Literary fragment in the context of "Lost literary work"

Heraclitus (/ˌhɛrəˈklaɪtəs/; Ancient Greek: Ἡράκλειτος Hērákleitos; fl. c. 500 BC) was an ancient Greek pre-Socratic philosopher from the city of Ephesus, which was then part of the Persian Empire. He exerts a wide influence on Western philosophy, both ancient and modern, through the works of such authors as Plato, Aristotle, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Martin Heidegger.

Little is known of Heraclitus's life. He wrote a single work, of which only fragments survive. Even in ancient times, his paradoxical philosophy, appreciation for wordplay, and cryptic, oracular epigrams earned him the epithets "the dark" and "the obscure". He was considered arrogant and depressed, a misanthrope who was subject to melancholia. Consequently, he became known as "the weeping philosopher" in contrast to the ancient atomist philosopher Democritus, who was known as "the laughing philosopher".

Manetho (/ˈmænɪθoʊ/; Koine Greek: Μανέθων Manéthōn, gen.: Μανέθωνος, fl. 290–260 BCE) was an Egyptian priest of the Ptolemaic Kingdom who lived in the early third century BCE, at the very beginning of the Hellenistic period. Little is certain about his life. He is known today as the author of a history of Egypt in Greek called the Aegyptiaca (History of Egypt), written during the reign of Ptolemy I Soter or Ptolemy II Philadelphus (285–246 BCE). None of Manetho’s original texts have survived; they are lost literary works, known only from fragments transmitted by later authors of classical and late antiquity.

The remaining fragments of the Aegyptiaca continue to be a singular resource for delineating Egyptian chronology, more than two millennia since its composition. Until the decipherment of Ancient Egyptian scripts in the early 19th century CE, Manetho's fragments were an essential source for understanding Egyptian history. His work remains of unique importance in Egyptology.

Megasthenes (/mɪˈɡæsθɪniːz/ mi-GAS-thi-neez; Ancient Greek: Μεγασθένης, died c. 290 BCE) was an ancient Greek historian, indologist, diplomat, ethnographer and explorer in the Hellenistic period. He described India in his book Indica, which is now lost, but has been partially reconstructed from literary fragments found in later authors that quoted his work. Megasthenes was the first person from the Western world to leave a written description of India.

Berossus (/bəˈrɒsəs/) or Berosus (/bəˈroʊsəs/; Ancient Greek: Βηρωσσός, romanized: Bērōssos; possibly derived from Late Babylonian Akkadian: 𒁹𒀭𒂗𒉺𒇻𒋙𒉡, romanized: Bēl-reʾû-šunu, lit. 'Bel is his shepherd') was an early-3rd-century BCE Hellenistic-era Babylonian writer, priest of Bel Marduk, and astronomer who wrote in the Koine Greek language.

His original works, including the Babyloniaca (Ancient Greek: Βαβυλωνιακά), are lost, but fragments survive in some quotations, largely in the writings of the fourth-century CE early Christian writer Eusebius.

The Aegyptiaca (Koine Greek: Αἰγυπτιακά, Aigyptiaka, "History of Egypt") was a history of ancient Egypt written in Greek by Manetho (fl. 290 – 260 BCE), a high priest of the ancient Egyptian religion, in the early 3rd century BCE at the beginning of the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt. As an Egyptian intellectual who wrote in Greek about his civilization's very long history—over two thousand years old when he wrote his history—Manetho mediated Egyptian and Greek cultures at the dawn of the Hellenistic period. His Aegyptiaca was a comprehensive history of ancient Egypt and stands as a unique achievement in the corpus of ancient Egyptian literature. It continues to be a vital subject in Egyptology, and an important resource in the refinement of Egyptian chronology.

Manetho's purpose was to instruct the Greek-speaking world of the Eastern Mediterranean about Egypt's deep past. His work provided a clear chronology of Egypt from the first pharaoh of a unified Upper and Lower Egypt, dated by modern historians to 3100 BCE, to just before Alexander's entry into the country following the Siege of Gaza in 332 BCE. Manetho prefaced his human chronology with the "history" of a mythical era of divine rule that linked Egyptian gods with their Greek counterparts, an equivalence already established by Manetho's time.

Hecataeus of Abdera (Greek: Ἑκαταῖος ὁ Ἀβδηρίτης; c. 360 BC – c. 290 BC) was an ancient Greek historian and ethnographer. None of his works survive; his writings are attested by later authors in various literary fragments, in particular his Aegyptica, a work on the society and culture of the Egyptians, and On the Hyperboreans. He is one of the authors (FGrHist 264) whose fragments were collected in Felix Jacoby's Fragmente der griechischen Historiker.

Historian John Dillery called Hecataeus "a figure of extraordinary importance for the study of Greek and non-Greek [cultures] in the Hellenistic period."