From the book
Stobaeus, Volume I
John Stobaeus · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Ruling part
ἡγεμονικόν
hēgemonikonThe neuter substantive names what directs or rules.
Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordThe neuter substantive names what directs or rules.
- In StobaeusThe chapter on the world asks where its ruling part is, alongside questions about soul, nourishment, and providence.
- In this edition“Ruling part” retains the structural question; “ruling faculty” can better express a cognitive function.
- A place to beginThe location of the world’s ruling part is posed as a question.
- English renderings
- ruling part; ruling faculty
Meaning
The neuter substantive names what directs or rules. It can identify a controlling part or faculty, but neither its location nor its relation to other powers is settled by the word alone.
Use in the book
The chapter on the world asks where its ruling part is, alongside questions about soul, nourishment, and providence. The report of Alcmaeon places the ruling faculty in the brain and uses it to explain smell through inhalation.
Places to read
- I.21.headingThe location of the world’s ruling part is posed as a question.
- I.54.1The ruling faculty is placed in the brain in Alcmaeon’s account of smell.
Translation in this edition
“Ruling part” retains the structural question; “ruling faculty” can better express a cognitive function. The singular Greek in I.54.1 is retained.
Source note
Wachsmuth, volume I, printed pp. 181, 492. The English at I.54.1 takes “by this” as referring to the ruling faculty located in the brain. The source’s concise wording remains open to inspection on the facing page.
From the book
Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II
Empedocles of Acragas · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Governing part
τὸ ἡγεμονικὸν (to hēgemonikon); ἐν τῆι τοῦ αἵματος συστάσει (en tēi tou haimatos systasei); τὴν καρδίαν (tēn kardian); ἐν τῆι κοιλίαι τῆς καρδίας (en tēi koiliai tēs kardias)
Hēgemonikon means the governing or ruling part.
Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordHēgemonikon means the governing or ruling part.
- In this workPseudo-Plutarch explicitly places the governing part neither in the head nor in the breast but in blood.
- In this editionThe edition identifies hēgemonikon as the doxographer’s later, Stoic framing.
- A place to readExplicitly locates the governing part in blood and relates its local distribution to superior ability.
Meaning
Hēgemonikon means the governing or ruling part. It is explicitly present in pseudo-Plutarch’s A30 report but only supplied contextually in the edition’s abbreviated A97 answer. Systasis denotes composition or constitution, making blood’s bodily condition, not merely its location, relevant.
Use in the book
Pseudo-Plutarch explicitly places the governing part neither in the head nor in the breast but in blood. He connects a greater distribution of it in a particular bodily part with superior ability in that part. The account is a doxographic restatement using later governing-part vocabulary, not an Empedoclean verse.
Aëtius’s A97 answer is briefer: it is in the composition of blood. Theodoret supplies a grouped cardiac report, with alternatives in the heart’s cavity or in blood, without specifying which option is uniquely Empedocles’ own. A cavity is a place; a blood-composition is a bodily condition. Treating all these formulations simply as “the heart is the seat of the soul” erases that difference. Theophrastus’s account of local cognitive aptitude supplies comparison, but cannot remove the ambiguity of the late grouped testimony.
Places to read
- A 30 (testimony)Ps.-Plutarch, Stromateis, in Eusebius P.E. I 8,10. Explicitly locates the governing part in blood and relates its local distribution to superior ability.
- A 97 (testimony)Aëtius. Locates the governing part, supplied from context, in blood composition.
- A 97 (testimony)Theodoret, Cure of the Greek Maladies. Groups cardiac localization with alternative placement in cavity or blood.
- A 86 §§ 10–11 (testimony)Theophrastus, On the Senses 10. Provides the explanatory connection between blood-blending and thought.
Translation in this edition
The edition identifies hēgemonikon as the doxographer’s later, Stoic framing. A30’s Greek is displaced in its cosmogonic sequence, but the cognitive clauses are printed together. At A97 the governing-part noun is supplied from context rather than present in Aëtius’s abbreviated Greek.