From the book
Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II
Empedocles of Acragas · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordἈρχέτυπον means archetypal or original pattern.
- In this workThe archetypal sun is described as fire filling one hemisphere of the cosmos and stationed opposite its own reflection.
- In this editionThe account is expressly marked unclear in Diels’ apparatus.
- A place to readDescribes the original fiery sun filling a hemisphere and distinguished from its apparent reflection.
Meaning
Ἀρχέτυπον means archetypal or original pattern. In A56 it qualifies one of the two suns reported by Aëtius. The word belongs to the doxographic explanation and should not be taken as evidence for a Platonic intelligible solar Form in Empedocles.
Use in the book
The archetypal sun is described as fire filling one hemisphere of the cosmos and stationed opposite its own reflection. The other sun is apparent, a reflection in the hemisphere filled with air mixed with heat, carried around with the fiery one’s motion. The distinction separates a fiery source from a visible luminous manifestation.
The account is difficult at precisely the point where it relates the rounded earth, reflection and a crystalline sun. Diels’ apparatus acknowledges the obscurity. A30 offers the simpler statement that the sun is not fire by nature but a reflection of fire like a reflection from water. Those notices support the importance of reflected light without fully determining a consistent optical geometry.
The lexicon therefore retains “archetypal” as the witness’s organizing word, not as proof that Empedocles posited two ordinary stellar bodies. It also avoids identifying the original hemisphere with a particular contemporary astronomical object.
Places to read
- A 56 (testimony)Aëtius II 20,13 (D. 350). Describes the original fiery sun filling a hemisphere and distinguished from its apparent reflection.
- A 30 (testimony)Ps.-Plutarch, Stromateis, in Eusebius P.E. I 8,10. Gives the related, simpler characterization of the sun as reflected fire.
Translation in this edition
The account is expressly marked unclear in Diels’ apparatus. The source’s archetype-language is doxographic, and the geometry should not be repaired with an invented diagram presented as established doctrine.