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 51
Ancient Greek and Latin
p. 122Aëtius II 11,2
Ἐ. στερέμνιον εἶναι τὸν οὐρανὸν ἐξ ἀέρος συμπαγέντος ὑπὸ πυρὸς κρυσταλλοειδῶς, τὸ πυρῶδες καὶ τὸ ἀερῶδες ἐν ἑκατέρωι τῶν ἡμισφαιρίων περιέχοντα.
Achilles, Isagoge 5
Ἐ. δὲ κρυσταλλώδη τοῦτον εἶναί φησιν ἐκ τοῦ παγετώδους συλλεγέντα.
Scholia on Basil
Ἐ. δὲ ὑδροπαγῆ [τὸν οὐρανόν] καὶ οἱονεὶ κρυσταλλῶδες πίλημα.
Lactantius, De opificio dei
an si mihi quispiam dixerit aeneum esse caelum aut vitreum aut, ut Empedocles ait, aerem glaciatum, statimne assentiar?
Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II: Principles, Cosmos and Cycle
p. 123The heaven as solid, crystalline, made of frozen air.
Aëtius II 11,2
Empedocles [says] the heaven is solid, of air compacted by fire in the manner of crystal, containing in each of the two hemispheres the fiery and the airy.
Achilles, Isagoge 5
Empedocles says it is crystalline, gathered together out of what is frozen.
Scholia on Basil
Empedocles [says] the heaven is compacted of water, and is as it were a crystalline felting.
Lactantius, De opificio dei
But if someone were to tell me that the heaven is of bronze or of glass, or — as Empedocles says — that it is frozen air, am I to assent at once?
Four reports, in agreement.
No fragment describes the heaven. The doctrine is well attested across independent witnesses, and Lactantius, though hostile and late, is quoting it as a familiar absurdity, which is itself evidence that it was firmly attached to his name.
Diels records κρυσταλλῶδες ἐκ τοῦ παγετώδους συλλεγέντος εἶναι in one witness, and πίλημα against ἐπείλημα.
Socrates
Reading Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II · Principles, Cosmos and Cycle · A 51
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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.