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Our knowledge about Greek philosophical schools is mostly second-hand and based on Diogenes Laërtius' Lives of Eminent Philosophers (3rd century AD) and Philodemus' Arrangement of the Philosophers (75-50 BC), a treatise in several books which represents the earliest 'history of philosophy' to have reached us directly from antiquity. From this work exclusively preserved by the Herculaneum papyri we may derive a virtually systematic account of the history of Greek philosophical schools, which is unique in its kind.

The central core of the Life of Heraclitus handed down by Diogenes Laertius is represented by a biographico-characterological portrait in which the haughtiness and the superciliousness attributed to this philosopher is ridiculed with an openly satirical and polemical purpose. Substantial analogies with the moral-protreptic writing On Relieving of Arrogance amply quoted and paraphrased by Philodemus in the ending section of PHerc. 1008 ([On Arrogance], cols. 10-24) are detectable. Significantly, at the beginning of the latter (col. 10.16-26 Ranocchia) Heraclitus is expressly mentioned, along with other philosophers and poets, amongst those who became arrogant «on account of philosophy». To the similitudes formerly identified by W. Knögel and S.N. Mouraviev it is now possible to add numerous further thematic correspondences between these writings, which make us suppose that both originally belonged to a same philosophical tradition, whose goal was to describe, and to heal from, arrogance. This tradition possibly embraced both a general illustration/therapy of the vice and specific exemplifications of it by means of lively portaits of 'arrogant' philosophers and poets like Heraclitus, Empedocles, Pythagoras, Socrates, Hippias and Euripides.

Differently than what has formerly been suggested, P.Herc. 177 preserves the initial, not the final, title of a roll. Besides, the author of the work it transmits is not Philodemus, but Demetrius Laco. Finally, its subject is not geometrical, but astronomical. P.Herc. 177 probably belongs to the same treatise as P.Herc. 1013, which was devoted to the epicurean discussion concerning the Sun and of which these papyri might represent two different books.

PHerc. 1004, probably containing a book of Philodemus' On Rhetoric, is the lower half of a roll opened between 1805 and 1806 and preserved in 30 pieces. The measuring of the volution width of each piece has permitted a confirmation of the current order of fragments except for the pieces contained in 'cornici' 4 and 5. According to the mathematical calculations made by crossing periodically recurring elements with column beginnings or ends, it has been possible to quantify the extension of the lost portions comprised both between pieces and at the beginning of the roll and, by combining these data with the information contained in the Inventory of 1782, to ascertain the original lenght and total number of columns of the roll. As far as the preserved text is concerned, apart from partial editions by Sudhaus and others, about one third of it remains still inedited. A new comprehensive edition of this book is being prepared in the framework of the project ERC Starting Grant 241184-PHerc (European Commission, 7th Framework Programme, Specific 'Ideas' Programme).

A collection of more than 1800 carbonized papyri, discovered in the Roman ‘Villa dei Papiri’ at Herculaneum is the unique classical library survived from antiquity. These papyri were charred during 79 A.D. Vesuvius eruption, a circumstance which providentially preserved them until now. This magnificent collection contains an impressive amount of treatises by Greek philosophers and, especially, Philodemus of Gadara, an Epicurean thinker of 1st century BC. We read many portions of text hidden inside carbonized Herculaneum papyri using enhanced X-ray phase-contrast tomography non-destructive technique and a new set of numerical algorithms for ‘virtual-unrolling’. Our success lies in revealing the largest portion of Greek text ever detected so far inside unopened scrolls, with unprecedented spatial resolution and contrast, all without damaging these precious historical manuscripts. Parts of text have been decoded and the ‘voice’ of the Epicurean philosopher Philodemus is brought back again after 2000 years from Herculaneum papyri.