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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Ancient Greek and Latin Page · Branch 65 of 126
Principles, Cosmos and Cycle · A 50
Ancient Greek and Latin
p. 120Aëtius II 31,4 and II 1,4
Ἐ. τοῦ ὕψους τοῦ ἀπὸ τῆς γῆς εἰς τὸν οὐρανόν, ἥτις ἐστὶν ἀφ' ἡμῶν ἀνάτασις, πλείονα εἶναι τὴν κατὰ τὸ πλάτος διάστασιν κατὰ τοῦτο τοῦ οὐρανοῦ μᾶλλον ἀναπεπταμένου διὰ τὸ ὠιῶι παραπλησίως τὸν κόσμον κεῖσθαι. Ἐ. τὸν τοῦ ἡλίου περίδρομον εἶναι περιγραφὴν τοῦ πέρατος τοῦ κόσμου.
Aëtius II 10,2
Ἐ. δεξιὰ μὲν αὐτοῦ [τοῦ κόσμου] τὰ κατὰ τὸν θερινὸν τροπικόν, ἀριστερὰ δὲ τὰ κατὰ τὸν χειμερινόν.
Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II: Principles, Cosmos and Cycle
p. 121The shape of the cosmos; the sun's circuit as its boundary.
Aëtius II 31,4 and II 1,4
Empedocles [says] that the height of the heaven from the earth — that is, the distance upward from us — is less than its breadth laid out sideways, the heaven being spread further in that direction, because the cosmos lies in a manner resembling an egg. Empedocles [says] that the circuit of the sun is the outline of the limit of the cosmos.
Aëtius II 10,2
Empedocles [says] that the right of the cosmos is toward the summer tropic, the left toward the winter.
Reports.
The egg-shaped cosmos is not in any fragment. It is a notable claim, since the Sphairos of B27-B29 is emphatically spherical; the two are not necessarily in conflict, the Sphairos belonging to the phase of Love's dominance and this to the present world, but the edition should not smooth the difference.
Socrates
Reading Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II · Principles, Cosmos and Cycle · A 50
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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.