Diotimos Library · Greek Antiquity Collection · Bilingual Edition
Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II
The Greek and Latin of Hermann Diels · New English translation and notes.
Explore the LexiconSwipe or use the arrow keys.
Ancient Greek and Latin Page · Branch 15 of 126
The Life · A 1 §§ 51–52
Ancient Greek and Latin
p. 20Diogenes Laertius VIII 51
Ἐμπεδοκλῆς, ὥς φησιν Ἱππόβοτος, Μέτωνος ἦν υἱὸς τοῦ Ἐμπεδοκλέους Ἀκραγαντῖνος. τὸ δ' αὐτὸ καὶ Τίμαιος ἐν τῆι πεντεκαιδεκάτηι τῶν Ἱστοριῶν ⟨λέγει προσιστορῶν⟩ ἐπίσημον ἄνδρα γεγονέναι τὸν Ἐμπεδοκλέα τὸν πάππον τοῦ ποιητοῦ. ἀλλὰ καὶ Ἕρμιππος τὰ αὐτὰ τούτωι φησίν. ὁμοίως Ἡρακλείδης ἐν τῶι Περὶ νόσων, ὅτι λαμπρᾶς ἦν οἰκίας ἱπποτροφηκότος τοῦ πάππου. λέγει δὲ καὶ Ἐρατοσθένης ἐν τοῖς Ὀλυμπιονίκαις τὴν πρώτην καὶ ἑβδομηκοστὴν ὀλυμπιάδα νενικηκέναι τὸν τοῦ Μέτωνος πατέρα, μάρτυρι χρώμενος Ἀριστοτέλει.
Diogenes Laertius VIII 52
Ἀπολλόδωρος δ' ὁ γραμματικὸς ἐν τοῖς Χρονικοῖς φησιν ὡς ἦν μὲν Μέτωνος υἱός, εἰς δὲ Θουρίους αὐτὸν νεωστὶ παντελῶς ἐκτισμένους ⟨ὁ⟩ Γλαῦκος ἐλθεῖν φησιν. εἶθ' ὑποβάς· οἱ δ' ἱστοροῦντες, ὡς πεφευγὼς οἴκοθεν εἰς τὰς Συρακούσας μετ' ἐκείνων ἐπολέμει πρὸς Ἀθηναίους, ἐμοὶ ⟨γε⟩ τελέως ἀγνοεῖν δοκοῦσιν· ἢ γὰρ οὐκέτ' ἦν ἢ παντελῶς ὑπεργεγηρακώς, ὅπερ οὐχὶ φαίνεται. Ἀριστοτέλης γὰρ αὐτόν, ἔτι τε Ἡρακλείδης, ἑξήκοντα ἐτῶν φησι τετελευτηκέναι. ὁ δὲ ⟨τὴν⟩ μίαν καὶ ἑβδομηκοστὴν ὀλυμπιάδα νενικηκὼς κέλητι τούτου πάππος ἦν ὁμώνυμος, ὥσθ' ἅμα καὶ τὸν χρόνον ὑπὸ τοῦ Ἀπολλοδώρου σημαίνεσθαι.
Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II: The Life
p. 21The family, and the two Empedocleses
Diogenes Laertius VIII 51
Empedocles, as Hippobotus says, was the son of Meton, the son of Empedocles, and a man of Acragas. Timaeus says the same in the fifteenth book of his Histories, recording besides that Empedocles the grandfather of the poet had been a man of distinction. Hermippus says the same as he does; and so does Heraclides in his On Diseases — that the house was a brilliant one, the grandfather having kept racehorses. Eratosthenes says in his Olympic Victors that the father of Meton won in the seventy-first Olympiad, and cites Aristotle as his authority.
Diogenes Laertius VIII 52
Apollodorus the grammarian says in his Chronicles that "he was the son of Meton, and Glaucus says that he went to Thurii, then only just founded." And then, further down: "Those who record that he fled from home to Syracuse and made war alongside them against the Athenians seem to me wholly ignorant. For by then he was either no longer alive, or extremely old — which does not appear to be so." For Aristotle, and Heraclides besides, says that he died at sixty. And the man who won with the single horse in the seventy-first Olympiad "was this man's grandfather, of the same name," so that the date is indicated at the same time by Apollodorus.
Biography, compiled in the third century AD from sources four centuries older.
Diogenes is not a biographer but a compiler, and this is what a compilation looks like from the inside: six named authorities in twelve lines, two of them in verse, and the compiler adjudicating between them. The point at issue is real. The grandfather and the grandson bore the same name, and an Olympic victory recorded for "Empedocles" in 496 BC belongs to the elder; anyone who assigned it to the philosopher would have to make him a century old. Apollodorus saw this and said so, and the chronology of Empedocles' life still rests on his argument.
Bearing on Volume I. Fixes the date: born about 492 BC, dead at sixty.
8 ⟨ὁ⟩ Cobet. — 10 οἱ δ' ἱστοροῦντες, and the transposition of the verses, follow Clinton. — 12 πρὸς ... δοκοῦσιν Diels: the manuscripts read πρὸς τοὺς Ἀθηναίους τελέως ἀγνοεῖν μοι δοκοῦσιν. — 14 οὐχί Clinton: οὐ in the manuscripts. — 16 ⟨τήν⟩ Cobet. — 17 πάππος Karsten: πάντως in the manuscripts.
Socrates
Reading Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II · The Life · A 1 §§ 51–52
Ask about a concept, passage, contradiction, or connection.
Socrates will begin with this book and its sources.About This Reading Edition
Empedocles survives not only through his poems but through the ancient writers who described his life, doctrines, medicine, cosmology, and extraordinary reputation. Volume II gathers the testimonia: ninety-nine numbered reports drawn from fifty-two authors across nine centuries. The English introduction appears full width; each Greek or Latin testimony then faces its new English translation.
Historical Text and Translation
The Greek and Latin reading text follows Hermann Diels’s third edition of Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker (1912), retaining the supplied edition’s Diels-Kranz numbering and editorial signs. These witnesses must be read as a chain of transmission: many preserve valuable evidence, while others summarize, dispute, reshape, or repeat earlier accounts.
About Diotimos Editions
Diotimos Editions prepared the new English translation, introduction, notes, and reception appendices for this volume. The translation keeps each witness distinct and preserves its technical vocabulary, argumentative posture, and relationship to the surviving poetry in Volume I.
Rights
The ancient source works and Hermann Diels’s 1912 Greek and Latin edition are in the public domain. The 2026 English translation, introduction, notes, and editorial matter are original to this edition and remain © 2026 Diotimos.