to eat beans because he said that at the beginning and composition of all things when the earth was still a whole, the bean arose. And he says that the proof of this is that if one chews a bean to a pulp and exposes it to the sun for a certain time (for the sun will affect it quickly), it gives out the odour of human seed. And he says that there is another and clearer proof: if when a bean is in flower we were to take the bean and its flower, and putting it into a pitcher moisten it and then bury it in the earth, and after a few days dig it up again, we should see in the first place that it had the form of a womb, and examining it closely we should find the head of a child growing with it. He perished in a conflagration with his disciples in Kroton in Italy. And it was the custom when one became a disciple for him to burn his property and to leave his money under a seal with Pythagoras, and he remained in silence sometimes three years, sometimes five years, and studied. And immediately on being released from this he mingled with the others and continued a disciple and made his home with them; otherwise he took his money and was sent off. The esoteric class were called Pythagoreans, and the others Pythagoristae. And those of the disciples who escaped the conflagration were Lysis and Archippos and Zalmoxis the slave of Pythagoras, who is said to have taught the Pythagorean philosophy to the Druids among the Celts.' It is said that Pythagoras learned numbers and measures from the Egyptians; astonished at the wisdom of the priests, which was deserving of belief and full of fancies and difficult to buy, he imitated it and himself also taught his disciples to be silent, and obliged the student to remain quietly in rooms underneath the earth. Epiph. Pro. i.; Dox. 587. Pythagoras laid down Cf. 25; Dox. 574. the doctrine of the monad and of foreknowledge and the interdict on sacrificing to the gods then believed on, and he bade men not to partake of beings that had life, and to refrain from wine. And he drew a line between the things from the moon upwards, calling these immortal, and those below, which he called mortal; and he taught the transmigration of souls from bodies into bodies even as far as animals and beasts. And he used to teach his followers to observe silence for a period of five years. Finally he named himself a god. Pythagoras the Epiph. Haer. iii. 8; Dox. 390. Samian, son of Mnesarchos, said that the monad is god, and that nothing has been brought into being apart from this. He was wont to say that wise men ought not to sacrifice animals to the gods, nor yet to eat what had life, or beans, nor to drink wine. And he was wont to say that all things from the moon downward were subject to change, while from the moon upward they were not. And he said that the soul goes at death into other animals. And he bade his disciples to keep silence for a period of five years, and finally he named himself a god. Herm. I.G.P. 16; Dox. 655. Others then from the ancient tribe, Pythagoras and his fellow-tribesmen, revered and taciturn, transmitted other dogmas to me as mysteries, and this is the great and unspeakable ipsedixit: the monad is the first principle of all things. From its forms and from numbers the elements arose. And he declared that the number and form and measure of each of these is somehow as follows:-Fire is composed of twenty-four right-angled triangles, surrounded by four equilaterals. And each equilateral consists of six