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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Principles, Cosmos and Cycle · A 28
Ancient Greek and Latin
p. 88Aristotle, Metaphysics A 3
Ἐ. δὲ τὰ τέτταρα πρὸς τοῖς εἰρημένοις γῆν προσθεὶς τέταρτον· ταῦτα γὰρ ἀεὶ διαμένειν καὶ οὐ γίγνεσθαι ἀλλ' ἢ πλήθει καὶ ὀλιγότητι συγκρινόμενα καὶ διακρινόμενα εἰς ἕν τε καὶ ἐξ ἑνός.
Simplicius, Physics 25,21, from Theophrastus
οὗτος δὲ τὰ μὲν σωματικὰ στοιχεῖα ποιεῖ τέτταρα, πῦρ καὶ ἀέρα καὶ ὕδωρ καὶ γῆν, ἀίδια μὲν ὄντα, πλήθει δὲ καὶ ὀλιγότητι μεταβάλλοντα κατὰ τὴν σύγκρισιν καὶ διάκρισιν, τὰς δὲ κυρίως ἀρχάς, ὑφ' ὧν κινεῖται ταῦτα, Φιλίαν καὶ Νεῖκος. δεῖ γὰρ διατελεῖν ἐναλλὰξ κινούμενα τὰ στοιχεῖα, ποτὲ μὲν ὑπὸ τῆς Φιλίας συγκρινόμενα, ποτὲ δὲ ὑπὸ τοῦ Νείκους διακρινόμενα· ὥστε καὶ ἓξ εἶναι κατ' αὐτὸν τὰς ἀρχάς.
Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II: Principles, Cosmos and Cycle
p. 89The four roots as eternal and unchanging; Love and Strife as the moving principles; Aristotle's charge of inconsistency.
Aristotle, Metaphysics A 3
Empedocles added earth as a fourth to those already named, making four; for these, he holds, always persist and do not come to be, save that they become more or fewer, being combined into one and separated out of one.
Simplicius, Physics 25,21, from Theophrastus
He makes the corporeal elements four — fire and air and water and earth — eternal, but altering in respect of more and fewer by combination and separation; while the principles properly so called, by which these are moved, are Love and Strife. For the elements must go on being moved alternately, at one time combined by Love, at another separated by Strife — so that on his account the principles are six.
Report, then criticism. Simplicius continues by charging Empedocles with treating Love and Strife inconsistently: in one place giving them an active power (quoting B17.7-8), in another ranking them alongside the four as of equal standing (quoting B17.17-20).
στοιχεῖα here is Aristotle's and Theophrastus' word, not Empedocles', who says ῥιζώματα, roots. The substitution is invisible in the Greek and consequential: it is the vocabulary by which Empedocles became, in the handbooks, the man who discovered the four elements. — "Six principles" is likewise an analysis imposed from outside; no fragment counts them.
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Reading Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II · Principles, Cosmos and Cycle · A 28
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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.