From the book
Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II
Empedocles of Acragas · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordApnous means without breath.
- In this workHeraclides’ narrative first appears as a case about which Empedocles instructed Pausanias.
- In this edition“Without pulse” is Mercurialis’ emendation, not the manuscript reading printed in the apparatus.
- A place to readPresents the breathless woman as material taught to Pausanias.
Meaning
Apnous means without breath. The printed asphyktos means without pulse, but the apparatus records asēptos, without decay, in the manuscripts and asitos, without food, in the Suda. These are materially different conditions, not stylistic variants of one diagnosis.
Use in the book
Heraclides’ narrative first appears as a case about which Empedocles instructed Pausanias. The next section specifies that the body was maintained in its extraordinary condition for thirty days and connects the event to the titles physician and seer. In the disappearance story the woman is described more strongly as a corpse returned alive, illustrating an escalation from absence of an observable function to resurrection. Hermippus’ separate account names a woman Panthea whom other doctors had abandoned; the close placement invites association but does not explicitly prove that all versions concern the same person. The lexicon must therefore resist a modern clinical reconstruction that merges these reports and treats them as case notes. The textual alternatives are especially decisive: suspended breathing with absence of decay tells a different story from suspended breathing with absent pulse. Neither is verified medical evidence, and the duration belongs to the extraordinary narrative itself.
Places to read
- A 1 §§ 59–60 (biography)Diogenes Laertius VIII 60, reporting Heraclides, On Diseases. Presents the breathless woman as material taught to Pausanias.
- A 1 §§ 61–63 (biography)Diogenes Laertius VIII 61, with apparatus. Gives the thirty-day duration and the disputed bodily condition.
- A 1 §§ 67–68 (legend)2Diogenes Laertius VIII 67, reporting Heraclides. Recasts the episode as returning a dead woman alive.
Translation in this edition
“Without pulse” is Mercurialis’ emendation, not the manuscript reading printed in the apparatus. The edition’s confident language of suspended respiration or clinical treatment must therefore be qualified; this text cannot diagnose the woman’s condition.