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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The Life · A 1 §§ 67–68
Ancient Greek and Latin
p. 38Diogenes Laertius VIII 67
ὕστερον μέντοι τοῦ Ἀκράγαντος οἰκιζομένου ἀντέστησαν αὐτοῦ τῆι καθόδωι οἱ τῶν ἐχθρῶν ἀπόγονοι· διόπερ εἰς Πελοπόννησον ἀποχωρήσας ἐτελεύτησεν. οὐ παρῆκε δ' οὐδὲ τοῦτον ὁ Τίμων, ἀλλ' ὧδ' αὐτοῦ καθάπτεται λέγων· καὶ Ἐμπεδοκλῆς ἀγοραίων ληκητὴς ἐπέων· ὅσα δ' ἔσθενε, τοσσάδ' ἔειλεν, ἀρχῶν ὃς διέθηκ' ἀρχὰς ἐπιδευέας ἄλλων. περὶ δὲ τοῦ θανάτου διάφορός ἐστιν αὐτοῦ λόγος· Ἡρακλείδης μὲν γὰρ τὰ περὶ τῆς ἄπνου διηγησάμενος, ὡς ἐδοξάσθη Ἐμπεδοκλῆς ἀποστείλας τὴν νεκρὰν ἄνθρωπον ζῶσαν, φησὶν ὅτι θυσίαν συνετέλει πρὸς τῶι Πεισιάνακτος ἀγρῶι. συνεκέκληντο δὲ τῶν φίλων τινές, ἐν οἷς καὶ Παυσανίας.
Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II: The Life
p. 39Exile, Timon's lampoon, and the night he disappeared
Diogenes Laertius VIII 67
Later, however, when Acragas was being resettled, the descendants of his enemies opposed his return; and so he withdrew to the Peloponnese and died there. Timon did not let him off either, but attacks him in these words: "And Empedocles, a bawler of market-place verses; as many words as he had strength for, so many did he cram together — a man who laid down first principles that themselves stand in need of others." About his death the account varies. Heraclides, having told the story of the breathless woman — how Empedocles won glory by sending away as a living woman one who had been a corpse — says that he was performing a sacrifice at the field of Peisianax, and that some of his friends had been invited, Pausanias among them.
Socrates
Reading Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II · The Life · A 1 §§ 67–68
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.