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 62 of 126
Principles, Cosmos and Cycle · A 46
Ancient Greek and Latin
p. 114Aristotle, Physics A 4, 187a20
οἱ δ' ἐκ τοῦ ἑνὸς ἐνούσας τὰς ἐναντιότητας ἐκκρίνεσθαι, ὥσπερ Ἀναξίμανδρός φησι καὶ ὅσοι δ' ἓν καὶ πολλά φασιν εἶναι, ὥσπερ Ἐ. καὶ Ἀναξαγόρας· ἐκ τοῦ μείγματος γὰρ καὶ οὗτοι ἐκκρίνουσι τἆλλα, διαφέρουσι δ' ἀλλήλων τῶι τὸν μὲν περίοδον ποιεῖν τούτων, τὸν δ' ἅπαξ, καὶ τὸν μὲν ἄπειρα τά τε ὁμοιομερῆ καὶ τἀναντία, τὸν δὲ τὰ καλούμενα στοιχεῖα.
Aëtius I 5,2 (D. 291)
Ἐμπεδοκλῆς δὲ κόσμον μὲν ἕνα, οὐ μέντοι τὸ πᾶν εἶναι τὸν κόσμον, ἀλλὰ ὀλίγον τι τοῦ παντὸς μέρος, τὸ δὲ λοιπὸν ἀργὴν ὕλην.
Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II: Principles, Cosmos and Cycle
p. 115Separation out of a mixture; the cycle as periodic, against Anaxagoras' single occurrence.
Aristotle, Physics A 4, 187a20
Others say that the contrarieties are separated out of the one, as Anaximander says, and as do all who say that what is is one and many — Empedocles and Anaxagoras; for these too separate the rest out of the mixture. They differ from one another in that the one makes these things come round in a cycle, while the other makes it happen once only; and the one makes them infinite, both the uniform bodies and the contraries, while the other makes only the so-called elements.
Report, and a comparison.
The contrast with Anaxagoras is the point: Empedocles' separation is periodic and repeats, Anaxagoras' happens once. This is among the clearest ancient statements that the cycle recurs, and it comes from the earliest witness.
Diels records εἶναι τὰ ὄντα in the Aristotle manuscripts at line 2; ἄπειρα ποιεῖν likewise; στοιχεῖα μόνον, with μόνον absent from Simplicius.
The cosmos is one, but only a small part of the All.
Aëtius I 5,2 (D. 291)
Empedocles [says] that the cosmos is one; yet the cosmos is not the whole, but a small part of the All, the remainder being inert matter.
Report.
ἀργὴ ὕλη, "inert matter", is not Empedoclean vocabulary. But the underlying claim — that the ordered world occupies only part of what there is — has no support in any surviving fragment, and if it is genuine it matters considerably for how the cosmic cycle is pictured. Treat with caution.
Socrates
Reading Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II · Principles, Cosmos and Cycle · A 46
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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.