Heracleides
2. An historian who, according to Suidas, was a native of Oxyrhinchis in Egypt, while Diogenes Laertius (5.94) calls him a Callatian, or Alexandrian. He lived in the reign of Ptolemy Philopator.
Works
ἱστορίαι
Heracleides wrote a great work, entitled ἱστορίαι, of which the thirty-seventh book is quoted (Athen. 3.98, xiii. p. 578).
διαδοχή
another, under the title διαδοχή, in six books (Diog. Laert. l.c.), which was probably of the same kind, if not identical with his ἐπιτομὴ τῶν Σωτίωνος διαδοχῶν. (D. L. 5.79.)
Abridgement of the Biographical Work of Satyrus
He further made an abridgement of the biographical work of Satyrus (D. L. 8.40, 9.25).
Λεμβυτυκὸς λόγος
Heracleides wrote a work called Λεμβυτυκὸς λόγος, from which he received the nickname of ὁ Λέμβος. (D. L. 5.94; Phot. Bibl. Cod. 213.)
Issues with names
He is often called, after his father, Heracleides, the son of Serapion, and, under this name, Suidas attributes to him also philosophical works. It is not impossible that he may be the same as the Heracleides who is mentioned by Eutocius, in his commentary on Archimedes, as the author of a life of that great mathematician.
From William Smith (ed.), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Tufts University. Data accessed from https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-pdlrefwk/ on 17 October 2026.