ABSTRACT
In a recent book on the early Academy, John Dillon’s The Heirs of Plato, A Study of the Old Academy (347-274 BC), Oxford 2003, Heraclides Ponticus appears in the last chapter under the title “Minor Figures.” This is how he is presented in most modern books on the history of philosophy, if indeed he is mentioned at all. This would have been a surprise to most of his contemporaries, as is evident from the two most important pieces of information about his life: According to Philodemus, one of our more reliable sources on the history of the philosophical schools, Heraclides and his fellow member of Academy, Menedemus from Pyrrha, were defeated by only a few votes, when the young members of the school had to elect a leader of the Academy after the death of Speusippus in 339 BC. We are told that Xenocrates was elected because of his sophrosyne, a quality that does not seem to have been Heraclides’ main characteristic.1 About twenty years before
this event, Plato had left Heraclides as head of the Academy in Athens while he visited Syracuse.2 The implication of these two events is that Heraclides Ponticus both to Plato and to his fellow members of the Academy must have been a central figure in Plato s school.
