From the book
Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II
Empedocles of Acragas · Diotimos Editions · 2026
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At a Glance
- The wordOlympiad is the festival-cycle unit used in the chronological notices; ēkmaze and Latin floruit indicate a period of prominence or flourishing, not a birth date.
- In this workApollodorus’ argument, transmitted by Diogenes, combines an Olympic victory attributed to the grandfather with reports that the philosopher died at sixty.
- In this editionThe displayed “8–A 10” locator retains the edition’s combined heading.
- A place to readDistinguishes the grandfather’s victory and challenges the Syracuse chronology.
Meaning
Olympiad is the festival-cycle unit used in the chronological notices; ēkmaze and Latin floruit indicate a period of prominence or flourishing, not a birth date. Dates of victories, a thinker’s prime, and ages at death belong to different chronological categories.
Use in the book
Apollodorus’ argument, transmitted by Diogenes, combines an Olympic victory attributed to the grandfather with reports that the philosopher died at sixty. It rejects an account placing Empedocles among the Syracusans fighting the Athenians because the chronology would make him dead or exceedingly old. Elsewhere the Life locates his prime in the eighty-fourth Olympiad, while the Suda gives the seventy-ninth. The Eusebius notices and Gellius add other chronological associations. These are not mutually reinforcing fixed dates; they expose divergent systems of synchronism and biography. The useful lesson is to distinguish what a witness explicitly dates from the modern reconstruction derived from it. The edition’s approximate birth around 492 BCE is an inference promoted in its commentary, not a date quoted from Empedocles or stated in the surviving Apollodorus report. The disagreement about ages at death further limits the precision available.
Places to read
- A 1 §§ 51–52 (biography)Diogenes Laertius VIII 51–52, reporting Eratosthenes and Apollodorus. Distinguishes the grandfather’s victory and challenges the Syracuse chronology.
- A 1 §§ 73–74 (biography)2Diogenes Laertius VIII 73–74. Preserves a floruit and incompatible ages at death.
- A 8–A 10 (testimony)Eusebius, Chronicle; Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights. Supplies chronological notices rather than a continuous life.
Translation in this edition
The displayed “8–A 10” locator retains the edition’s combined heading. Its editorial conversions and confident claims of an unshaken chronology must be separated from the sparse notices; the evidence supports chronological constraints more readily than an exact birthday.