From the book
Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II
Empedocles of Acragas · Diotimos Editions · 2026
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At a Glance
- The wordEmpedoclès is the Italian name-form.
- In this workDante’s list places Empedocles with Diogenes, Anaxagoras, Thales, Heraclitus, and Zeno among the philosophers.
- In this editionThe edition’s broad introduction to the appendix overstates the dominance of the crater among the printed examples.
- A place to readLists Empedocles among philosophers; the chance-world clause explicitly qualifies Democritus.
Meaning
Empedoclès is the Italian name-form. “Stand nearer to him” describes ordering around the central philosophical authority identified in the editorial context as Aristotle. The phrase about making the world by chance belongs grammatically to Democritus, not Empedocles.
Use in the book
Dante’s list places Empedocles with Diogenes, Anaxagoras, Thales, Heraclitus, and Zeno among the philosophers. The selected lines do not recount the crater story, describe the four roots, or give a judgment on his death. Their function is classificatory: the name occupies a recognized place in an inherited philosophical company. The appendix’s commentary supplies the larger Limbo setting and notes medieval commentators’ gloss that he wrote on nature and first principles. That gloss is evidence about later recognition of subject matter, not proof that Dante or the commentators possessed an intact Empedoclean poem. The entry matters because this reception mode differs from the more memorable volcanic legend: Empedocles can survive as a canonical thinker even when no distinctive anecdote is attached to his name.
Places to read
- Appendix II Dante IV (reception)Dante, Inferno IV 135–138. Lists Empedocles among philosophers; the chance-world clause explicitly qualifies Democritus.
Translation in this edition
The edition’s broad introduction to the appendix overstates the dominance of the crater among the printed examples. Neither this passage nor the separate Dante passage narrates the leap. Aristotle and the noble castle belong to the contextual note beyond the four quoted lines.
Source note
The immediately preceding description of a world produced by chance is a frequent adjacency trap: the syntax attaches it to Democritus and should not be indexed as an Empedoclean doctrine.