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 32 of 126
The Life · A 3
Ancient Greek and Latin
p. 54Pliny, Natural History
alia factio, ab experimentis cognominant empiricen, coepit in Sicilia, Acrone Agragantino Empedoclis physici auctoritate commendato.
The Suda, under "Acron"
Ἄκρων, Ἀκραγαντῖνος υἱὸς Ξένωνος. ἐσοφίστευσεν ἐν ταῖς Ἀθήναις ἅμα Ἐμπεδοκλεῖ. ἔστιν οὖν πρεσβύτερος Ἱπποκράτους. ἔγραψε Περὶ ἰατρικῆς δωρίδι διαλέκτωι, Περὶ τροφῆς ὑγιεινῶν βιβλίον ᾱ. ἔστι δὲ καὶ οὗτος τῶν τινα πνεύματα σημειωσαμένων. εἰς τοῦτον ἐποίησεν Ἐ. τωθαστικὸν ἐπίγραμμα.
Plutarch, On Isis and Osiris
Ἄκρωνα γοῦν τὸν ἰατρὸν ἐν Ἀθήναις ὑπὸ τὸν μέγαν λοιμὸν εὐδοκιμῆσαι λέγουσι πῦρ κελεύοντα παρακαίειν τοῖς νοσοῦσιν.
Galen, On the Method of Healing
καὶ πρόσθεν μὲν ἔρις ἦν οὐ σμικρὰ νικῆσαι τῶι πλήθει τῶν εὑρημάτων ἀλλήλους ὀριγνωμένων τῶν ἐν Κῶι καὶ Κνίδωι· διττὸν γὰρ ἔτι τοῦτο τὸ γένος ἦν τῶν ἐπὶ τῆς Ἀσίας Ἀσκληπιαδῶν ἐκλιπόντος τοῦ κατὰ Ῥόδον· ἤριζον δ' αὐτοῖς τὴν ἀγαθὴν ἔριν ἐκείνην, ἣν Ἡσίοδος ἐπήινει, καὶ οἱ ἐκ τῆς Ἰταλίας ἰατροί, Φιλιστίων τε καὶ Ἐμπεδοκλῆς καὶ Παυσανίας καὶ οἱ τούτων ἑταῖροι.
Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II: The Life
p. 55Empedocles and the physicians of Sicily
Pliny, Natural History
Another school, which they name the Empiric from its reliance on experience, began in Sicily, with Acron of Acragas commended by the authority of Empedocles the natural philosopher.
The Suda, under "Acron"
Acron of Acragas, son of Xenon. He taught at Athens at the same time as Empedocles, and so is older than Hippocrates. He wrote On Medicine in the Doric dialect, and one book On Wholesome Nourishment. He too is among those who noted certain winds. Empedocles composed a mocking epigram upon him.
Plutarch, On Isis and Osiris
They say that Acron the physician made his name at Athens during the great plague, by ordering fires to be kept burning beside the sick.
Galen, On the Method of Healing
In earlier times there was no small rivalry between the schools of Cos and Cnidus, each striving to outdo the other in the number of its discoveries; for this branch of the Asclepiads in Asia was still twofold, the Rhodian branch having died out. And the physicians of Italy contended with them in that good rivalry which Hesiod praised — Philistion and Empedocles and Pausanias and their associates.
Four witnesses on the medical school he belonged to.
Galen names Empedocles and Pausanias together as a medical school with pupils — not as philosophers who took an interest in medicine, but as one of the three or four recognised traditions of Greek doctoring, set beside Cos and Cnidus. That is a different figure from the one in the Life, and a more solid one. Acron, whose family monument Empedocles blocked at A 1 § 65, turns out to have been the most famous physician of the city and the man credited with stopping the Athenian plague by fire.
Bearing on Volume I. Supports A 1 § 58 and A 71: he was a working physician, not an amateur.
27 cognominant in T: cognominaris in V¹R. — 32 πνεύματα: that is, he belonged to the Pneumatist tradition. Compare M. Wellmann, Fragmente der griechischen Ärzte I 108 ff. The epigram is B 157.
Socrates
Reading Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II · The Life · A 3
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.