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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English Page · Branch 87 of 126
Light, Sea, Plants and Bodies · A 74
Ancient Greek and Latin
p. 164Aëtius
Ἐ. τὴν πρώτην ἀναπνοὴν τοῦ πρώτου ζώιου γενέσθαι τῆς ⟨μὲν⟩ ἐν τοῖς βρέφεσιν ὑγρασίας ἀποχώρησιν λαμβανούσης, πρὸς δὲ τὸ παρακενωθὲν ἐπεισόδου τοῦ ἐκτὸς ἀερώδους γινομένης εἰς τὰ παρανοιχθέντα τῶν ἀγγείων· τὸ δὲ μετὰ τοῦτο ἤδη τοῦ ἐμφύτου θερμοῦ τῆι πρὸς τὸ ἐκτὸς ὁρμῆι τὸ ἀερῶδες ὑπαναθλίβοντος τὴν ἐκπνοήν, τῆι δ' εἰς τὸ ἐντὸς ἀνθυποχωρήσει τῶι ἀερώδει τὴν ἀντεπείσοδον παρεχομένου τὴν εἰσπνοήν. τὴν δὲ νῦν κατέχουσαν φερομένου τοῦ αἵματος ὡς πρὸς τὴν ἐπιφάνειαν καὶ τὸ ἀερῶδες διὰ τῶν ῥινῶν ταῖς ἑαυτοῦ ἐπιρροίαις ἀναθλίβοντος κατὰ τὴν ἐκχώρησιν αὐτοῦ γίνεσθαι τὴν ἐκπνοήν, παλινδρομοῦντος δὲ καὶ τοῦ ἀέρος ἀντεπεισιόντος εἰς τὰ διὰ τοῦ αἵματος ἀραιώματα τὴν εἰσπνοήν· ὑπομιμνήισκει δὲ τὸ ἐπὶ τῆς κλεψύδρας.
Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II: Light, Sea, Plants and Bodies
p. 165The first breath, and how breathing works now
Aëtius
Empedocles: the first breath of the first living thing came about when the moisture in the newborn creatures was withdrawing, and, into the space so left empty, an entry of the outer airy stuff took place through the vessels that had been opened. After this, the innate heat, rushing toward the outside, presses the airy stuff out — and that is exhalation; and by yielding back toward the inside it gives the airy stuff its counter-entry — and that is inhalation. But the breathing that now prevails comes about thus: the blood travels toward the surface, and by its own inflows presses out the airy stuff through the nostrils, so that as the blood gives way exhalation occurs; and when the blood runs back again and the air enters in turn into the spaces the blood has left thin, inhalation occurs. He recalls in this connection the case of the water-clock.
Doxographic report, summarising an argument the poem gives in full.
Breathing here is not something the lungs do; it is something the blood does, and the nostrils are incidental to it. The blood advances to the surface and drives the air out; the blood retreats and the air follows it in. The account is wrong, and it is wrong in an instructive way: it treats the body as a hydraulic system in which nothing is ever empty, which is exactly the assumption behind the water-clock experiment of B 100 — the longest continuous passage of Empedocles we possess, and the only ancient description of a controlled demonstration in verse.
Bearing on Volume I. The doctrine and the poem meet here; B 100 is the argument this notice summarises.
21 ⟨μὲν⟩ supplied by Diels. — 22 τῆς ἔξωθεν deleted by Diels. — 25 ἐντός Bernadakis: ἐκτός in the manuscripts. — 30 τό Diels: αὐτό in the manuscripts. Diels notes that the parallel report at Aëtius V 15, 3 is inferior.
Socrates
Reading Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II · Light, Sea, Plants and Bodies · A 74
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.