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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Facing Pages · Branch 102 of 126
Perception and Thought · A 86 §§ 7–8
Ancient Greek and Latin
p. 194On the Senses 7
Ἐ. δὲ περὶ ἁπασῶν ὁμοίως λέγει καί φησι τῶι ἐναρμόττειν εἰς τοὺς πόρους τοὺς ἑκάστης αἰσθάνεσθαι· διὸ καὶ οὐ δύνασθαι τὰ ἀλλήλων κρίνειν, ὅτι τῶν μὲν εὐρύτεροί πως, τῶν δὲ στενώτεροι τυγχάνουσιν οἱ πόροι πρὸς τὸ αἰσθητόν, ὡς τὰ μὲν οὐχ ἁπτόμενα διευτονεῖν τὰ δ' ὅλως εἰσελθεῖν οὐ δύνασθαι. πειρᾶται δὲ καὶ τὴν ὄψιν λέγειν, ποία τίς ἐστι· καί φησι τὸ μὲν ἐντὸς αὐτῆς εἶναι πῦρ, τὸ δὲ περὶ αὐτὸ ⟨ὕδωρ καὶ⟩ γῆν καὶ ἀέρα δι' ὧν διιέναι λεπτὸν ὂν καθάπερ τὸ ἐν τοῖς λαμπτῆρσι φῶς. τοὺς δὲ πόρους ἐναλλὰξ κεῖσθαι τοῦ τε πυρὸς καὶ τοῦ ὕδατος, ὧν τοῖς μὲν τοῦ πυρὸς τὰ λευκά, τοῖς δὲ τοῦ ὕδατος τὰ μέλανα γνωρίζειν· ἐναρμόττειν γὰρ ἑκατέροις ἑκάτερα. φέρεσθαι δὲ τὰ χρώματα πρὸς τὴν ὄψιν διὰ τὴν ἀπορροήν.
Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II: Perception and Thought
p. 195Sight: fire within, the alternating passages, and why some creatures see better at night
On the Senses 7
Empedocles speaks in the same way about all the senses, and says that perceiving comes about by things fitting into the passages of each sense. This is why the senses cannot judge one another's objects: the passages are in some cases too wide and in others too narrow for the perceptible thing, so that some things run straight through without touching and others cannot get in at all. He tries also to say what sort of thing the sight is. He says that the inside of it is fire, and around that ⟨water and⟩ earth and air, through which the fire, being fine, passes as the light does in lanterns. The passages of fire and of water lie alternately; by those of fire we recognise white things and by those of water black things, for each fits into each. And the colours are carried to the sight by effluence.
Socrates
Reading Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II · Perception and Thought · A 86 §§ 7–8
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.