From the book
Empedocles’ Complete Fragments, Volume I
Empedocles of Acragas · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Aphrodite
Ἀφροδίτην (Aphroditēn); Ἀφροδίτηι (Aphroditēi); Ἀφροδίτη (Aphroditē); Ἀφροδίτης (Aphroditēs)
Aphrodite is a divine name that the fragments place directly within the vocabulary of Love.
Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordAphrodite is a divine name that the fragments place directly within the vocabulary of Love.
- In EmpedoclesThe physical passages repeatedly present Aphrodite as a maker.
- In this editionThe translation keeps “Aphrodite” rather than replacing the name with an abstract attraction.
- A place to readAphrodite is a mortal name for the power present in limbs and acts of joining.
Meaning
Aphrodite is a divine name that the fragments place directly within the vocabulary of Love. B172 says that mortals call the inborn power responsible for friendly thought and deeds of joining both Gladness and Aphrodite. The name retains recognizable associations with attraction and generation while acquiring an explicit role in bodily construction.
Use in the book
The physical passages repeatedly present Aphrodite as a maker. In B22 she makes things alike so that they are held dear by one another and suited to blending. B712 attributes the fitting together of the forms and colours of mortal things to her. B86 calls her divine and credits her with fashioning eyes; B87 gives her rivets of affection. These are images of deliberate craft applied to a material process, not a choice between a “religious” and a “scientific” explanation.
B66's cloven meadows of Aphrodite invite a sexual or reproductive reading, though the quotation is only a phrase and does not name an anatomical referent. The goddess's name therefore spans sexual generation, affinities among ingredients, and the assembly of an organ. Her association with Life-giving in B151 is supplied through Plutarch's report of an epithet, not a surviving full description of her actions.
The explicit naming statement in B172 supplies the strongest bridge to Love. Even so, preserving Aphrodite rather than translating each occurrence as Love matters. It retains the agent's identity and the particular images that make the power intelligible. Equally, it does not justify importing every familiar myth about Aphrodite into Empedocles. The fragments themselves choose which aspects of her range become relevant.
Places to read
Translation in this edition
The translation keeps “Aphrodite” rather than replacing the name with an abstract attraction. B66 remains a broken metaphor; B151 is a single reported epithet whose referent is identified in the quoting author's prose.
From the book
Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II
Empedocles of Acragas · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Aphrodite
Ἀφροδίτης (Aphroditēs)
The genitive divine name appears in Plato’s phrase “under Aphrodite.”
Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordThe genitive divine name appears in Plato’s phrase “under Aphrodite.”
- In this workIn the Sophist’s comparison of Ionian and Sicilian Muses, the gentler Muses relax the claim that the All is always one and many at once.
- In this editionPlato names neither Empedocles nor Heraclitus in this excerpt.
- A place to readPlaces the unified, friendly All under Aphrodite in the unnamed Sicilian Muse’s by-turns account.
Meaning
The genitive divine name appears in Plato’s phrase “under Aphrodite.” Its grammatical function presents Aphrodite as the agency or governing presence under which the All is one and friendly. The passage does not itself give a formal definition equating every occurrence of Aphrodite with a single technical term.
Use in the book
In the Sophist’s comparison of Ionian and Sicilian Muses, the gentler Muses relax the claim that the All is always one and many at once. They instead let it be one and friendly under Aphrodite at one time, and many and at war with itself through Strife at another. The edition identifies the Sicilian allusion with Empedocles, whom Plato does not name here.
Aphrodite thus carries the unifying side of a contrast that other witnesses express through Love. The divine name matters because Plato’s characterization is not a mechanically neutral summary: the account is framed as a tale told to children and arranged through the contrast between more strenuous and gentler Muses. The passage is early evidence for a by-turns reading of Empedoclean unity and plurality, but it is neither a verse quotation nor a proof that the later six-principle classification was already the poet’s own scheme.
Places to read
- A 29 (testimony)Plato, Sophist 242c-d. Places the unified, friendly All under Aphrodite in the unnamed Sicilian Muse’s by-turns account.
Translation in this edition
Plato names neither Empedocles nor Heraclitus in this excerpt. Their identification is a well-signaled interpretation of the allusion, not wording to be inserted into the Greek quotation.