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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Light, Sea, Plants and Bodies · A 70
Ancient Greek and Latin
p. 154Aëtius
Ἐ. πρῶτα τὰ δένδρα τῶν ζώιων ἐκ γῆς ἀναφῦναί φησι, πρὶν τὸν ἥλιον περιαπλωθῆναι καὶ πρὶν ἡμέραν καὶ νύκτα διακριθῆναι· διὰ δὲ συμμετρίας τῆς κράσεως τὸν τοῦ ἄρρενος καὶ τοῦ θήλεος περιέχειν λόγον. αὔξεσθαι δὲ ὑπὸ τοῦ ἐν τῆι γῆι θερμοῦ διαιρόμενα, ὥστε γῆς εἶναι μέρη καθάπερ καὶ τὰ ἔμβρυα τὰ ἐν τῆι γαστρὶ τῆς μήτρας μέρη· τοὺς δὲ καρποὺς περιττώματα εἶναι τοῦ ἐν τοῖς φυτοῖς ὕδατος καὶ πυρός· καὶ τὰ μὲν ἐλλιπὲς ἔχοντα τὸ ὑγρὸν ἐξικμαζομένου αὐτοῦ τῶι θέρει φυλλορροεῖν, τὰ δὲ πλεῖον, παραμένειν, ὥσπερ ἐπὶ τῆς δάφνης καὶ τῆς ἐλαίας καὶ τοῦ φοίνικος· τὰς δὲ διαφορὰς τῶν χυμῶν ⟨παρὰ⟩ παραλλαγὰς τῆς ⟨γῆς⟩ πολυμερείας καὶ τῶν φυτῶν γίνεσθαι διαφόρως ἑλκόντων τὰς ἀπὸ τοῦ τρέφοντος ὁμοιομερείας ὥσπερ ἐπὶ τῶν ἀμπέλων· οὐ γὰρ αἱ διαφοραὶ τούτων χρηστὸν τὸν οἶνον ποιοῦσιν, ἀλλ' αἱ τοῦ τρέφοντος ἐδάφους.
Theophrastus, On the Causes of Plants
ἓν γάρ τι τὸ γεννῶν οὐχ ὥσπερ Ἐ. διαιρεῖ καὶ μερίζει τὴν μὲν γῆν εἰς τὰς ῥίζας, τὸν δ' αἰθέρα εἰς τοὺς βλαστοὺς ὡς ἑκάτερον ἑκατέρου χωριζόμενον, ἀλλ' ἐκ μιᾶς ὕλης καὶ ὑφ' ἑνὸς αἰτίου γεννῶντος.
Aristotle, On the Soul
Ἐ. δ' οὐ καλῶς εἴρηκε τοῦτο προστιθεὶς τὴν αὔξησιν συμβαίνειν τοῖς φυτοῖς κάτω μὲν συρριζουμένοις διὰ τὸ τὴν γῆν οὕτω φέρεσθαι κατὰ φύσιν, ἄνω δὲ διὰ τὸ πῦρ ὡσαύτως.
Plutarch, Table Talk
τηρεῖται δὲ τοῖς μὲν φυτοῖς ἀναισθήτως ἐκ τοῦ περιέχοντος, ὥς φησιν Ἐ., ὑδρευομένοις τὸ πρόσφορον.
Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II: Light, Sea, Plants and Bodies
p. 155Plants — the first living things
Aëtius
Empedocles says that trees were the first of living things to spring up out of the earth, before the sun had been spread round, and before day and night had been separated; and that through the due proportion of their mixture they contain the principle of both male and female. They grow by being lifted up by the heat within the earth, so that they are parts of the earth, just as embryos in the belly are parts of the womb. Fruits are the surplus of the water and the fire in plants. Those that have too little moisture shed their leaves when it is dried out of them in summer; those that have more of it keep them — as with the bay and the olive and the palm. The differences of flavours arise from variations in the manifold composition of the earth, and because plants draw in different ways the like-parted stuffs from what feeds them — as with vines: for it is not the differences among the vines that make the wine good, but the differences of the soil that feeds them.
Theophrastus, On the Causes of Plants
For what generates is some one thing — not, as Empedocles divides and parcels it out, earth going to the roots and aether to the shoots, each separated off from the other, but generating out of one matter and by one cause.
Aristotle, On the Soul
Empedocles has not put this well, in adding that growth happens to plants downward as they take root, because earth naturally travels that way, and upward likewise because of fire.
Plutarch, Table Talk
In plants [their nature] is kept up without sensation, as Empedocles says, since they draw off from what surrounds them the water that suits them.
Socrates
Reading Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II · Light, Sea, Plants and Bodies · A 70
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.