From the book
Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II
Empedocles of Acragas · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordA translation chain is the succession of languages or textual stages through which a passage reaches the reader.
- In this workThe source’s most striking example is the Latin plant notice attributed to Nicolaus of Damascus at A 702.
- In this editionThe linguistic route is reported by the modern edition.
- A place to readThe Latin report preserves the name Abrucalis and a cluster of plant capacities whose exact earlier wording is not printed.
Meaning
A translation chain is the succession of languages or textual stages through which a passage reaches the reader. Its consequences include altered names, shifted technical terms and the loss of a recoverable original expression. The term here describes a problem of mediation rather than a verdict that the final wording is worthless.
Use in the book
The source’s most striking example is the Latin plant notice attributed to Nicolaus of Damascus at A 702. It names Empedocles as Abrucalis and reports claims about desire, sensation, pleasure, pain and mixed sex in plants. The modern introduction explains the route through Syriac and Arabic before Latin. That history cautions against inventing a Greek lexical equivalent for every Latin term printed here. It also cautions against assuming that a familiar English translation restores the exact wording of a lost Greek original. Comparison with the nearby Greek notices can support a shared topic or doctrine, but it can also expose differences: the volume does not speak with one voice about plant sensation. A 662 offers another mediated comparison through Philo’s account of the sea. These cases show why the language of the immediate witness must remain visible even where the ultimate attribution is Empedoclean.
Places to read
- A 70 (testimony)2Nicolaus of Damascus, On Plants. The Latin report preserves the name Abrucalis and a cluster of plant capacities whose exact earlier wording is not printed.
- A 70 (testimony)2Plutarch, Table Talk. The statement about plants preserved without sensation qualifies the editor’s broad language of agreement.
- A 66 (testimony)2Philo, On Providence, in the supplied Latin version. A mediated description of the sea should be compared with, rather than treated as verbatim identical to, the sweat metaphor.
- Introduction (apparatus)Modern introduction, The chain. Describes the successive linguistic mediation of the plant report.
Translation in this edition
The linguistic route is reported by the modern edition. A Latin word in this dossier is presented as the Latin witness’s wording; it is not silently back-translated into a purported Empedoclean Greek lemma. The A 702 apparatus further warns that the transmitted Arabic name has been applied elsewhere to other thinkers; Abrucalis is not a transparent, universally secure equivalent of Empedocles.