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Text and transmission

Fragments and Diels numbering

A fragment here is a numbered unit gathered by editors from a later witness, not necessarily a broken piece of a physical manuscript or an original unit of composition.

From the book

Empedocles’ Complete Fragments, Volume I

Empedocles of Acragas · Diotimos Editions · 2026

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Orientation

At a Glance

  • The wordA fragment here is a numbered unit gathered by editors from a later witness, not necessarily a broken piece of a physical manuscript or an original unit of composition.
  • In EmpedoclesThe supplied text exemplifies the unevenness concealed by one numbering system.
  • In this editionThe supplied edition attributes its numbering to Diels and preserves editorial combinations and subdivisions such as 27a and 153a.
  • A place to readSelection, delimitation, and arrangement are explicitly distinguished.

Meaning

A fragment here is a numbered unit gathered by editors from a later witness, not necessarily a broken piece of a physical manuscript or an original unit of composition. Diels-Kranz B references are stable identifiers used for the putative words of Empedocles; A references conventionally organize reports about him.

Use in the book

The supplied text exemplifies the unevenness concealed by one numbering system. B 172 is a long continuous quotation, B 7 a word accompanied by a supplied subject, B 153 a lexicographer's citation, B 92 Aristotle's prose paraphrase, and B 153a a reported statement. The letter B is therefore not a guarantee of verbatim hexameters. Each entry in a lexicon must identify what sort of evidence it has actually received.

The boundaries of a quotation reflect a witness's purpose. A later author may preserve only the clause needed for an argument or the word needed for a grammatical example. Modern editors then choose how to delimit and number that material. An opening or closing row of dots often means the quotation stops within a larger sentence, not that a complete standalone aphorism was written in that form.

Numbers likewise do not supply order. In this edition B 24 and B 25 appear in the proem; B 172 opens Book I; B 14 is printed among fragments of uncertain placement; and the combined headings B 77.78 and B 122/123 preserve more than one standard identifier. These features are deliberate signals that reading sequence and reference identity serve different purposes.

The introduction says the A testimonia are omitted, but the apparatus and prose items within the B series necessarily retain reports. This is not a reason to erase them. It is a reason to avoid presenting the entire book as uninterrupted Empedoclean verse. The doubtful B 158 is included while B 154–157 are omitted, again showing that inclusion and numbering do not by themselves certify authenticity.

For citation, the strongest practice is to give the B identifier, a line span when secure, and a short account of the evidence. A number locates a passage; it does not settle its authorship, wording, original place, or doctrinal role.

Places to read

  1. Introduction II (editorial discussion)Selection, delimitation, and arrangement are explicitly distinguished.
  2. Introduction VII (editorial discussion)The editor states the textual basis, exclusions, and status of marginal items.
  3. B 92 (report)The B-labelled item is a prose report by Aristotle.
  4. B 153a (report)The B-labelled embryological notice is a report, not verbatim verse.
  5. B 158 (editorial discussion)The local note explains its anomalous position; the introduction also calls it doubtful.

Translation in this edition

The supplied edition attributes its numbering to Diels and preserves editorial combinations and subdivisions such as 27a and 153a. This lexicon retains those identifiers rather than renumbering the poem into an invented consecutive original order.