From the book
Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II
Empedocles of Acragas · Diotimos Editions · 2026
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At a Glance
- The wordNōthros means sluggish or slow; epiponos means laborious or requiring effort.
- In this workTheophrastus reports that persons whose elements lie loosely and sparsely are sluggish and laborious.
- In this editionThe modern commentary calls the passage the oldest European temperament theory and ancestor of later humoral accounts.
- A place to readAssociates loose and rare constituents with sluggish and laborious performance.
Meaning
Nōthros means sluggish or slow; epiponos means laborious or requiring effort. The paired material adjectives describe constituents as loose and rare. The witness associates a bodily arrangement with a style of cognitive activity.
Use in the book
Theophrastus reports that persons whose elements lie loosely and sparsely are sluggish and laborious. This is contrasted with the dense, finely broken arrangement that yields rapid movement and many unfinished undertakings. The pairing suggests that quickness is not simply superior to slowness: both are departures from the best-balanced and appropriately structured mixture described just before.
The passage does not provide a clinical diagnosis, a permanent character test, or an account of how education alters these dispositions. Nor is “laborious” necessarily praise for conscientious perseverance; its force belongs to a contrast between bodily constitution and ease or difficulty of functioning. Preserving the two adjectives separately from the general intelligence entry makes the report's attention to tempo and effort visible without exaggerating it into a complete personality theory.
Places to read
- A 86 §§ 10–11 (testimony)Theophrastus, On the Senses 11. Associates loose and rare constituents with sluggish and laborious performance.
Translation in this edition
The modern commentary calls the passage the oldest European temperament theory and ancestor of later humoral accounts. Those priority and influence claims exceed the evidence in this excerpt and are not needed to explicate its vocabulary.