right-angled triangles, whence they compare it to the pyramid. Air is composed of forty-eight triangles, surrounded by eight equilaterals. And it is compared to the octahedron, which is surrounded by eight equilateral triangles, each of which is separated into six right-angled triangles so as to become forty-eight in all. And water is composed of one hundred and twenty triangles, surrounded by twenty equilaterals, and it is compared to the icosahedron, which is composed of one hundred and twenty equilateral triangles. And aether is composed of twelve equilateral pentagons, and is like a dodecahedron. And earth is composed of forty-eight triangles, and is surrounded by six equilateral pentagons, and it is like a cube. For the cube is surrounded by six tetragons, each of which is separated into eight triangles, so that they become in all forty-eight. 157 X. EMPEDOKLES. EMPEDOKLES, Son of Meton, grandson of an Empedokles who was a victor at Olympia, made his home at Akragas in Sicily. He was born about 494 B.C., and lived to the age of sixty. The only sure date in his life is his visit to Thourioi soon after its foundation (444). Various stories are told of his political activity, which may be genuine traditions; these illustrate a democratic tendency. At the same time he claimed almost the homage due to a god, and many miracles are attributed to him. His writings in some parts are said to imitate Orphic verses, and apparently his religious activity was in line with this sect. His death occurred away from Sicily-probably in the Peloponnesos. Literature:-Sturz, Emped. vita et phil. carm. rell. Lips. 1805; Karsten, Emped. carm. rell. Amst. 1838; Bergk, Kleine Schriften, Berl. 1839; Panzerbieter, Beitr. z. Kritik u. Erkl. d. Emped. Meining. 1844; Stein, Emped. Frag. Bonn 1852; Schneidewin, Philol. xv.; H. Diels; Hermes xv. pp. 161-179; Gorgias und Empedocles, Acad. Berol. 1884; Unger, Philol. Suppl. 1883, pp. 511-550; O. Kern, Archiv f. d. Gesch. d. Philos. i. 498 ff.; Knatz, Empedoclea' in Schedae Phil. H. Usener oblatae, Bonn 1891; A. Platt, Journal of Philology, xxiv. p. 246; Bidez, Archiv, ix. 190; Gomperz, Hermes, xxxi. p. 469. NOTE. I print Stein's numbers at the left of the Greek text, Karsten's numbers at the right. FRAGMENTS OF EMPEDOKLES. ΠΕΡΙ ΦΥΣΕΩΣ ΠΡΩΤΟΣ. Παυσανία, σὺ δὲ κλύθι, δαΐφρονος Αγχίτου υἱέ. 54 στεινωποὶ μὲν γὰρ παλάμαι κατὰ γυῖα κέχυνται· 32 πολλὰ δὲ δειλ ̓ ἔμπαια, τά τ' ἀμβλύνουσι μερίμνας. παῦρον δὲ ζωῆς ἀβίου μέρος ἀθρήσαντες οὕτως οὔτ ̓ ἐπιδερκτὰ τάδ' ἀνδράσιν οὐδ' ἐπα- οὔτε νόῳ περιληπτά. σὺ δ' οὖν, ἐπεὶ ὧδ' ἐλιά σθης, 10 πεύσεαι οὐ πλέον ἠὲ βροτείη μῆτις ὄπωπεν. ἀλλὰ, θεοὶ, τῶν μὲν μανίην ἀποτρέψατε γλώσ σης, ἐκ δ' ὁσίων στομάτων καθαρὴν ὀχετεύσατε καὶ σέ, πολυμνήστη λευκώλενε παρθένε Μοῦσα, ἄντομαι, ὧν θέμις ἐστὶν ἐφημερίοισιν ἀκούειν, 15 πέμπε παρ' εὐσεβίης, ἐλάουσ' εὐήνιον ἅρμα· Sources and Critical Notes. 35 40 45 1. Diog. Laer. viii. 60. 2-10. Sext. Emp. Math. vii. 123-124. 3. Prokl. on Τim. p. 175. 5. Plut. Μor. 360 c. 6. Diog. Laer. ix. 73 ; 8-9a. Plut. Mor. 17 E. 3. MSS. δειλεμπέα, corr. Emperius. Prokl. δειν' ἔπεα. 4. MSS. ζωῆσι βίου, corr. Scaliger. CFR ἀθροίσαντος. 7. MSS. ἐλαυνόμενοι, τὸ δ' ὅλον εὔχεται, corr. Stein. 9. Bergk adds δ' after σύ 10. MSS. πλειόν γε, Karsten πλέον ἠὲ, Stein πλέον : MSS. ὄρωρεν, corr. Panzerbieter. 11-23. Sext. Emp. Math. vii. 125. 16-17. Clem. Al. Strom. p. 682: 18. Prokl. Tim. 106; Plut. Mor. 93 B. 12. MSS. ὀχεύσατε, corr. Steph. 16. MSS. σέ, Stein μέ. 17. Sext. |