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 participles describe blood travelling and running back again.
- In this workIn Aëtius' account of current breathing, blood advances toward the bodily surface and presses the airy material outward through the nostrils.
- In this editionThe translation's phrase “as the blood gives way” can blur the sequence of approach, expulsion, and return.
- A place to readConnects outward and returning blood with expulsion and admission of air.
Meaning
The participles describe blood travelling and running back again. Araiōmata are thinned or rarefied spaces left by its movement, rather than a named modern anatomical structure. “Circulation” would risk importing a closed circuit that the report does not describe.
Use in the book
In Aëtius' account of current breathing, blood advances toward the bodily surface and presses the airy material outward through the nostrils. Its return permits air to enter the spaces the blood has vacated or made thin. Reciprocal displacement is the explanatory relation: what happens to one material changes where another can go. The wording does not identify a pumping heart, map arteries and veins, or distinguish oxygenated from deoxygenated blood. It is especially important not to treat the verb for running back as an anticipation of modern circulation. The connection with the clepsydra provides a mechanical analogy, but the testimony only recalls the device and leaves its full operation unstated. The mechanism also belongs specifically to the “now prevailing” mode of respiration, distinct from the preceding account of innate heat after first breathing.
Places to read
- A 74 (testimony)Aëtius, present-breathing sequence. Connects outward and returning blood with expulsion and admission of air.
- A 74 (testimony)Aëtius, concluding phrase. Recalls the clepsydra as an explanatory comparison.
Translation in this edition
The translation's phrase “as the blood gives way” can blur the sequence of approach, expulsion, and return. The secure point is reciprocity; the exact timing should not be sharpened beyond the repaired and compressed source.