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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 30
Ancient Greek and Latin
p. 92Ps.-Plutarch, Stromateis, in Eusebius P.E. I 8,10
θέντα τὸν ἀέρα περιχυθῆναι κύκλωι· μετὰ δὲ τὸν ἀέρα τὸ πῦρ ἐκδραμὸν καὶ οὐκ ἔχον ἑτέραν χώραν ἄνω ἐκτρέχειν ὑπὸ τοῦ περὶ τὸν ἀέρα πάγου. εἶναι δὲ κύκλωι περὶ τὴν γῆν φερόμενα δύο ἡμισφαίρια τὸ μὲν καθόλου πυρός, τὸ δὲ μικτὸν ἐξ ἀέρος καὶ ὀλίγου πυρός, ὅπερ οἴεται τὴν νύκτα εἶναι. τὴν δὲ ἀρχὴν τῆς κινήσεως συμβῆναι ἀπὸ τοῦ τετυχηκέναι κατὰ ⟨τι⟩ τὸν ἀθροισμὸν ἐπιβρίσαντος τοῦ πυρός. ὁ δὲ ἥλιος τὴν φύσιν οὐκ ἔστι πῦρ, ἀλλὰ τοῦ πυρὸς ἀντανάκλασις ὁμοία τῆι ἀφ' ὕδατος γινομένηι. σελήνην δέ φησιν συστῆναι καθ' ἑαυτὴν ἐκ τοῦ ἀποληφθέντος ἀέρος ὑπὸ τοῦ πυρός. τοῦτον γὰρ παγῆναι καθάπερ καὶ τὴν χάλαζαν. τὸ δὲ φῶς αὐτὴν ἔχειν ἀπὸ τοῦ ἡλίου. τὸ δὲ ἡγεμονικὸν οὔτε ἐν κεφαλῆι οὔτε ἐν θώρακι, ἀλλ' ἐν αἵματι. ὅθεν καθ' ὅτι ἂν μέρος τοῦ σώματος πλεῖον ἦι παρεσπαρμένον (τὸ ἡγεμονικὸν οἴεται), κατ' ἐκεῖνο προτερεῖν τοὺς ἀνθρώπους. Ἐ. ὁ Ἀκραγαντῖνος στοιχεῖα τέσσαρα, πῦρ ὕδωρ αἰθέρα γαῖαν. αἰτίαν δὲ τούτων Φιλίαν καὶ Νεῖκος. ἐκ πρώτης φησὶ τῆς τῶν στοιχείων κράσεως ἀποκρι[θέντα ...]
Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II: Principles, Cosmos and Cycle
p. 93The cosmogony: the air poured round, the fire running out, the two hemispheres, sun and moon, and the seat of thought in the blood.
Ps.-Plutarch, Stromateis, in Eusebius P.E. I 8,10
Empedocles of Acragas [holds] four elements — fire, water, aither, earth; and as the cause of these, Love and Strife. He says that out of the first blending of the elements there was separated off ... ... the air was poured round in a circle; and after the air, the fire ran out and, having nowhere else to go, ran up beneath the solid that surrounds the air. There are two hemispheres carried round the earth, the one wholly of fire, the other mixed of air and a little fire — and this last he takes to be night. The beginning of the motion came about from the massing together of the fire that bore down upon it. The sun is not fire by nature, but a reflection of fire like that which comes from water. The moon, he says, was formed on its own out of the air cut off by the fire — for this was congealed like hail — and has its light from the sun. The governing part is neither in the head nor in the breast but in the blood; and therefore in whatever part of the body more of it is spread, in that part men have the advantage.
Report (doxographic, from Theophrastus).
τὸ ἡγεμονικόν, "the governing part", is Stoic vocabulary and not Empedocles'; the underlying claim, that thought is in the blood, is his (cf. B105). The word is the doxographer's frame.
Socrates
Reading Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II · Principles, Cosmos and Cycle · A 30
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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.