Nor had they? any Ares for a god nor Kydoimos, no nor King Zeus nor Kronos nor Poseidon, but Kypris the Queen. . . . Her did they propitiate with holy gifts, with painted figures * and perfumes of cunning fragrancy, with offerings of pure myrrh and sweet-smelling frankincense, casting on the ground libations of brown honey. And the altar did not reek with pure bull’s blood, but this was held in the greatest abomination among men, to eat the goodly limbs after tearing out the life. R. P. 184.
ἘΠῚ have retained ἀλλόγνωτι as nearer the MSS., though a little hard to interpret. On the subsequent history of the Orphic chzton in gnostic imagery see Bernays, 7heophr. Schr. n. 9. It was identified with the coat of skins made by God for Adam.
2 This is the best μετοίκησις (Ael. Wart. an. xii. 7).
3 The dwellers in the Golden Age.
4 The MSS. of Porphyry have γραπτοῖς re ζώοισι, which is accepted by Zeller and Diels. The emendation of Bernays (adopted in R. P.) does not convince me. I venture to suggest μακτοῖς, on the strength of the story related by Favorinus (af. Diog. viii. 53) as to the bloodless sacrifice offered by Empedokles at Olympia.
Empedokles of Akragas 259
And there was among them a man of rare knowledge, most skilled in all manner of wise works, a man who had won the utmost wealth of wisdom; for whensoever he strained with all his mind, he easily saw everything of all the things that are, in ten, yea, twenty lifetimes of men.!
For all things were tame and gentle to man, both beasts
and birds, and friendly feelings were kindled everywhere.
R. P. 184 a.
If ever, as regards the things of a day, immortal Muse, thou didst deign to take thought for my endeavour, then stand by me once more as I pray to thee, O Kalliopeia, as I utter a pure discourse concerning the blessed gods. R. P. 179.
Blessed is the man who has gained the riches of divine
wisdom ; wretched he who has a dim opinion of the gods in
his heart. R. P. 179.
It is not possible for us to set God before our eyes, or to lay hold of him with our hands, which is the broadest way of persuasion that leads into the heart of man,
For he is not furnished with a human head on his body, two branches do not sprout from his shoulders, he has no feet, no swift knees, nor hairy parts; but he is only a sacred and unutterable mind flashing through the whole world with rapid thoughts. R. P. 180.
(135) This is not lawful for some and unlawful for others ; but the law for all extends everywhere, through the wide-ruling air and the infinite light of heaven. R. P. 183.
1 These lines were already referred to Pythagoras by Timaios (Diog. will, 54). As we are told (Diog. 2d.) that some referred the verses to Parmenides, it is clear that no name was given.
260 Early Greek Philosophy
(136) Will ye not cease from this ill-sounding slaughter? See ye not that ye are devouring one another in the thoughtlessness of your hearts? R. P. 184 Ὁ.
And the father lifts up his own son in a changed form and slays him with a prayer. Infatuated fool! And they run up to the sacrificers, begging mercy, while he, deaf to their cries, slaughters them in his halls and gets ready the evil feast. In
5 like manner does the son seize his father, and children their
mother, tear. out their life and eat the kindred flesh.
R. P. 184 b.
(138) ' Draining their life with bronze.
(139) Ah, woe is me that the pitiless day of death did not destroy
me ere ever I wrought evil deeds of devouring with my lips! R. P. 184 b.
(140) Abstain wholly from laurel leaves.
(141)
Wretches, utter wretches, keep your hands from beans !
(142)
Him will the roofed palace of aigis-bearing Zeus never rejoice, nor yet the house of . . . .
(143)
Wash your hands, cutting the water from the five springs
in the unyielding bronze! R. P. 184 ¢.
(144) Fast from wickedness! R. P. 184 ὁ.
+ On frs. 138 and 143 see Vahlen on Arist. Poe¢. 21. 1547 Ὁ 13, and Diels in Hermes, xv. p. 173.
Empedokles of Akragas 261
(145)
Therefore are ye distraught by grievous wickednesses, and
will not unburden your souls of wretched sorrows.
