From the book
Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II
Empedocles of Acragas · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordSidēros is iron.
- In this workAlexander reports that air caps the iron's passages until the stone's outflows push it away.
- In this editionThe printed Greek's first criticism has a direction-of-motion difficulty noted in the Magnetism entry.
- A place to readDescribes blocked iron-passages, subsequent emission, and motion toward the stone.
Meaning
Sidēros is iron. In the magnetic testimony it is the body drawn toward the stone and the source of effluences whose passage is initially impeded by air. The name denotes the ancient material without specifying its purity or modern metallurgical composition.
Use in the book
Alexander reports that air caps the iron's passages until the stone's outflows push it away. Iron then follows its own outgoing effluences toward the stone's commensurate passages. The account assigns motion to the material body, not only to emissions traveling between stationary objects.
That relation between whole body and outflow is exactly what the critic questions. If emitted material can carry its source after it, why does iron not sometimes move without a stone when its emissions occur in a mass? And why does the stone not similarly follow its own emissions? Iron is thus more than the example of an attracted object: its allegedly passive dependence on stone is tested against a mechanism which seems to allow more general motion. The excerpt provides no account of other metals, iron's internal composition, or magnetic saturation.
Places to read
- A 89 (testimony)2Alexander of Aphrodisias, Questions, first excerpt. Describes blocked iron-passages, subsequent emission, and motion toward the stone.
- A 89 (polemical)2Alexander of Aphrodisias, Questions, second excerpt. Asks why iron’s own outflow does not move it independently of the stone.
Translation in this edition
The printed Greek's first criticism has a direction-of-motion difficulty noted in the Magnetism entry. The clearly stated positive sequence should be distinguished from the problematic wording of that objection.