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 27 of 126
The Life · A 1 §§ 71–72
Ancient Greek and Latin
p. 44Diogenes Laertius VIII 70–71
οὕτω δὴ λήξαντος τοῦ λοιμοῦ καὶ τῶν Σελινουντίων εὐωχουμένων ποτὲ παρὰ τῶι ποταμῶι, ἐπιφανῆναι τὸν Ἐμπεδοκλέα· τοὺς δ' ἐξαναστάντας προσκυνεῖν καὶ προσεύχεσθαι καθαπερεὶ θεῶι. ταύτην οὖν θέλοντα βεβαιῶσαι τὴν διάληψιν εἰς τὸ πῦρ ἐναλέσθαι. τούτοις δ' ἐναντιοῦται Τίμαιος ῥητῶς λέγων ὡς ἐξεχώρησεν εἰς Πελοπόννησον καὶ τὸ σύνολον οὐκ ἐπανῆλθεν· ὅθεν αὐτοῦ καὶ τὴν τελευτὴν ἄδηλον εἶναι.
Diogenes Laertius VIII 71–72
πρὸς δὲ τὸν Ἡρακλείδην καὶ ἐξ ὀνόματος ποιεῖται τὴν ἀντίρρησιν ἐν τῆι ιδʹ· Συρακόσιόν τε γὰρ εἶναι τὸν Πεισιάνακτα καὶ ἀγρὸν οὐκ ἔχειν ἐν Ἀκράγαντι· Παυσανίαν τε μνημεῖον ⟨ἂν⟩ πεποιηκέναι τοῦ φίλου, τοιούτου διαδοθέντος λόγου, ἢ ἀγαλμάτιόν τι ἢ σηκὸν οἷα θεοῦ· καὶ γὰρ πλούσιον εἶναι. πῶς οὖν, φησίν, εἰς τοὺς κρατῆρας ἥλατο ὧν σύνεγγυς ὄντων οὐδὲ μνείαν ποτὲ ἐπεποίητο; τετελεύτηκεν οὖν ἐν Πελοποννήσωι. οὐδὲν δὲ παράδοξον τάφον αὐτοῦ μὴ φαίνεσθαι· μηδὲ γὰρ ἄλλων πολλῶν. τοιαῦτά τινα εἰπὼν ὁ Τίμαιος ἐπιφέρει· ἀλλὰ διὰ παντός ἐστιν Ἡρακλείδης τοιοῦτος παραδοξολόγος, καὶ ἐκ τῆς σελήνης πεπτωκέναι ἄνθρωπον λέγων.
Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II: The Life
p. 45Timaeus demolishes the crater; the veiled statue
Diogenes Laertius VIII 70–71
And so, when the plague had ceased and the people of Selinus were once feasting beside the river, Empedocles appeared among them; and they rose and bowed down and prayed to him as to a god. It was to confirm this opinion of himself, then, that he leapt into the fire. — Timaeus contradicts all this, saying flatly that he withdrew to the Peloponnese and never came back at all, and that this is why his end is unknown.
Diogenes Laertius VIII 71–72
And he makes his refutation of Heraclides by name, in his fourteenth book. Peisianax, he says, was a Syracusan and had no field at Acragas at all; and had any such story got about, Pausanias would have made a memorial of his friend, some small statue or a shrine such as a god has — for he was a rich man. "How then," he says, "did he leap into the craters, which were close at hand and which he had never once so much as mentioned? He died, therefore, in the Peloponnese. And there is nothing strange in no tomb of his being visible; neither is there for a great many others." After saying something of this kind Timaeus adds: "But Heraclides is this sort of marvel-monger all through — he is the man who says that a human being fell out of the moon."
Biography, and the one place where an ancient historian cross-examines a source.
This is the most rigorous piece of source-criticism in the ancient literature on Empedocles, and it is worth reading closely, because every one of Timaeus' arguments is an argument a modern historian would make. The host's estate is in the wrong city. The friend who is supposed to have witnessed a deification put up no monument, and could have afforded one. And — the decisive point — Empedocles, who wrote about fire at enormous length, never once mentions Etna. Timaeus is not merely sceptical; he has read the poems and noticed what is not in them.
Bearing on Volume I. The volcano belongs to the legend, not to the evidence.
7 the book number is Diels's: the manuscripts read "fourth." — 8 ⟨ἄν⟩ C. Müller. — 12 μηδέ: Diels continues Timaeus' direct speech where the manuscripts pass into indirect. — 17 εἰκόνες Sturz: εἰσί τινες in the manuscripts.
Socrates
Reading Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II · The Life · A 1 §§ 71–72
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.