Diotimos Library · Greek Antiquity Collection · Bilingual Edition
Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II
The Greek and Latin of Hermann Diels · New English translation and notes.
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English Page · Branch 60 of 126
Principles, Cosmos and Cycle · A 43
Ancient Greek and Latin
p. 110Aristotle, De gen. et corr. B 7
ἐκείνοις τε γὰρ τοῖς λέγουσιν ὡς Ἐ. τίς ἔσται τρόπος; ἀνάγκη γὰρ σύνθεσιν εἶναι καθάπερ ἐκ πλίνθων καὶ λίθων τοῖχος· καὶ τὸ μεῖγμα δὲ τοῦτο ἐκ σωιζομένων μὲν ἔσται τῶν στοιχείων, κατὰ μικρὰ δὲ παρ' ἄλληλα συγκειμένων· οὕτω δὴ σὰρξ καὶ τῶν ἄλλων ἕκαστον.
Aëtius I 13,1 and I 17,3
Ἐμπεδοκλῆς ἔφη πρὸ τῶν τεττάρων στοιχείων θραύσματα ἐλάχιστα οἱονεὶ στοιχεῖα πρὸ τῶν στοιχείων ὁμοιομερῆ. Ἐ. καὶ Ξενοκράτης ἐκ μικροτέρων ὄγκων τὰ στοιχεῖα συγκρίνει, ἅπερ ἐστὶν ἐλάχιστα καὶ οἱονεὶ στοιχεῖα στοιχείων.
Galen, In Hipp. De nat. hom.
κἀκεῖνος γὰρ ἐκ μὲν τῶν αὐτῶν στοιχείων, ὧν καὶ Ἱπποκράτης, γεγονέναι φησὶν ἡμᾶς τε καὶ τὰ ἄλλα σώματα πάντα τὰ περὶ τὴν γῆν, οὐ μὴν κεκραμένων γε δι' ἀλλήλων, ἀλλὰ κατὰ μικρὰ μόρια παρακειμένων τε καὶ ψαυόντων.
Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II: Principles, Cosmos and Cycle
p. 111Mixture by juxtaposition of small parts, not by fusion.
Aristotle, De gen. et corr. B 7
For those who speak as Empedocles does — what will the manner of it be? It must be a composition, as a wall is composed of bricks and stones; and this mixture will be of elements that are preserved, but set alongside one another in small parts. And so flesh, and each of the rest.
Aëtius I 13,1 and I 17,3
Empedocles [posits] before the four elements the smallest fragments, as it were elements before the elements, uniform throughout. Empedocles and Xenocrates [say] that the elements are made up of smaller masses, which are the least parts and as it were elements of the elements.
Galen, In Hipp. De nat. hom.
For he too, like Hippocrates, says that we and all other bodies about the earth came to be out of the elements themselves — not, however, blended with one another, but laid alongside and touching in small parts.
Criticism (Aristotle), then three reports.
The brick-wall image is Aristotle's and is polemical: he is arguing that on Empedocles' account nothing is ever truly mixed, only stacked. Whether Empedocles held that is disputed, and B96 — where bone is a definite ratio — reads more like a genuine compound than a stack. The Aëtius notices go further still, crediting him with particles below the roots, which no fragment supports and which may be Democritean doctrine drifting onto him in the doxography. Treat A43 as evidence about how he was read, not securely about what he held.
Diels notes στοιχεῖα πρὶν στοιχείων as a variant at I 13,1; H. Schoene's τε at Galen.
Socrates
Reading Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II · Principles, Cosmos and Cycle · A 43
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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.