But, at the last, they appear among mortal men as prophets, song-writers, physicians, and princes ; and thence they rise up as gods exalted in honour, sharing the hearth of the other gods and the same table, free from human woes, safe from destiny, and incapable of hurt. R. P. 181.
(148) . . . Earth that envelops the man.
106. At the very outset of his poem, Empedokles is careful to mark the difference between himself and
previous inquirers. He speaks angrily of those who,
though their experience was only partial, professed to
have found the whole (fr. 2); he even calls this
“madness” (fr. 4). No doubt he is thinking of
Parmenides. His own position is not, however,
sceptical. He only deprecates the attempt to construct
a theory of the universe off-hand instead of trying to
understand each thing we come across “in the way in
which it is clear” (fr. 4). And this means that we
must not, like Parmenides, reject the assistance of the
senses. Weak though they are (fr. 2), they are the
only channels through which knowledge can enter our
minds at all. We soon discover, however, that
Empedokles is not very mindful of his own warnings.
He too sets up a system which is to explain everything,
though that system is no longer a monistic one.
It is often said that this system was an attempt to
mediate between Parmenides and Herakleitos. It is
not easy, however, to find any trace of specially
Herakleitean doctrine in it, and it would be truer to
Empedokles
and Par-
menides.
262 Early Greek Philosophy
say that it aimed at mediating between Eleaticism
and the senses. He repeats, almost in the same words,
the Eleatic argument for the sole reality and inde-
structibility of “what zs” (frs. 11-15); and his idea of
the “ Sphere” seems to be derived from the Parmenidean
description of the universe as it truly is.’ Parmenides
had held that the reality which underlies the illusory
world presented to us by the senses was a corporeal,
spherical, continuous, eternal, and immovable plenum,
and it is from this that Empedokles starts. Given the
sphere of Parmenides, he seems to have said, How are
we to get from it to the world we know? How are
we to introduce motion into the immovable plenum?
Now Parmenides need not have denied the pos-
sibility of motion within the Sphere, though he was
bound to deny all motion of the Sphere itself; but
such an admission on his part, had he made it, would
not have served to explain anything. If any part of
the Sphere were to move, the room of the displaced
matter must at once be taken by other matter, for
there is no empty space. This, however, would be of
precisely the same kind as the matter it had displaced ;
for all “that zs” is one. The result of the motion
would be precisely the same as that of rest; it could
account for no change. But, Empedokles must have
asked, is this assumption of perfect homogeneity in
the Sphere really necessary? Evidently not; it is
simply the old unreasoned feeling that existence must
be one. If, instead of this, we were to assume a
number of existent things, it would be quite possible
᾿ to apply all that Parmenides says of reality to each of
them, and the forms of existence we know might be
1 Cf. Emp. frs. 27, 28, with Parm. fr. 8.
Empedokles of Akragas 263
explained by the mingling and separation of those
realities. The conception of “elements” (στουχεῖα), to
use a later term,! was found, and the required formula
follows at once. So far as concerns particular things,
it is true, as our senses tell us, that they come into
being and pass away; but, if we have regard to the
ultimate elements of which they are composed, we
shall say with Parmenides that “what zs” is uncreated
and indestructible (fr. 17). ,
107. The “four roots” of all things (fr. 6) which
Empedokles assumed were those that have become
traditional—Fire, Air, Earth, and Water. It is to be
noticed, however, that he does not call Air ἀήρ, but
αἰθήρ, and this must be because he wished to avoid
any confusion with what had hitherto been meant by
the former word. He had, in fact, made the great
discovery that atmospheric air is a distinct corporeal
substance, and is not to be identified with empty space
on the one hand or rarefied mist on the other. Water
is not liquid air, but something quite different.’ This
truth Empedokles demonstrated by means of the
apparatus known as the &/epsydra, and we still possess
the verses in which he applied his discovery to the
explanation of respiration and the motion of the blood
(fr. 100). Aristotle laughs at those who try to show
there is no empty space by shutting up air in water-
clocks and torturing wineskins. They only prove, he
says, that air is a thing.» That, however; is exactly
1 For the history of the term στοιχεῖον see Diels, Elementum. Eudemos said (af. Simpl. Phys. p. 7, 13) that Plato was the first to use it, and this is confirmed by the way the word is introduced in 74¢. 201 e. The original term was μορφή or ἰδέα. 2 Cf. Chap. I. § 27.
