DiotimosReading Desk

Perception and senses

Yellow

ὠχρόν (ōchron)

Ōchron is an adjective for a pale, yellowish, or ochre appearance; this edition renders it “yellow.”

From the book

Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II

Empedocles of Acragas · Diotimos Editions · 2026

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Orientation

At a Glance

  • The wordŌchron is an adjective for a pale, yellowish, or ochre appearance; this edition renders it “yellow.”
  • In this workThe word closes Aëtius's list of four colours, alongside white, black, and red.
  • In this edition“Yellow” is the translation used here, not evidence for the boundaries of a modern yellow category.
  • A place to readLists yellow as the fourth colour and matches the number of colours to the elements.

Meaning

Ōchron is an adjective for a pale, yellowish, or ochre appearance; this edition renders it “yellow.” The lexical range should be acknowledged without replacing the edition's chosen English colour term with a modern colour specification.

Use in the book

The word closes Aëtius's list of four colours, alongside white, black, and red. The number four is explicitly matched to the number of elements, but the sentence does not tell us which element corresponds to yellow or whether yellow is simple or compounded. Those absences are part of the evidence.

Its separate place in the lexicon makes the notice retrievable without smoothing it into Theophrastus's more familiar white/fire and black/water pair. The two reports may preserve different levels of classification, but the supplied passages do not settle that possibility. The yellow entry is accordingly a record of a distinct attested term and a warning against completing a seductive four-by-four table which no witness here actually supplies.

Places to read

  1. A 92 (testimony)Aëtius. Lists yellow as the fourth colour and matches the number of colours to the elements.
  2. A 69a (testimony)Theophrastus, On the Senses. Provides only the explicit white/fire and black/water associations for comparison.

Translation in this edition

“Yellow” is the translation used here, not evidence for the boundaries of a modern yellow category. The term's place in a list should not be made into a detailed doctrine of colour production.