lampadedromia ("bowls" or handles  of the torch, or alternatively, concavities on the top of an altar).

German translation of a conference paper published in 1980 by the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow. An attempt of «stylistic typology» of  Greek Preplatonic cosmologies. Stylistic affinities between geometrical style and Anaximander's cosmos. Architectural analogies in Anaximander's cosmology. The «world as a temple» (Templum naturae) model. According to Vitruvius, IV,III,1 the facade of the Doric temple is divided into 27 parts with the half-diameter of the lower column as a module (in another passage, III,III,7 the module is equal to the whole diameter). In Anaximander's cosmology:  1) the diameter of the earth serves as a module for the construction of the cosmos; 2) the diameter of the cosmos equals 27 diameters of the earth (12 A 11, § 5; A 21); 3) the earth is similar in shape to a  «column drum» of a temple.  Analogies from painting (γραφική) in Empedocles’ cosmogony: the four elements as the four colors of Polygnotus.

Τὸ ἄπειρον is Aristotelian and doxographical term, not an authentic term of Anaximander himself. In the key aristotelian passage on which the doxographical tradition depends, Aristotle does not ascribe this term specifically and exclusively to Anaximander, he uses it as descriptive term for the infinite matter, a doctrine common to  the "most of the physiologoi". The doxographers describe Anaxagoras' first principles as τὸ ἄπειρον plus Νοῦς, but the substantivated neutrum τὸ ἄπειρον does not occur in Anaxagoras' verbatim fragments, he uses ἄπειρον only as a predicate.   
    Postscipt June 2015:  I still have no doubt that the attribution of this Aristotelian term to Anaximander is a serious mistake, but I do not support anymore the thesis of the second part of my paper (VDI 1978 Nr2, pp. 43-58) in which I suggested that the original term of Anaximander was Χρόνος ἄπειρος. And I do not believe anymore in any Iranian or "Orphic" influences on Anaximander's physics. The hypothesis of cosmogonic Chronos was based on the wrong interpretation by Jaeger of the phrase κατὰ την τοῦ Χρόνου τάξιν in fr. B 1 as allegedly meaning "according to the ordinance of Time". The discovery of the neglected paraphrases of B 1 which preserve the original Ionian terminology of change has convinced me that a personified Chronos in Anaximander is out of question: the phrase χρόνου τάξις is equivalent to χρόνος τεταγμένος and refers to the προθεσμία, the prefixed date for the repayment of debt (χρέος).

New interpretation of Anaximander's theory of matter and of the fragment B 1 DK. Τὸ ἄπειρον is Aristotelian term, not an authentic term of Anaximander who spoke about Φύσις ἄπειρος, ἀΐδιος καὶ ἀγήρως "Boundless nature, eternal and never-aging". The consensus of Aristotle and Theophrastus makes it certain that Anaximander conceived this eternal matter as a mixture or a panspermia of different stuffs similar to the universal mixture of Anaxagoras (but without cosmic Nous). Therefore the pluralis ἐξ ὧν ... εἰς ταῦτα "out of which /elements/... into the same" refers to the original matter of the Universe, not to the "opposites" pace Burnet, Jaeger, Kahn, Kirk-Raven and others. The  metaphorical language of this first formulation of the fundamental  in Greek physics principle ex nihilo nihil fit is not poetic all, but is based on the analogy with borrowing and repaying debt at prefixed date. Neglected paraphrases of Anaximander B 1 in Heraclitus the Allegorist, Philo Alexandrinus and Ioannes Lydus demonstrate that in its authentic form the fragment used Ionian mechanistic terminology of separation-composition-decomposition of particles (ἀποκρίνεσθαι, συγκρίνεσθαι, διακρίνεσθαι) , and not the Aristotelian terminology of "generation and destruction" (γίγνεσθαι καὶ φθείρεσθαι).

A general exposition of Anaximander's achievement for the new edition of the "Large Russian Encyclopedia" based on our new interpretation of fr. B1 DK as the first formulation of  the ex nihilo principle. The same metaphorical language of lending-borrowing is attested in 3 fragments of Heraclitus. Anaximander as the founder of the Western science comprising physics, cosmology, astronomy, geology, meteorology, geography, biology and paleontology.

