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 119 of 126
Perception and Thought · A 91
Ancient Greek and Latin
p. 228Aristotle, On Sense and Sense-Objects
ἐκείνως δ' αὐτὸς αὑτὸν ὁρᾶι ὁ ὀφθαλμός, ὥσπερ καὶ ἐν τῆι ἀνακλάσει, ἐπεὶ εἴ γε πῦρ ἦν, καθάπερ Ἐ. φησι καὶ ἐν τῶι Τιμαίωι γέγραπται, καὶ συνέβαινε τὸ ὁρᾶν ἐξιόντος ὥσπερ ἐκ λαμπτῆρος τοῦ φωτός, διὰ τί οὐ καὶ ἐν τῶι σκότει ἑώρα ἂν ἡ ὄψις;
Aristotle, On the Generation of Animals
τὸ μὲν οὖν ὑπολαμβάνειν τὰ μὲν γλαυκὰ πυρώδη, καθάπερ Ἐ. φησιν, τὰ δὲ μέλανα πλεῖον ὕδατος ἔχειν ἢ πυρός, καὶ διὰ τοῦτο τὰ μὲν ἡμέρας οὐκ ὀξὺ βλέπειν, τὰ γλαυκά, δι' ἔνδειαν ὕδατος, θάτερα δὲ νύκτωρ δι' ἔνδειαν πυρός, οὐ λέγεται καλῶς, εἴπερ μὴ πυρὸς τὴν ὄψιν θετέον, ἀλλ' ὕδατος πᾶσιν.
Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II: Perception and Thought
p. 229Fire in the eye, and why grey eyes and dark eyes differ
Aristotle, On Sense and Sense-Objects
The eye sees itself in that other way, as it does in reflection. For if the eye were fire, as Empedocles says and as is written in the Timaeus, and seeing came about by light going out as from a lantern, why would the sight not see in the dark as well?
Aristotle, On the Generation of Animals
To suppose that grey eyes are fiery, as Empedocles says, and that dark eyes have more water in them than fire, and that this is why the grey do not see sharply by day, for want of water, and the dark do not by night, for want of fire — this is not well said, if the sight is to be held to consist not of fire but of water in every case.
Report in two places, both hostile.
Aristotle's objection is the same one for two thousand years: a lamp shines in the dark, and an eye does not. What it does not touch is the reply Empedocles had already given at A 86 § 8 and here at A 91 — that the eye's fire must be met by fire from outside, and that an eye too rich in fire is blinded by day rather than helped. The theory is wrong, but it is not wrong in the simple way the objection assumes.
Bearing on Volume I. B 84, the lantern; and A 86 § 8, where the day-and-night doctrine is set out in full.
6 μέλανα in Z: μελανόμματα in PS; μεγαλόμματα in Y.
Socrates
Reading Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II · Perception and Thought · A 91
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.