Diotimos Library · Greek Antiquity Collection · Bilingual Edition
Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II
The Greek and Latin of Hermann Diels · New English translation and notes.
Explore the LexiconSwipe or use the arrow keys.
Ancient Greek and Latin Page · Branch 64 of 126
Principles, Cosmos and Cycle · A 49
Ancient Greek and Latin
p. 118Aëtius II 6,3
Ἐ. τὸν μὲν αἰθέρα πρῶτον διακριθῆναι, δεύτερον δὲ τὸ πῦρ, ἐφ' ὧι τὴν γῆν, ἐξ ἧς ἄγαν περισφιγγομένης τῆι ῥύμηι τῆς περιφορᾶς ἀναβλύσαι τὸ ὕδωρ· ἐξ οὗ θυμιαθῆναι τὸν ἀέρα, καὶ γενέσθαι τὸν μὲν οὐρανὸν ἐκ τοῦ αἰθέρος, τὸν δὲ ἥλιον ἐκ τοῦ πυρός, πιληθῆναι δὲ ἐκ τῶν ἄλλων τὰ περίγεια.
Philo, De providentia II 60
eodem modo etiam mundi partes confici videntur, ut dicit Empedocles. postquam enim secretus est aether (i.e. μετὰ τὸ διακριθῆναι τὸν αἰθέρα), aer et ignis sursus volaverunt et caelum formatum quod in latissimo spatio circumferebatur. ignis autem qui caelo paulo inferior manserat, ipse quoque in radios solis coacervatus est. terra vero in unum concurrens et necessitate quadam concreta (πιληθεῖσα) in medio apparens consedit. porro circa eam undique aether, quia multo levior erat, volvitur neque umquam desistit.
Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II: Principles, Cosmos and Cycle
p. 119The order of separation in the cosmogony.
Aëtius II 6,3
Empedocles [says] that the aether was separated off first, the fire second, and after that the earth — from which, squeezed exceedingly tight by the force of the rotation, water gushed forth; and out of the water air was exhaled; and the heaven came to be out of the aether, the sun out of the fire, and the things about the earth were compacted out of the rest.
Philo, De providentia II 60
In the same way the parts of the world too appear to be made, as Empedocles says. For after the aether was separated off, air and fire flew upward, and the heaven was formed, which was carried round in the widest space. But the fire that had remained a little below the heaven was itself gathered together into the rays of the sun. The earth, however, running together into one and compacted by a certain necessity, settled and appeared in the middle. Round about it on every side the aether, being much lighter, is rolled and never ceases ...
Two reports, broadly agreeing on the order.
The Philo text is at three removes — Greek lost, Armenian version, Latin rendering of the Armenian — and the Latin has been corrected by conjecture. It carries correspondingly little weight on any point of wording, though it agrees with Aëtius on the sequence. The rotation that squeezes water out of the earth is the δίνη, the vortex, which is genuinely Empedoclean vocabulary and not an importation.
Diels flags the Latin as uncertain at several points — circumiectus est … gyrus after Conybeare; ignis where another manuscript has formae; the parenthesis quietis … per deum referred by Conybeare to Aristotle's doctrine of circular motion. Galen and Reiske give ἀναθυμιαθῆναι at the Aëtius line.
Socrates
Reading Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II · Principles, Cosmos and Cycle · A 49
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.