Attribution to Heraclitus of an anonymous quotation in Aristotle' De caelo that assimilates the cosmogonical process to the art of goldsmiths. The Stoic notion of πῦρ τεχνικόν derives from this and other similar analogies of Heraclitus. The Commentators of Aristotle misunderstood the simile as an example of coagulation, and the compiler of Placita mistook the gold sand (ψῆγμα in Ionian usage means just raw gold, i.e. shapeless mass of gold) for atomic particles and turned Heraclitus into atomist!
  Postscript June 2015: I still believe that the attribution to Heraclitus is correct and has no alternative. The fragment is now included in the "technological" chapter of Heraclitus' book in my edition of Heraclitus fragments as fr. 116 Leb. But  further investigations of Heraclitus' cosmic cycle have led me to conclusion that Heraclitus B 31 DK (= 44-45 Leb.) describes the cosmic war of the 4 elements rather than "chemical" cosmogony. Therefore the simile quoted by Aristotle should be regarded as a separate fragment not connected directly with B 31 or B 90 DK. It refers to the "melting" of gold (i.e. change of form, cf. μετασχηματίζεσθαι in Aristotle's second quotation from Heraclitus in De Caelo) rather than to "smelting", i.e. purification of the alloy.

A  summary of Heraclitus philosophy based on the new collection of fragments and a revised Greek text. Heraclitus' metaphysics and epistemology (theory of cosmic logos), philosophy of nature (cosmos abd fire), anthropology and ethics, psychology, political philosophy and theory of natural law,  and philosophical theology are reconstructed on the basis of fresh textual evidence and systematic study of his metaphorical language.

This is full text of the first part of my monograph "The logos of Heraclitus",  published by Academic publishers "Nauka" in Saint-Petersburg in 2014, in English translation which contains all five chapters of the Introduction on Heraclitus' life, work and philosophy, as well a reconstruction of his lost work,  the Greek text of the fragments with apparatus criticus and English translation.  The second part contains commentary on fragments and is available in the original Russian edition on this personal page. This edition contains 160 fragments in the main corpus and 15 "Probabilia", i.e. probable fragments that are quoted without explicit mention of Heraclitus' name, but supported verbal coincidences and by parallels. Most of "Probabilia", including anonymous quotations in Plato, are based on new attributions. More than 20 fragments of the main corpus are not included in Diels-Kranz and other editions. Some of these fragments are new, some have been known before, but their status of authenticity has been reassessed and upgraded, e.g. from a doxographicum to a paraphrase of a verbatim quotation that contains a unique authentic tenet. In some other cases fragments considered authentic in DK, have been downgraded to interpretive paraphrase (B7, partly B91 DK) or to spuria (e.g. B105, B115 DK). In this edition we understand «fragment» not in Diels' formal sense as a verbatim quotation distinguished from «doxography» (an ill-defined category that we have criticised on our article "The origin and transmiision of the doxographical tradition... 2016), but as any ancient text that contains a unique piece of information on the philosophical content of a lost Preplatonic work, that cannot be reduced to other texts, an elementary «atom» of information.  The status of authenticity may be variable starting from a flawless verbatim quotation in Ionian dialect and descending down to a mixed verbatim quotation with paraphrase, to a good paraphrase close to original text, to a free paraphrase, to an interpretive paraphrase, to a polemical paraphrase that seriously distorts the original, to a mere reminiscence of term or a topos. We usually restrict the admission to the main corpus of fragments by first three categories. Some fragments in our edition are reconstructed on the ground of ancient summary that after quoting a verbatim fragment points to the existence of «other, similar» sayings of Heraclitus (such are 6 hypothetical fragments in 44A and 45A in our edition). Some «fragments» in our edition are «thought-fragments» rather than «text-fragments», i.e. a doctrinal (rather than lexical) convergence of several independent sources that does not allow to establish the exact wording of the lost original, but makes more ol less certain the existence of a certain analogy, idea or other tenet, since the name of Heraclitus appears in one or more contexts. Such cases are found especially in the reconstruction of the section on krafts (τέχναι) imitating nature, fr.106-124 Leb.

Фрагменты ранних греческих философов. Часть 1: От эпических теокосмогоний до возникновения атомистики. Издание подготовил А.В.Лебедев,  Москва, «Наука» 1989, 576 сс. =  A.V.Lebedev (ed.), The Fragments of the Early Greek Philosophers, Part 1: From the Epic Theocosmogonies to the Birth of the Atomistics, Moscow, "Nauka", 1989  576 pp.  – A critical translation of Diels-Kranz chapters 1-66 with many carefully selected and marked by an asterisk additions (both fragments and testimonia), some based on our attributions.  The Greek text on which the translation is based not infrequently departs from DK and contains a number of new readings or (more often) a defense of the MSS. readings against the unnecessary alterations in DK. It is the first edition/translation of Preplatonic philosophers which quotes real, i.e. attested doxographical sources and not the phantoms of the 19th century Quellenforschung  like "Aëtius" or hypothetical Dielsian "Theophrastus".

