From the book
Empedocles’ Complete Fragments, Volume I
Empedocles of Acragas · Diotimos Editions · 2026
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At a Glance
Meaning
Λεπίδες are scales, the last item in B82’s list of corresponding surface growths. They occur “upon stout limbs,” alongside the comparison with hair, leaves, and dense feathers. No specific scaled species is named in the line.
Use in the book
The force of the example is comparative. Scales, like feathers and hair, can be recognized as a distinct bodily form, yet the poem states that the listed structures are the same things. This is intelligible against the wider insistence that apparent diversity arises from mixture and arrangement of common constituents. The fragment does not provide a separate set of ingredients peculiar to scales.
It is useful to resist two opposite simplifications. The structures are not merely unrelated ornaments selected for a poetic list; the emphatic sameness asks for a common physical explanation. But they are not therefore interchangeable in every feature or function. A scale’s visible form remains a scale even when its materials have a shared origin with other coverings.
The shelled animals of B76 give a neighbouring example of external bodily material, explicitly placing earth above flesh. That passage describes a hard outer arrangement, whereas B82’s scale line does not specify an earthy proportion. Connecting the examples can illuminate the interest in bodily surfaces without borrowing a recipe from one and assigning it to the other.
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Translation in this edition
The edition does not add “fish” to the scales in B82. Fish are plausible readers' associations, but the line should not be narrowed to them when its Greek leaves the bearer unspecified.