Successions of Philosophers
Successions of Philosophers or Philosophers' Successions () was the name of several lost works from the Hellenistic era. Their purpose was to depict the philosophers of different schools in terms of a line of succession of which they were a part. From the 3rd to the 1st centuries BC there were "Successions" () written by Antigonus of Carystus, Sotion, Heraclides Lembos (an epitome of Sotion), Sosicrates, Alexander Polyhistor, Jason of Nysa, Antisthenes of Rhodes, and Nicias of Nicaea. The surviving "Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers" by Diogenes Laërtius (3rd century AD) draws upon this tradition. In addition to  these, there were often histories of single schools. Such works were created by Phanias of Eresus ("On the Socratics"), Idomeneus of Lampsacus ("On the Socratics"), Sphaerus ("On the Eretrian philosophers"), and Straticles ("On Stoics"). Among the papyri found at the Villa of the Papyri at Herculaneum, there are works devoted to the successions of the Stoics, Academics, and Epicureans. In a later period, Plutarch produced "On the First Philosophers and their Successors" and "On the Cyrenaics", and Galen wrote "On Plato's Sect" and "On the Hedonistic Sect" (Epicureans). There were often biographies of individual philosophers with a brief description  of his successors. Of such nature were Aristoxenus's "Life of Pythagoras", Andronicus's "Life of Aristotle", Ptolemy's "Life of Aristotle", and Iamblichus's "Life of Pythagoras".