8 Arist. Phys. A, 6, 213 a 22 (R. P. 159). Aristotle only mentions Anaxagoras by name in this passage ; but he speaks in the plural, and we know from fr. 100 that the A/epsydra experiment was used by Empedokles.
The ‘four roots.”
264 Early Greek Philosophy
what Empedokles intended to prove, and it was one
of the most important discoveries in the early history
of science. It will be convenient for us to translate
the αἰθήρ of Empedokles by “air”; but we must be
careful in that case not to render the word ἀήρ in the
same way. Anaxagoras seems to have been the first
to use it of atmospheric air.
Empedokles also called the “four roots” by the
names of certain divinities—“ shining Zeus, life-bringing
Hera, Aidoneus,,and Nestis” (fr.. 6)—though there is
some doubt as to how these names are to be appor-
tioned among the elements. Nestis is said to have
been a Sicilian water-goddess, and the description of
her shows that she stands for Water; but there is a
conflict of opinion as to the other three. This, how-
ever, need not detain us... We are already prepared
to find that Empedokles called the elements gods ; for
all the early thinkers had spoken, in this way of
whatever they regarded as the primary substance.
1 In antiquity the Homeric Allegorists made Hera Earth and ἡγε ρου Air, a view which has found its way into Aetios from Poseidonios. arose as follows. The Homeric Allegorists were not Sitexeatall't in ia science of Empedokles, and did not see that his αἰθήρ was quite a different thing from Homer’s ἀήρ. Now this is the dark element, and night is a form of it, so it would naturally be identified with Aidoneus. Again, Empedokles calls Hera φερέσβιος, and that is an old epithet of Earth in Homer. Another view current in antiquity identified Hera with Air, which is the theory of Plato’s Cratylus, and Aidoneus with Earth. The Homeric Allegorists further identified Zeus with Fire, a view to which they were doubtless led by the use of the word αἰθήρ. Now αἰθήρ certainly means Fire in Anaxagoras, as we shall see, but there is no doubt that in Empedokles it meant Air. It seems likely, then, that Knatz is right (‘‘Empedoclea” in Schedae Philologicae Hermanno Usenero oblatae, 1891, pp. I 544.) in holding that the bright Air of Empedokles was Zeus. This leaves Aidoneus to stand for Fire ; and nothing could have been more natural for a Sicilian poet, with the volcanoes and hot springs of his native island in mind, than this identification. He refers to the fires that burn beneath the Earth himself (fr. 52). If that is so, we shall have to agree with the Homeric Allegorists that Hera is Earth; and there is certainly no improbability in that.
Empedokles of Akragas 265
We must only remember that the word is not used in
its religious sense. Empedokles did not pray or
sacrifice to the elements, and the use of divine names
is in the main an accident of the poetical form in
which he cast his system.
Empedokles regarded the “roots of all things” as
eternal. Nothing can come from nothing or pass
away into nothing (fr. 12); what is zs, and there is no
room for coming into being and passing away (fr. 8).
Further, Aristotle tells us, he taught that they were
unchangeable.! This Empedokles expressed by saying
that “they are what they are” (frs. 17, 34; 21, 13),
and are “always alike.” Again, they are all “equal,”
a statement which seemed strange to Aristotle,’ but
was quite intelligible in the days of Empedokles.
Above all, the elements are ultimate. All other bodies,
as Aristotle puts it, might be divided till you came
to the elements; but Empedokles could give no
further account of these without saying (as he did not)
that there is an element of which Fire and the rest
are in.turn composed.’
The “four roots” are given as an _ exhaustive
enumeration of the elements (fr. 23 sud fin.) ; for they
account for all the qualities presented by the world to
the senses. When we find, as we do, that the school
of medicine which regarded Empedokles as its founder