From the book
Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II
Empedocles of Acragas · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordKeraunos denotes the thunderbolt.
- In this workIn Aëtius' compressed meteorology, light entering a cloud sets up a sequence involving displaced air, a crash, and a flash.
- In this editionThe translation “force” is plausible but interpretive.
- A place to readDefines the thunderbolt through the tonos of lightning in a single physical sequence.
Meaning
Keraunos denotes the thunderbolt. Tonos can express tension, intensity, or force; the edition renders the relevant phrase as “the lightning's force.” The clause identifies a forceful manifestation rather than giving the bolt a separate material recipe.
Use in the book
In Aëtius' compressed meteorology, light entering a cloud sets up a sequence involving displaced air, a crash, and a flash. The thunderbolt is distinguished from lightning by tonos. This may indicate the concentrated or forceful action of the same event, but the sentence does not explain how that force is directed, how it strikes the ground, or what differentiates destructive from harmless flashes. A lexicon should therefore retain the term's physical emphasis without turning it into a measurable modern quantity. The notice is also significant for the absence of a divine agent within this local explanation: the bolt is accounted for within cloud physics. That does not establish a general repudiation of divine language elsewhere in Empedocles.
Places to read
- A 63 (testimony)Aëtius. Defines the thunderbolt through the tonos of lightning in a single physical sequence.
- A 63 (testimony)Aristotle, Meteorology. Provides the associated account of solar rays held in clouds.
Translation in this edition
The translation “force” is plausible but interpretive. Neither electrical voltage nor a modern theory of atmospheric discharge is conveyed by tonos. No verse quotation here establishes Empedocles' own preferred word for the relation.