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 68 of 126
Principles, Cosmos and Cycle · A 53
Ancient Greek and Latin
p. 126Aëtius II 13,2 (D. 341)
Ἐ. πύρινα [εἶναι τὰ ἄστρα] ἐκ τοῦ πυρώδους, ὅπερ ὁ ἀὴρ ἐν ἑαυτῶι περιέχων ἐξανέθλιψε κατὰ τὴν πρώτην διάκρισιν.
Aëtius II 13,11 (D. 342)
Ἐ. τοὺς μὲν ἀπλανεῖς ἀστέρας συνδεδέσθαι τῶι κρυστάλλωι, τοὺς δὲ πλανήτας ἀνεῖσθαι.
Achilles, In Aratum 16 p. 43,2 Maass
εἰσὶ δὲ οἳ πρῶτον τὸν ἥλιον λέγουσιν, δευτέραν δὲ τὴν σελήνην, τρίτον δὲ τὸν Κρόνον. ἡ δὲ πλείων δόξα πρώτην τὴν σελήνην, ἐπεὶ καὶ ἀπόσπασμα τοῦ ἡλίου λέγουσιν αὐτήν. ὡς καὶ Ἐ. "κυκλοτερὲς ... φῶς" [B 45].
Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II: Principles, Cosmos and Cycle
p. 127The stars are fire squeezed out of the air
Aëtius II 13,2 (D. 341)
Empedocles [says the stars are] fiery, made out of the fiery stuff which the air, containing it in itself, squeezed out at the first separation.
Fixed stars bound to the crystal; the planets go free
Aëtius II 13,11 (D. 342)
Empedocles [says] the fixed stars are bound fast to the crystal, but the planets go free.
Depends on the crystalline heaven of A51.
The moon as a fragment struck off the sun.
Achilles, In Aratum 16 p. 43,2 Maass
There are some who say that the sun is first, the moon second, and Kronos third. But the more prevailing opinion puts the moon first, since they say that it is a fragment broken off from the sun — as Empedocles too says: "A light not her own circles round the earth in a ring" [B45].
Report, with a verse quotation.
One of the places where a testimony carries a fragment; B45 is in Volume I.
Diels notes ἀπόφασμα as a variant for ἀπόσπασμα.
Socrates
Reading Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II · Principles, Cosmos and Cycle · A 53
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.