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 29
Ancient Greek and Latin
p. 90Plato, Sophist 242c-d
μῦθόν τινα ἕκαστος φαίνεταί μοι διηγεῖσθαι παισὶν ὡς οὖσιν ἡμῖν ... Ἰάδες δὲ καὶ Σικελαί τινες ὕστερον Μοῦσαι ξυνενόησαν, ὅτι συμπλέκειν ἀσφαλέστατον ἀμφότερα καὶ λέγειν, ὡς τὸ ὂν πολλά τε καὶ ἕν ἐστιν, ἔχθραι δὲ καὶ φιλίαι συνέχεται. "διαφερόμενον γὰρ ἀεὶ ξυμφέρεται", φασὶν αἱ συντονώτεραι τῶν Μουσῶν, αἱ δὲ μαλακώτεραι τὸ μὲν ἀεὶ ταῦθ' οὕτως ἔχειν ἐχάλασαν, ἐν μέρει δὲ τοτὲ μὲν ἓν εἶναί φασι τὸ πᾶν καὶ φίλον ὑπ' Ἀφροδίτης, τοτὲ δὲ πολλὰ καὶ πολέμιον αὐτὸ αὑτῶι διὰ Νεῖκός τι.
Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II: Principles, Cosmos and Cycle
p. 91The Ionian and Sicilian Muses; Empedocles' one-and-many against Heraclitus'.
Plato, Sophist 242c-d
Each of them seems to me to be telling us a story, as though we were children ... But certain Ionian and, later, Sicilian Muses perceived that it was safest to weave both together and to say that what is is both many and one, and is held together by enmity and by friendship. "For in differing it is always brought together," say the more strenuous of the Muses; while the gentler relaxed the requirement that this hold always, and say instead that by turns the All is at one time one and at friendship under Aphrodite, and at another many and at war with itself through a certain Strife.
Report, and the earliest interpretation of Empedocles we have.
The "Sicilian Muses" are Empedocles, the "Ionian" Heraclitus; Plato names neither. The contrast he draws — always-so against by-turns — is the first statement of the alternation, and the phrase ἐν μέρει is picked up in B17 and B26. Plato is characterising, not quoting, and the reader should weigh it as such.
Socrates
Reading Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II · Principles, Cosmos and Cycle · A 29
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.