From the book
Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II
Empedocles of Acragas · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordEkpnoē is breathing out.
- In this workExhalation results from an outward-moving internal agent.
- In this editionThis article is restricted to ekpnoē.
- A place to readCalls the airy material's expulsion by innate heat exhalation.
Meaning
Ekpnoē is breathing out. The pressure verb describes expelling or squeezing away the airy constituent. Dia tōn rhinōn explicitly gives the nostrils as a route in the account of current breathing.
Use in the book
Exhalation results from an outward-moving internal agent. In the first recurring mechanism that agent is innate heat; in the present mechanism it is blood advancing toward the surface. The report therefore portrays breathing out as material displacement. Naming the nostrils matters, even though a broader reading of Empedoclean respiration may also involve bodily passages. This local testimony cannot be made to say that the nose is irrelevant. Nor should “airy stuff” be equated with modern exhaled gas composition. The ancient question being answered is how entry and exit occur, not what chemical exchange sustains metabolism. Distinguishing respiratory exhalation from the cosmological or meteorological release of vapour also avoids conflating different Greek expressions translated with the same English word.
Places to read
- A 74 (testimony)Aëtius, first recurring sequence. Calls the airy material's expulsion by innate heat exhalation.
- A 74 (testimony)Aëtius, current-breathing sequence. Describes blood pressing air outward through the nostrils.
Translation in this edition
This article is restricted to ekpnoē. It should not absorb every instance of “exhalation” elsewhere in ancient physics. The edited sequence contains repairs, so the pressure mechanism is more secure than an exact timing diagram.