Papyri and the unprinted text

Use in the book

The introduction describes the Strasbourg material as parts of a roll reused in a funerary object, identified in the twentieth century and published by Alain Martin and Oliver Primavesi in 1999. Some of its lines overlap text otherwise known through Simplicius. Such overlap allows a direct comparison between a later quotation and a separate ancient copy; it does not make either witness automatically free of error.

The structural evidence discussed in the introduction includes a stichometric mark, a count of verses, relevant to locating passages within a book. This is a different sort of evidence from arranging fragments by subject matter. Its implications still require interpretation. In particular, placing the opening of B 172 around verse 232 does not alone demonstrate that all preceding verses were a proem: a line-number location and a literary division are not identical facts.

The introduction also reports ethical or dietary material in the physical-poem papyrus context, complicating a strict division of subject matter between On Nature and Purifications. It acknowledges that this does not finally decide the number of poems. The more recent Cairo publication, P. Fouad inv. 218, preserves remains of approximately thirty additional verses and is described as belonging to the same roll and hand. These are fragmentary remains, not thirty securely complete new lines.

Neither modern papyrus text is printed in this book. B 139 is followed by residual Latin notices referring to Strasbourg papyrus verses, but those notices are not the missing Greek verses themselves. A lexicon of the supplied text can report the introduction's account and explain its bearing on interpretation; it cannot manufacture a vocabulary of unprinted passages or pretend to collate readings absent from the file.

The papyri therefore matter twice: as substantive evidence for the wider study of Empedocles and as a boundary on what this particular edition contains. Their absence should be stated clearly whenever a claim depends on the completeness of the corpus.

Places to read

1. Introduction III (editorial discussion)The introduction describes the Strasbourg and Cairo finds and their significance.
2. Introduction IV (editorial discussion)Papyrus evidence is invoked in the debate over poem division.
3. Introduction VII (editorial discussion)The editor expressly excludes the modern papyrus texts.
4. B 139 (editorial discussion)Residual Latin notices mention papyrus verses without supplying their Greek text.

Translation in this edition

The historical descriptions are modern apparatus, not words of Empedocles. This article does not endorse every reconstruction stated in the introduction, and it distinguishes a verse-count position from a demonstrably bounded proem. Lexical entries remain grounded in passages actually supplied.