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 20
Ancient Greek and Latin
p. 74Paris Gnomology
Ἐμπεδοκλῆς ἐρωτηθείς, διὰ τί σφόδρα ἀγανακτεῖ κακῶς ἀκούων, ἔφη· ὅτι οὐδὲ ἐπαινούμενος ἡσθήσομαι, εἰ μὴ κακῶς ἀκούων λυπηθήσομαι.
Paris Gnomology
Ἐ. πρὸς τὸν λέγοντα ὅτι οὐδένα σοφὸν εὑρεῖν δύναμαι, κατὰ λόγον εἶπε· τὸν γὰρ ζητοῦντα σοφὸν αὐτὸν πρῶτον εἶναι δεῖ σοφόν.
Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II: The Life
p. 75Two sayings
Paris Gnomology
Empedocles, asked why he was so vexed at being spoken ill of, said: "Because I shall take no pleasure in being praised either, if I am not pained at being spoken ill of."
Paris Gnomology
To a man who said "I can find no one who is wise," Empedocles replied: "Reasonably enough; for a man looking for someone wise must first be wise himself."
Apophthegms from a Byzantine collection; the attribution is weak, the sayings are good.
Diels notes that the better version of the second saying belongs to Xenophanes, and collections of this kind move a good line from one famous name to another without scruple. They are printed because Diels printed them, and because the first is a real argument: praise and blame are the same faculty, and a man who is indifferent to one has disqualified himself from the other.
The second saying is given more accurately by Diogenes Laertius IX 20, where it is assigned to Xenophanes.
Socrates
Reading Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II · The Life · A 20
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.