There is no reason to distrust this claim, but everything else in the ancient lives is highly suspect. That the name of Heraclitus's father is variously given as Bloson, Heracon, Bautorus, Blyson, and Heracinus serves as a reminder that, when ancient biographers were in doubt, they invented, either ex nihilo or by imaginatively extrapolating from the subject's writings to his life. As a notable example of the latter method, several sources describe, not without some disagreement among themselves, Heraclitus's fatal dropsy, his failed attempt to cure himself through smearing his body with dung, and his body's further mistreatment after death by dogs who failed to recognize him. This vivid picture seems to derive from a reading of Heraclitus's lines about the worthlessness of corpses and about dogs' barking at that which they do not recognize. Again, one wonders whether Heraclitus, as ancient testimony has it, played dice with children near the temple of Artemis rather than engaging in Ephesian political life, or whether this story is a composite inspired by his comment (B52) that "one's life is a child at play who moves the pieces about. Kingly power is that of a child."
Even Heraclitus's explicit mention of one Hermodorus and the shabby treatment he received at the hands of their fellow Ephesians does not further biographical research.
