From the book
Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II
Empedocles of Acragas · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordHidrōs means sweat.
- In this workAëtius groups sweat and tears together as products of blood that is liquefied, thinned, and dispersed.
- In this editionThe end of A782's secretion clause is supplied from Galen because the manuscripts are corrupt and mutilated.
- A place to readExplains sweat and tears through melting, thinning, and dispersal of blood.
Meaning
Hidrōs means sweat. The genitive phrase makes blood undergoing melting or liquefaction the source of the product. “Melting” here belongs to the ancient report's model of material transformation, not a modern description of blood's physical state.
Use in the book
Aëtius groups sweat and tears together as products of blood that is liquefied, thinned, and dispersed. This creates a physiological relation between an internal material and outward secretions. It supplies neither sweat glands nor a mechanism of thermoregulation, and it should not be presented as accurate modern anatomy. The term has a striking cosmological counterpart at A662, where the sea is earth's sweat under solar heating and compression. That parallel shows the reach of an explanatory image without proving literal identity between the two processes. Terrestrial sweat is not said to derive from blood, while bodily sweat is. Aristotle's criticism at A24–A252 further shows that naming the sea sweat could be judged poetically effective yet explanatorily insufficient.
Places to read
- A 78 (testimony)2Aëtius. Explains sweat and tears through melting, thinning, and dispersal of blood.
- A 66 (testimony)2Aëtius. Applies sweat-language to the sea as a product of heated, compressed earth.
- A 24–A 25 (polemical)2Aristotle, Meteorology. Criticizes the sea-as-sweat metaphor as inadequate to knowledge of nature.
Translation in this edition
The end of A782's secretion clause is supplied from Galen because the manuscripts are corrupt and mutilated. Its smoothly stated common mechanism should not disguise the reconstruction.