The Ionian Muses learn to write: written law and prose treatise in the milesinad and Heraclitus

Abstract

Throughout s. VI B. C., the first Ionic investigators of the nature chose as way of expression a procedure practically unexplored at that time: the writing in prose. This technology had been only proved previously in the field of the cities written legislation, which liked to use enormous stone inscriptions to show or advertise the laws and community regulations. This publicity was also good to reinforce with the strenght of the lasting thing the civic authority, from which emanated a compulsory law to be carried out. In this work, we try to show that the production and publication ways of the laws were good in certain extent to the first philosophers as reference models for the publication of their own treatises in prose (συγγραφή). That publication existed without a doubt, but it was not claimed by a demand reader mainly, but rather it pursued to reinforce the message locked in the papyrus roll with the authority associated to the written promulgation of the laws. It was, threrefore, a question of symbolic mediation between the philosopher and the city: comparing their work to the law of the city, he claimed the normative and universal force from the cosmos described in the treatise in prose, that enunciated valid laws for all the men and everywhere. In this work, we will explore this hypothesis studying the sociopolitical background that is outlined after the publication of the treatises of Anaximander, Anaximenes and, mainly, Heraclitus. The offering of Heraclitus book to the temple of Artemis in Ephesus can be interpreted from this new perspective.