We conclude that the edition under review is incompetent; its author does not have a professional knowledge of Greek, nay he repeatedly demonstrates his ignorance of the elementary Greek grammar. From the hermeneutical point of view, he shows a clear tendency towards turning Heraclitus’ sayings into unphilosophical platitudes or absurdities like “Heraclitus in the toilet”, “barking children” an “meat by chance”. And the collection itself demonstrates a total lack of critical judgment. Anything goes for SM as Heraclitus: astrology (F 139), skeptical epistemology ( R 90), a christological text of Hippolytus (F 50), a iambic verse from Epicharmus (F 156) etc.
The edition under review is not only useless for a specialist (first of all because it is unreliable and falsifies the fontes), it is also dangerous for students and non specialists who may easily mistake Mr. Mouraviev’s fiction for genuine Heraclitus.
In our view, Mr. Mouraviev is more than editor of Heraclitus. Rather he is a co author of the Greek texts or he invents an unknown Greek author. It would be more appropriate to call this unknown author Mouraclitus rather than Heraclitus... We do not recommend this book to academic libraries, scholars, students or general public. Its proper place is in the recycle bin.

We conclude that the edition under review is incompetent; its author does not have a professional knowledge of Greek, nay he repeatedly demonstrates his ignorance of the elementary Greek grammar. From the hermeneutical point of view, he shows a clear tendency towards turning Heraclitus’ sayings into unphilosophical platitudes or absurdities like “Heraclitus in the toilet”, “barking children” an “meat by chance”. And the collection itself demonstrates a total lack of critical judgment. Anything goes for SM as Heraclitus: astrology (F 139), skeptical epistemology ( R 90), a christological text of Hippolytus (F 50), a iambic verse from Epicharmus (F 156) etc.
The edition under review is not only useless for a specialist (first of all because it is unreliable and falsifies the fontes), it is also dangerous for students and non specialists who may easily mistake Mr. Mouraviev’s fiction for genuine Heraclitus.
In our view, Mr. Mouraviev is more than editor of Heraclitus. Rather he is a co author of the Greek texts or he invents an unknown Greek author. It would be more appropriate to call this unknown author Mouraclitus rather than Heraclitus... We do not recommend this book to academic libraries, scholars, students or general public. Its proper place is in the recycle bin.

Summary. Section (1) explains why the Derveni papyrus has often been misunderstood: among the main reasons are the wrong label «Orphic» and the confusion of two types of pantheism in Greek thought: the ethico- religious and the naturalistic. The Orphic hymn to Zeus is a classical example of the first type, the Derveni commentary – of the second which is incompatible with the immortality of the soul and afterlife. Section (2) deals with the literary genre, the general purpose and the hermeneutical method of the Derveni treatise, and draws a preliminary intellectual portrait of its author describing his peculiar features, a kind of a «composite image». In the section (3) we argue for Prodicus as the author of PDerv and present 18 testimonia on which this attribution is based. These include both the verbatim quotations with Prodicus’ name that find an exact correspondence in the text of PDerv and the common peculiar features of the language and style. In the section (4) we propose a reconstruction and interpretation of the text of the col. IV that contains a quotation from Heraclitus. This column is of primary importance for the understanding of the aims and allegorical method of the author in general as well as for his theory of names. Section (5) detects a neglected (polemical) peritrope of Prodicus’ benefaction theory of the origin of religion in Xenophon’s Memorabillia 4.4. In the section (6) the problems of the original title and date of the Derveni treatise are addressed, its relation to the Psephisma of Diopeithes (432 BC) as well as to the trial and death of Anaxagoras. The last section (7) clarifies our use of the term peritrope and explains the Derveni treatise as a polemical naturalistic peritrope of a religious text (Orphic theogony).
Key-terms: Ancient philosophy, Derveni papyrus, Prodicus, Sophists, Orphism, Orpheus, Anaxagoras, Archelaus, Heraclitus, theogony, origin of civilisation, origin of religion, origin of language, origin of mythology, allegory, psephisma of Diopeithes, ancient atheism, Greek Enlightenment, philosophy of language, ancient Athens.

Interview to Greek Sunday newspaper ΕΦΗΜΕΡΙΔΑ ΣΥΝΤΑΚΤΩΝ (October 9, 2016). Andrei Lebedev speaks about his teachers of Greek, about the novelty of his new edition of Heraclitus' fragments and about the underestimated historical importance of the role of Epimenides in the formative period of Greek philosophy,  in particular  his influence on the Orphic-Pythagorean doctrine of the  immortal soul.

