The Beautiful, the Good, and the Just: Heraclitus Caption Contest 2018

February 25th, 2018

This January, the Co-op threw a #ceLOEBration of a new nine-volume edition of Loeb Classical Library's Early Greek Philosophy, edited by Glenn W. Most and André Laks. We were honored to receive dozens of outstanding entries to our Heraclitus Caption Contest, wherein readers from across the globe submitted drawings, photographs, videos, poems, essays, paintings, and more for a chance to win one of four sets of 25 volumes of their choosing from the Loeb Classical Library, courtesy of Harvard University Press.

We were so taken by the quality of submissions, in fact, we asked Glenn W. Most, Professor of Greek Philology at the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, Visiting Professor on the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago, and External Scientific Member of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin, to help us choose one additional bonus winner. We're pleased to announce the final winner, Marv Halsey (on Twitter as @drmarvh1), with his entry illustrating the Heraclitus aphorism, "They do not comprehend how a thing agrees at variance with itself; it is an attunement turning back on itself, like that of the bow and the lyre!" Marv has won 5 volumes of his choosing from the Loeb Library!

Thanks to Marv, and to our guest judge, Prof. Most, who writes, 

what a difficult task you have set me! all the entries were very interesting and stimulating; i felt honored but at the same time very abashed at trying to decide a winner. i wish i could give a prize to all of them, they were all so original and thoughtful and deeply felt. but my job was to pick a winner, and i have done so:
marv halsey, the slinky on the stairs. it had the kind of formal perfection, fragmentary quality, and unending horizons of interpretability i tend to associate with heraclitus himself.

i hope the other, worthy contestants will accept my praise and admiration.

To see Marv's entry in all its gif-glory, click HERE.

Below you'll find the other winning entries, as well as several honorable mentions, all beautiful, good, and just in their own right, and rest assured: no random conjectures were made about these most important matters (Toronto, fragment 47)! 


Andreas Kirchenius (@Kirchenius on Twitter): "The way up and the way down are one and the same." (Cambridge, CIII)

Evan Dutmer cast Heraclitus as a Morrissey-esque singer-songwriter, writing:

Inspired by the austere design of Morrissey's 1988 Viva Hate and the dark, broody reputation Heraclitus and Morrissey share, I've created a playful little album of Heraclitus' own--Character is Fate.  Released on none other than "Ephesus" records, the album surged to the top of the charts with its smash single, "One Day is Like Any Other" (cf. Morrissey's Viva Hate classic, "Everyday is Like Sunday").  Rounding out Side 1 are two other melancholic anthems: "Nature loves to hide (Becoming is a secret process)" and "I went in search of myself." 

Alexandra Cohn submitted this charming drawing all the way from South Africa, illustrating the aphorism "I went in search of myself" (Cambridge XXVIII).

Finally, throughout our contest, Andrés Caro (@kansasanymore on Twitter) submitted a series of thirteen (13!) whimsical drawings, illustrating various and sundry aphorisms.


We were truly overwhelmed by your response to our caption contest this year. Below are several honorable mentions that tend to disprove the aphorism "Those who search for gold dig up much earth and find little."

From @laurgogo on Instagram:

From Charles Goodwin (@Cbegood on Twitter):

From Jonathan Lee:

From Michael Boudreau:

From Austin Bean: 

From TiredAdmirer (@Roquentinesque on Twitter):

From Arielle Ambra-Juarez:

One of many excellent submissions by Nick Pettey (@PetteyNick on Twitter):

A quartet of kitty cat submissions from Thalia Lyssen:

A sketch from N Jaeger (@whereismrjaguar on Twitter):

From Kyle Oleksiuk, "The way up and the way down are one and the same":

From Kian B. (@FalseFloimell on Twitter):

From Nicolas Vroman (@juxtepozer on Twitter):

From palomacobod via Instagram:

From M.S. van de Werken, via Facebook and email:


Thanks again to everyone who participated in the contest and joined us in the ceLOEBration!