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 116 of 126
Perception and Thought · A 89
Ancient Greek and Latin
p. 222Alexander of Aphrodisias, Questions
περὶ τῆς Ἡρακλείας λίθου διὰ τί ἕλκει τὸν σίδηρον. Ἐ. μὲν ταῖς ἀπορροίαις ταῖς ἀπ' ἀμφοτέρων καὶ τοῖς πόροις τοῖς τῆς λίθου συμμέτροις οὖσιν ταῖς ἀπὸ τοῦ σιδήρου τὸν σίδηρον φέρεσθαι λέγει πρὸς τὴν λίθον· αἱ μὲν γὰρ ταύτης ἀπόρροιαι τὸν ἀέρα τὸν ἐπὶ τοῖς τοῦ σιδήρου πόροις ἀπωθοῦσί τε καὶ κινοῦσι τὸν ἐπιπωματίζοντα αὐτούς· τούτου δὲ χωρισθέντος ἀθρόαι ἀπορροίαι ῥεούσηι τὸν σίδηρον ἕπεσθαι· φερομένων δὲ τῶν ἀπ' αὐτοῦ ἀπορροιῶν ἐπὶ τοὺς τῆς λίθου πόρους, διὰ τὸ συμμέτρους τε αὐτοῖς εἶναι καὶ ἐναρμόζειν καὶ τὸν σίδηρον σὺν ταῖς ἀπορροίαις ἕπεσθαί τε καὶ φέρεσθαι.
Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II: Perception and Thought
p. 223Why the lodestone draws iron — and four objections to the answer
Alexander of Aphrodisias, Questions
On the Heraclean stone: why it draws iron. Empedocles says the iron travels toward the stone by the effluences from both, and because the passages of the stone are commensurate with the effluences from the iron. For the effluences of the stone push away the air that lies upon the passages of the iron, and move what is stopping them like a lid; and once that has been separated off, the iron follows the effluence as it flows out in a mass. And as the effluences from the iron travel toward the passages of the stone, the iron too follows along with its effluences and is carried, because they are commensurate with those passages and fit into them.
Socrates
Reading Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II · Perception and Thought · A 89
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.