A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology

27. Of HERACLEIA, a son of Theophantus. In early life he was a disciple of Heracleides, Alexinus, and Menedemus, and afterwards also of Zeno the Stoic, who appears to have induced him to adopt the philosophy of the porch. At a later time he was afflicted with a disease of the eyes, or with a nervous complaint, and the unbearable pains which it caused him led him to abandon the Stoic philosophy, and to join the Eleatics, whose doctrine, that ἡδονή and the absence of pain was the highest good, had more charms for him than the austere ethics of the Stoa. This renunciation of his former philosophical creed drew upon him the nickname of ὁ μεταθέμενος, i. e. the renegade. During the time that he was a Stoic, he is praised for his modesty, abstinence, and moderation, but afterwards we find him described as a person greatly given to sensual pleasures. He died in his eightieth year of voluntary starvation.