From the book
Empedocles’ Complete Fragments, Volume I
Empedocles of Acragas · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordPoseidon is the final divine name in B1282's list before the declaration of Cypris' queenship.
- In EmpedoclesThe community described does not have Poseidon among its divine powers, just as it lacks Ares, Battle-Din, Zeus as king, and Cronos.
- In this editionThe negative statement concerns “them,” a community with a lost antecedent.
- A place to readPoseidon concludes the list of gods absent among Cypris’s people.
Meaning
Poseidon is the final divine name in B1282's list before the declaration of Cypris' queenship. His name remains a name in the translation, not a gloss for the sea or for the water-root.
Use in the book
The community described does not have Poseidon among its divine powers, just as it lacks Ares, Battle-Din, Zeus as king, and Cronos. The next line supplies the positive counterpart, Cypris as queen. This local reordering of divine allegiance belongs to the portrait of bloodless worship and peaceful life.
The fragment gives no further description of Poseidon and does not explain why each excluded deity is named. A reader may recognize familiar associations with the sea, but should not treat them as a stated Empedoclean root mapping. The four-root catalogue in B6 uses different names, including Nestis, and its identifications are disputed. B1282 neither resolves those disputes nor introduces a fifth root under Poseidon's name.
Places to read
- B 128.2–3Poseidon concludes the list of gods absent among Cypris’s people.
Translation in this edition
The negative statement concerns “them,” a community with a lost antecedent. It does not say that the sea ceases to exist or that Poseidon is universally denied.