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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Light, Sea, Plants and Bodies · A 83
Ancient Greek and Latin
p. 186Aëtius
Ἐ. ἐπὶ μὲν τῶν ἀνθρώπων ἄρχεσθαι τῆς διαρθρώσεως ἀπὸ ἕκτης καὶ τριακοστῆς, τελειοῦσθαι δὲ τοῖς μορίοις ἀπὸ πεντηκοστῆς μιᾶς δεούσης.
Oribasius, from Athenaeus
περὶ δὲ τὰς τέσσαρας ἐννεάδας ὁρᾶται πρῶτον διακεκριμένον ὅλον τὸ σῶμα ἢ τὸ τελευταῖον μιᾶς προστεθείσης τετράδος περὶ τὴν τεσσαρακοντάδα. συμφωνεῖ δὲ τοῖς χρόνοις τῆς παντελοῦς τῶν ἐμβρύων διακρίσεως καὶ ὁ φυσικὸς Ἐ. καί φησιν, ὅτι θᾶσσον διαμορφοῦται τὸ ἄρρεν τοῦ θήλεος καὶ τὰ ἐν τοῖς δεξιοῖς τῶν ἐν τοῖς εὐωνύμοις.
Censorinus, On the Birthday
septimo mense parere mulierem posse plurimi adfirmant ut … Empedocles, Epigenes multique praeterea.
Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II: Light, Sea, Plants and Bodies
p. 187How long the embryo takes to form
Aëtius
Empedocles: in the case of men, the articulation begins from the thirty-sixth day, and they are completed in their parts from the forty-ninth.
Oribasius, from Athenaeus
About the fourth period of nine days the whole body is first seen articulated, or at the latest, with one period of four days added, about the fortieth. Empedocles the natural philosopher agrees about the times of the embryo's complete differentiation, and says that the male is shaped sooner than the female, and the parts on the right sooner than those on the left.
Censorinus, On the Birthday
Very many affirm that a woman can give birth in the seventh month — among them Empedocles, Epigenes, and a good many besides.
Report, still cited as current by a physician seven centuries later.
The numbers are multiples of seven, and that is not accidental: thirty-six is not, but forty-nine is seven sevens, and the whole of Greek embryology counts in weeks. What is striking in the Oribasius notice is that a working physician of the fourth century after Christ cites Empedocles not as an authority from the past but as agreeing with the present state of the art.
Bearing on Volume I. Connects with A 75, the doctrine of the seven-month child.
24 ἀπό] Usener conjectures ἐπί.
Socrates
Reading Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II · Light, Sea, Plants and Bodies · A 83
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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.