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 §§ 76–77
Ancient Greek and Latin
p. 50Diogenes Laertius VIII 76
ἐδόκει δ' αὐτῶι τάδε· στοιχεῖα μὲν εἶναι τέτταρα, πῦρ, ὕδωρ, γῆν, ἀέρα· Φιλίαν τε ἧι συγκρίνεται καὶ Νεῖκος ὧι διακρίνεται. φησὶ δ' οὕτω· Ζεὺς … βρότειον, Δία μὲν τὸ πῦρ λέγων, Ἥρην δὲ τὴν γῆν, Ἀϊδωνέα δὲ τὸν ἀέρα, Νῆστιν δὲ τὸ ὕδωρ. καὶ ταῦτα, φησίν, ἀλλάττοντα … λήγει, ὡς ἂν ἀιδίου τῆς τοιαύτης διακοσμήσεως οὔσης· ἐπιφέρει γοῦν· ἄλλοτε … ἔχθει.
Diogenes Laertius VIII 77
καὶ τὸν μὲν ἥλιόν φησι πυρὸς ἄθροισμα μέγα καὶ τῆς σελήνης μείζω· τὴν δὲ σελήνην δισκοειδῆ, αὐτὸν δὲ τὸν οὐρανὸν κρυσταλλοειδῆ. καὶ τὴν ψυχὴν παντοῖα εἴδη ζώιων καὶ φυτῶν ἐνδύεσθαι· φησὶ γοῦν· ἤδη … ἰχθύς. τὰ μὲν οὖν Περὶ φύσεως αὐτῶι καὶ οἱ Καθαρμοὶ εἰς ἔπη τείνουσι πεντακισχίλια, ὁ δὲ Ἰατρικὸς λόγος εἰς ἔπη ἑξακόσια. περὶ δὲ τῶν τραγωιδιῶν προειρήκαμεν.
Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II: The Life
p. 51What he held, and how long the poems were
Diogenes Laertius VIII 76
These were his opinions. The elements are four — fire, water, earth, air — together with Love, by which they are combined, and Strife, by which they are separated. He puts it thus: "Zeus … mortal," meaning by Zeus fire, by Hera earth, by Aidoneus air, and by Nestis water. "And these," he says, "continually changing … never cease," the ordering being everlasting in this way; at any rate he goes on: "at one time … in hatred."
Diogenes Laertius VIII 77
He says that the sun is a great mass of fire, and larger than the moon; that the moon is disc-shaped; and that the heaven itself is like crystal. And that the soul puts on all kinds of forms of animals and of plants — at any rate he says: "For already … a fish." The On Nature and the Purifications together run to five thousand lines, and the Medical Discourse to six hundred. About the tragedies we have spoken already.
Doctrinal summary closing the Life, with the only ancient count of the lines.
Two things here are load-bearing for this edition. The first is the identification of the divine names. Diogenes makes Hera the earth and Aidoneus the air, and in doing so he sides with the Homeric Allegories and with Hippolytus against Aëtius, whose reversed pairing is what the modern handbooks print. With Diogenes counted, the ancient tally stands at three to one against the reading now in general use — see A 33, where the disagreement is set out in full. The second is the line count. Diogenes says five thousand lines for the two poems and six hundred for a Medical Discourse; Diels thought five thousand too many and would halve it. Either way, Volume I of this edition prints four hundred and eighty-four lines. That is the measure of what is gone: at best a tenth of it, and quite possibly a sixteenth.
Bearing on Volume I. The whole of Volume I is what survives of the five thousand lines counted here.
8 πεντακισχίλια: Diels judges the figure too large and would read "three thousand in all." The quotations are B 6, 2–3; B 17, 6; B 17, 7–8; and B 117.
Socrates
Reading Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II · The Life · A 1 §§ 76–77
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.