Die Überlieferung des Fr. 18 Marcovich Heraklits (= DK 22 B 81) in PHerc. 1004 (Philodemi De rhetorica, Liber VII). Praesocratica Herculanensia II

The Heraclitean tradition in the Herculaneum papyri is a topic which involves some of the most important research fields of ancient philosophy: ethics, physics and cosmology, theology and rhetoric. This paper concentrates on Heraclitus’ fr. 18 Marcovich (= DK 22 B 81), where Heraclitus talks about an unspecified κοπίδων ἀρχηγός. The fragment occurs in an important book of Philodemus’ "On Rhetoric" (PHerc. 1004) and is the only direct quotation of Heraclitus in the remnants of this multi-volume treatise. The paper provides a new textual reconstruction of the two colums of the papyrus in which the same passage is quoted and attempts: a) to contextualize the quotation inside the Philodemean paraphrase of a treatise by the Stoic Diogenes of Babylon against the rhetoricians of his time; b) to reconsider the grammatical and philosophical problem of the subject of the Heraclitean quotation. Almost all scholars have considered Pythagoras to be the target of Heraclitus. But certain elements allow us to go beyond this old opinion and to understand this fragment as something of more than a personal dispute.