Monstrous births · Lexicon

From the book

Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II

Empedocles of Acragas · Diotimos Editions · 2026

Orientation

At a Glance

The wordTerata is the ancient label conventionally translated monsters or monstrous births.
In this workAëtius attributes unusual births to five possibilities: too much seed, too little, disturbed movement, division into too many parts, or a turning aside.
In this editionThe text reads tarachē, disturbance, rather than the alternative archē in other manuscripts.
A place to readLists five material or kinetic causes of unusual births and adds a retrospective commendation.

Meaning

Terata is the ancient label conventionally translated monsters or monstrous births. The entry uses it as a historical category for unusual bodily formation, not as a label for people today. Pleonasmos, elleipsis, and tarachē denote excess, deficiency, and disturbance.

Use in the book

Aëtius attributes unusual births to five possibilities: too much seed, too little, disturbed movement, division into too many parts, or a turning aside. The list is noteworthy for explanatory plurality. It does not reduce every malformed body to a single excess or to divine punishment, and it treats quantity, motion, division, and direction as materially significant. The doxographer then praises Empedocles for anticipating nearly all accounts of causes. That evaluative sentence belongs to the reporter, not to the philosopher's own claim of priority, and it should not be endorsed as a modern history of embryology. The list also does not establish a diagnosis for any particular anomaly or show which observation supported each proposed cause. It remains a compressed ancient aetiological classification.

Places to read

A 81 (testimony)2 3Aëtius, notice on terata. Lists five material or kinetic causes of unusual births and adds a retrospective commendation.
A 81 (apparatus)2 3Diels, apparatus. Records variants affecting disturbance and the final word for causal accounts.

Translation in this edition

The text reads tarachē, disturbance, rather than the alternative archē in other manuscripts. The praise about virtually all explanations is part of the doxographic framing; the historical causes should not be used as medical explanations or blame assigned to parents.