A repertorium (by author) of new/neglected fragments of early Greek philosophers, proposed/attributed in the publications of A.V.Lebedev, available at https://crete.academia.edu/AndreiLebedev Some cases contain additions to the text of known fragments from the context of ancient citators which have been overlooked (e.g., Democritus on Iranian magi). Most of the new fragments are verbatim quotations, some are high quality paraphrases that contain authentic terms or phrases of the original text (e.g., Anaximander's theory of vortex). In many cases Thesaurus Linguae Graecae online run by Maria Pantelia, University of Irvine CA, was very helpful providing statistics and other data of usage.

Contrary to the hypothesis of the northern or "shamanistic" origin of the ancient Greek doctrines of the reincarnation and immortality of the soul, a completely new theory of Aegean origin is argued in this work based on the fact that all four of the earliest representatives of this tradition  either were directly related to Crete (Epimenides) and the Cyclades (Pherecydes of Syros), or had significant religious and philosophical contacts with the Cretan mantics (Onomacritus, the author of the ancient Orphic Theogony according to Aristotle) and the cult of Apollo Hyperborean on Delos (Pythagoras), which allowed only "bloodless" sacrifices, the religious and moral justification of which was the belief in the kinship of all living beings and reincarnation with the consequent prohibition of any bloodshed and animal sacrifice. A typology and an attempt at diachronic filiation of early versions of the doctrine of reincarnation are given. It is hypothesized that the “classical” Orphic-Pythagorean version was created by Pythagoras of Samos in the last third of the 6th century BC in Magna Graecia: it was a synthesis of the ancient Aegean version of Epimenides’ Theogony (c. 600 BC going back to the Aegean Bronze age doctrines of ‘rebirth’ reflected in the so-called Cycladic idols), which did not associate reincarnation with "punishment" for sins, but understood it as a continuation of eternal life in this world, and ancient Egyptian eschatology: the judgment of the soul in the afterlife, the osirification of the deceased, etc. Pythagoras based his doctrine of the human nature (immortal soul and mortal body) on a metaphysical substance dualism of peras and apeiron. The court diviner of the Peisistratidai in Athens in the late 6th century B.C. Onomacritus, who was probably a Pythagorean himself, according to the reliable evidence of Aristotle, expounded it in a mythopoetic form (the myth of the sparagmos of the divine child Dionysus by the evil Titans) in the Orphic Theogony which he ascribed to the mythical singer of times immemorial Orpheus. It was this Pythagorean (ethicized) version of the doctrine that was adopted by Plato, the Platonic tradition  and - in an expurgated form – by the Church fathers who admitted only the post-mortem immortality of the soul, but rejected its pre-existence and of reincarnation (except Origen).
Вопреки гипотезе северного или "шаманистического" происхождения древнейших греческих учений о реинкарнации и бессмертии души в работе аргументируется совершенно новая теория Эгейского происхождения, так как все четыре наиболее ранних представителя этой традиции либо по своему происхождению  напрямую связаны с Критом (Эпименид) и Кикладами (Ферекид из Сироса), либо имели значимые религиозно-философские контакты с критской мантикой (Ономакрит, автор древней орфической Теогонии согласно Аристотелю) и культом Аполлона Гиперборейского на Делосе (Пифагор), допускавшим только "бескровные" жертвоприношения, религиозно-нравственным обоснованием которых была вера в родство всех живых существ и реинкарнацию с вытекающим отсюда запретом любого кровопролития. Дается типология и попытка диахронической филиации ранних версий учения о реинкарнации. Выдвигается гипотеза, согласно которой "классическая" орфико-пифагорейская версия была создана Пифагором из Самоса в последней трети. 6-го века до н.э. в Великой Греции в результате синтеза древнейшей эгейской версии Эпименида (не связывавшей реинкарнацию с "наказанием" за грехи, а понимавшей ее как продолжение вечной жизни в этом мире) и древанеегиптеской эсхатологии (суд души в загробном мире, осирификация покойника и т.д.). Пифагор основывал свою теорию природы человека и бессмертия души (при смертности тела) на метафизическом субстанциальном дуализме предела и беспредельного. Придворный гадатель Писистратидов Ономакрит, выходец из пифагорейских кругов Южной Италии, в конце 6 века до н.э. дал мифопоэтическую форму этому учению в Теогонии, которую он приписал мифическому певцу Орфею: миф о расчленении божественного младенца Диониса злыми Титанами. Именно эта пифагорейская версия была усвоена Платоном, платонической традицией и – в реформированном виде –  патристикой: отказ от реинкарнации и учения о предвечности души (кроме Оригена).