§ 12. Of the quotations in Diogenes Laertios from Herakleitos, Bywater says (p. x): ‘Laertium ... libro pervetusto usum esse nemo jam adfirmaverit.’ We do find four sentences of some length from Herakleitos, the genuineness of which is not questioned (Fr. 16, 17, 112, 114); it is noticeable that these fragments, together with the allusions to Fr. 33 and 119, all refer to particular men, and so possessed a special interest for the biographical writers, who were Diogenes’ main source. Three other fragments of more than two words are given by Diogenes (71, 100, and 103), and these are not found in any other Greek writer. The remaining fragments consist of only one or two words (22, 48, 62, 69, 80, 113), or are now regarded as spurious (131, 132). There is no reason to think that the fragments of Herakleitos contained in this work are not copied with reasonable accuracy; on the other hand, we may assume from what we know of Diogenes’ method of work that they were not drawn directly from the writings of Herakleitos. Diogenes quotes Xenophanes xiv. 1-2, and Empedokles l. 6, in a series of passages on skepticism, Xen. xviii. in a series on Pythagoreanism; Fr. xxiv., the only one not found elsewhere, relates to the life of Xenophanes. From Parmenides are quoted lines 28-30 and 54-56. The last passage does not really illustrate the point for which it is quoted (the senses inexact), and our text of Diogenes contains two blunders from some copyist. Portions of the proœmium of Empedokles’ main work on philosophy (1, 24-32, _ap._ viii. 60 and 59) are mentioned in connection with the name of Satyros. It is pretty clear (_ap._ viii. 62) that a ‘Herakleitos’ is the source from which lines 352-363 are taken; if so, the statement viii. 54 that this is the beginning of the καθάρματα comes from the same writer. Lines 384-385 are quoted much in the form in which they appear in Athenaeos, though with one copyist’s error; from the same work of Empedokles we have also lines 355, 415, 417 in passages where Diogenes had just mentioned Timaeos. The familiar lines 35 and 67-68 are found here—line 35 in a very confused form. In general these lines from poetic writers show numerous small errors, which may be due to the state of our manuscripts. Both the fragments from Herakleitos and those in poetic form are of great value, though we are in the dark as to their immediate source.