From the book
Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II
Empedocles of Acragas · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordKathartēs is a purifier, an agent noun related to purification.
- In this workNicomachus groups Empedocles, Epimenides, and Abaris as people who shared extraordinary powers associated with Pythagoras.
- In this editionThe Greek word is genuinely present but belongs to Epimenides.
- A place to readAssigns the purifier epithet to Epimenides within the trio that includes Empedocles and Abaris.
Meaning
Kathartēs is a purifier, an agent noun related to purification. Nicomachus assigns this epithet to Epimenides of Crete, not to Empedocles. Its presence near the Empedoclean wind-title is comparative evidence and must not be reassigned to the principal subject of the collection.
Use in the book
Nicomachus groups Empedocles, Epimenides, and Abaris as people who shared extraordinary powers associated with Pythagoras. He takes their poems and characteristic epithets as indications of what they accomplished: Empedocles averts winds, Epimenides purifies, and Abaris walks on air. The purifier therefore helps define the category into which this witness places Empedocles, even though it names another person’s characteristic activity. The comparison may suggest a shared field of religious expertise, but it gives no specific purification rite performed by Empedocles and does not demonstrate that the title Purifications derives from Epimenides. Its value is taxonomic: a later author groups different forms of exceptional action under one inherited source of power.
Places to read
- A 13–A 14 (legend)Nicomachus, on the wonders of Pythagoras. Assigns the purifier epithet to Epimenides within the trio that includes Empedocles and Abaris.
Translation in this edition
The Greek word is genuinely present but belongs to Epimenides. This distinction is important in a lexicon whose headwords may otherwise make every term appear to be an Empedoclean self-designation.