From the book
Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II
Empedocles of Acragas · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordThe question-and-answer markers “being asked” and “he said” frame compact attributed sayings.
- In this workThe Paris Gnomology gives two replies under Empedocles’ name.
- In this editionNeither the Greek sayings nor their context establishes authentic Empedoclean wording.
- A place to readPreserves two brief question-and-answer sayings under Empedocles’ name.
Meaning
The question-and-answer markers “being asked” and “he said” frame compact attributed sayings. The heading apophthegm is a genre description of such memorable replies, rather than a Greek noun occurring in the displayed notices.
Use in the book
The Paris Gnomology gives two replies under Empedocles’ name. One links sensitivity to blame with the capacity to enjoy praise. The other tells a man unable to find anyone wise that recognition of wisdom requires being wise oneself. Their concise dramatic framing makes them readily detachable from historical circumstance. That portability is a reason for source caution: the apparatus identifies a better-attested version of the wisdom saying under Xenophanes in Diogenes Laertius IX 20. The sayings are therefore valuable as reception of a philosophical persona, but weak as verbatim records of Empedocles’ conversation. The second also raises an epistemic problem different from the physical accounts of perception: how can someone lacking a quality reliably identify it in another? The passage offers a pointed reply, not a worked-out criterion or a theory of expertise.
Places to read
- A 20 (reception)Paris Gnomology. Preserves two brief question-and-answer sayings under Empedocles’ name.
- A 20 (apparatus)Edition’s apparatus, citing Diogenes Laertius IX 20. Identifies a competing Xenophanean attribution for the wisdom reply.
Translation in this edition
Neither the Greek sayings nor their context establishes authentic Empedoclean wording. The lexicon uses actual words from the displayed text rather than inventing an unattested Greek heading for the genre.