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 16 of 126
The Life · A 1 §§ 53–55
Ancient Greek and Latin
p. 22Diogenes Laertius VIII 53
Σάτυρος δὲ ἐν τοῖς Βίοις φησίν, ὅτι Ἐμπεδοκλῆς υἱὸς μὲν ἦν Ἐξαινέτου, κατέλιπε δὲ καὶ αὐτὸς υἱὸν Ἐξαίνετον· ἐπί τε τῆς αὐτῆς ὀλυμπιάδος τὸν μὲν ἵππωι κέλητι νενικηκέναι, τὸν δὲ υἱὸν αὐτοῦ πάληι ἤ, ὡς Ἡρακλείδης ἐν τῆι Ἐπιτομῆι, δρόμωι. ἐγὼ δὲ εὗρον ἐν τοῖς ὑπομνήμασι Φαβωρίνου ὅτι καὶ βοῦν ἔθυσε τοῖς θεωροῖς ὁ Ἐμπεδοκλῆς ἐκ μέλιτος καὶ ἀλφίτων, καὶ ἀδελφὸν ἔσχε Καλλικρατίδην. Τηλαύγης δ' ὁ Πυθαγόρου παῖς ἐν τῆι πρὸς Φιλόλαον ἐπιστολῆι φησι τὸν Ἐμπεδοκλέα Ἀρχινόμου εἶναι υἱόν.
Diogenes Laertius VIII 54
ὅτι δ' ἦν Ἀκραγαντῖνος ἐκ Σικελίας αὐτὸς ἐναρχόμενος τῶν Καθαρμῶν φησιν· ὦ … πόλεος. καὶ τὰ μὲν περὶ τοῦ γένους αὐτοῦ τάδε. ἀκοῦσαι δ' αὐτὸν Πυθαγόρου Τίμαιος διὰ τῆς ἐνάτης ἱστορεῖ, λέγων ὅτι καταγνωσθεὶς ἐπὶ λογοκλοπίαι τότε, καθὰ καὶ Πλάτων, τῶν λόγων ἐκωλύθη μετέχειν. μεμνῆσθαι δὲ καὶ αὐτὸν Πυθαγόρου λέγοντα· ἦν … πλοῦτον. οἱ δὲ τοῦτο εἰς Παρμενίδην αὐτὸν λέγειν ἀναφέροντα.
Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II: The Life
p. 23A disputed father; the honey ox; and the Pythagorean law against poets
Diogenes Laertius VIII 53
Satyrus in his Lives says that Empedocles was the son of Exaenetus, and himself left a son named Exaenetus; and that in the same Olympiad the one won with the racehorse and his son in wrestling — or, as Heraclides says in his Epitome, in the foot-race. I myself found, in the memoirs of Favorinus, that Empedocles sacrificed an ox to the sacred envoys made out of honey and barley-meal, and that he had a brother Callicratides. Telauges the son of Pythagoras says, in his letter to Philolaus, that Empedocles was the son of Archinomus.
Diogenes Laertius VIII 54
That he was a man of Acragas in Sicily he says himself at the opening of the Purifications: "O friends … city." So much for his family. Timaeus records in his ninth book that he heard Pythagoras, saying that he was convicted at that time of stealing discourses and — like Plato — was barred from sharing in them. And that he mentions Pythagoras himself when he says: "There was among them a man … wealth." Others refer that passage to Parmenides instead.
Socrates
Reading Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II · The Life · A 1 §§ 53–55
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.