From the book
Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II
Empedocles of Acragas · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordEnydra means water-dwelling.
- In this workAristotle reports and criticizes Empedocles' claim that the hottest animals, possessing most fire, live in water because they flee excessive natural heat.
- In this editionThe edition generalizes this into a universal principle of seeking the missing constituent.
- A place to readRejects the explanation of water-dwelling by the animals' excessive internal fire.
Meaning
Enydra means water-dwelling. Thermotata is the superlative “hottest,” and hyperpyra means excessively fiery. These predicates explain why a creature's environment need not simply repeat the dominant material character inside it.
Use in the book
Aristotle reports and criticizes Empedocles' claim that the hottest animals, possessing most fire, live in water because they flee excessive natural heat. Theophrastus similarly says that over-fiery creatures are led towards the moist. The explanation turns on relief or compensation: a habitat supplies what moderates a body's own excess. It is not the same as the mixture-based habitat account at A722, where animals with a greater fiery share fly into air. This tension deserves preservation rather than immediate harmonization. The witnesses may be addressing different comparisons, but that remains a possibility, not a fact supplied by the excerpts. Aelian's A662 notice that fish draw nourishment from sweet water within the sea concerns nutrition rather than thermal habitat selection and should likewise remain distinct.
Places to read
- A 73 (polemical)Aristotle, On Respiration. Rejects the explanation of water-dwelling by the animals' excessive internal fire.
- A 73 (polemical)Theophrastus, On the Causes of Plants. Repeats the movement of over-fiery animals toward moisture.
- A 72 (testimony)2Aëtius. Preserves a differently organized assignment of habitats by mixture.
Translation in this edition
The edition generalizes this into a universal principle of seeking the missing constituent. The notices directly support flight from excessive heat and attraction to moisture; they do not themselves state a complete law for all animal habitats.