The first recorded hermit of ancient Greece was not Diogenes of Sinope but the philosopher Heraclitus (540-480 BCE).
Heraclitus was the least favorite thinker of the era and thereafter because he espoused an ontology of flux, versus the notion of motionless, unchanging absolutes of Parmides, later completely adopted by Plato. In Plato, all of reality is preordained and unchangeable, including the political and social structures of culture.
Heraclitus is famous for his saying: “You cannot step into the same river twice.” His most illustrative and important book (now lost) was On Nature. He maintained, as Diogenes Laeritius tells us, that:
“All things are composed of fire, and into fire they are again resolved; further, things come about by destiny, and existent things are brought into harmony by the clash of opposing currents; again, all things are filled with souls and divinities. He has also given an account of all the orderly happenings in the universe, and declares the sun to be no larger than it appears.”
Another of his sayings is: “Of soul thou shalt never find boundaries, not if though trackest it on every path; so deep is its cause.”
Was his philosophy the chief object of disdain on the part of the elites, rather it was his frank opinions and his simple life. For example, he excoriated Homer, chiefly because Homer was the progenitor of violence as virtue, of war as the triumph of civilization and culture. As his biographer Diogenes Laertius also wrote of Heraclitus: “He used to say that Homer deserved to be chased out of the lists and beaten with rods.”
But Homer was not Heraclitus’ only dislike. “He said, citing figures he disliked, “Much learning does not teach understanding; else would it have taught Hesiod and Pythagoras, or again, Xenophanes and Hecataeus.” When criticized, Heraclitus was described as “lofty-minded beyond all other men.”
One day a delegation of elite men visited him in his simple hut, entirely out of curiosity. They sat and looked about disdainfully, and noting this Heraclitus told them,”Gentlemen, here, too,the daimon visits.”
Heraclitus was thought overweening, and melancholic because he had never finished his book. When he was morose and silent, and his silence was pointed out to him, he would say that he was remaining silent so that his interlocutor could continue chattering. Diogenes Laertius concludes: “Finally, he became a hater of his kind and wandered on the mountains, and there he continued to live, making his diet of grass and herbs;” that is, a vegetarian. But more specifically, a hermit.