40 SCIENCE IN GRECO-ROMAN ANTIQUITY 



424 B.C. He scarcely left Agrigentum, his native 

 town, except towards the end of his life, when he was 

 forced into exile for having ardently supported demo- 

 cratic principles in spite of his wealth and titles of 

 nobility. The most diverse reports of his death have 

 been current ; according to some, he threw himself 

 voluntarily into the crater of Etna, according to others 

 he was hanged. But it is certain that Empedocles 

 played an active part as philosopher, physician and 

 politician, and that he made a profound impression 

 upon his contemporaries. He believed in his own 

 worth. " I am for you/' said he to his listeners, " as 

 an immortal god, no longer a man ; I am honoured by 

 all, as is just ; wreathed with fillets and green coronets, 

 I go into the neighbouring towns receiving the homage 

 of men and women ; they follow me in thousands 

 asking the way of deliverance. ..." (Diels, Vor. 

 I, p. 205). Despite the high opinion which Empedocles 

 had of himself the deeds attributed to him appear to 

 be legendary. It was not he who made healthy the 

 marshes round Agrigentum. Still less did he protect 

 the town against the Etesian winds, and resuscitate a 

 woman supposed to have been dead for thirty days. 

 These beliefs seem to have originated from certain 

 passages in his poem which have been distorted from 

 their original meaning. 1 



As a philosopher, Empedocles appears to have been 

 influenced both by Pythagorism and by Parmenides. 

 He admits with the latter that reality is a plenum, 

 spherical, continuous, eternal and immobile ; but he 

 attempts to explain the birth of motion and sensible 

 phenomena by a method different from that of the 

 arithmetical pluralism professed by the Pythagoreans. 

 The universe is based on four imperishable elements, 

 namely, earth, water, fire, and air, which Empedocles 

 was the first to distinguish clearly from moisture and 



1 8 Burnet, Aurore, p. 235. 



