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Empedocles' Cosmic Cycle

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Denis O'Brien
Denis O'Brien
Affiliation:
Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge
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Extract

Hitherto reconstructions of Empedocles' cosmic cycle have usually been offered as part of a larger work, a complete history of Presocratic thought, or a complete study of Empedocles. Consequently there has perhaps been a lack of thoroughness in collecting and sifting evidence that relates exclusively to the main features of the cosmic cycle.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 17 , Issue 1 , May 1967 , pp. 29 - 40
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1967

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References

1 This article summarizes the results of a longer work prepared under the supervision of Professor W. K. C. Guthrie, who has very kindly made one or two corrections to the present essay. I should perhaps remark that this article was completed before the appearance of Hölscher, U., ‘Weltzeiten und Lebenszyklus, eine Nachprüfung der Empedokles-Doxographie’, Hermes xciii (1965), 7–33.Google Scholar Hölscher's denial of any cyclic repetition in Empedocles seems to me very misguided.

2 250b26–25a5 and 252a5–32.

3 250a27–29.

4 252a9.

5 250b29.

6 315a22.

7 300a20 ff.

1 301a14–18.

2 300b25–31.

3 Cf. De gen. et corr. 333b16–20 and b22–33. The point of this passage is that initially Aristotle expects Love to be the cause of natural movement and Strife the cause of unnatural movement. He argues that in fact the reverse turns out to be the case, for his purpose is to indicate a lack of consistency in Empedocles' system.

4 Phys. 1125. 15–22.

5 Simplicius quotes over a hundred and fifty verses or part verses of the physical poem. This would account for from seven to eight per cent, of the whole work, if we accept the figure in the Suda, s.v. , of 2,000 verses for the physical poem.

6 De caelo 528. 29–530. 11.

7 Phys. 330. 31–331. 16.

8 Sample passages are Phys. 31. 18–34. 17, 160. 22–161. 13, 1123. 25–1124. 18, 1186. 30–35; De caelo 140. 25–141. 11, 294. 10–13, 530. 12–16,590. 19–591. 6.

9 De caelo 530. 22–26, cf. Phys. 1121. 17–21.

10 Phys. 261a31–b26.

11 Phys. 229a7–b22.

1 1183. 26–28.

2 1183. 28–1184. 4.

3 Karsten, , Empedoclis Agrigentini … fragmenta, Amsterdam, 1838, p. 367.Google ScholarSolmsen, , Aristotle's system of the physical world, a comparison with his predecessors, Cornell University Press, 1960, p. 223 n. 4.Google Scholar Cf. Wehrli, , Die Schule des Aristoteles, Texte und Kommentar, Heft 8, Basel, 1955, Eudemos von Rhodos fr. 110, and p. 109.Google Scholar

4 Plutarch quotes some hundred verses or part verses.

5 No. 43 corrected by Treu, , Der sogenannte Lampriascatalog der Plutarchschriften, Waldenburg in Schlesien, 1873, ad loc.Google Scholar

6 Ref. 5. 20. 6.

7 926D–927A.

8 As does Cherniss, , Loeb edition of the De facie (1957) ad loc.Google Scholar

9 Fr. 26. 8–12 = fr. 17. 9–13.

10 ‘Die Weltperioden bei Empedokles’, Festschrift Th. Gomperz dargebracht, Wien, 1902, pp. 17–18.Google Scholar The view is derived from Alexander, and Simplicius, , Phys. 1123–5.Google Scholar

11 Bignone, , Empedocle, studio critico, Torino, 1916, p. 562 n. 3, p. 592 n. 1,Google Scholar s.v. fr. 17. 10. Cornford, , Loeb edition of the Physics 1952 ad loc.Google ScholarCherniss, , Aristotle's criticism of Presocratic philosophy, Baltimore, 1935, p. 175 n. 130.Google Scholar Apparently Ross, edition of the Physics, Oxford, 1955,Google ScholarPubMed ad loc. Munding, , ‘Zur Beweisführung des Empedokles’, Hermes lxxxii (1954), 135.Google ScholarSolmsen, , H.S.C.P. lxiii (1958), 277,Google Scholar and op. cit., p. 223Google Scholar n. 4. Kahn, , Anaximander and the origins of Greek cosmology, New York, 1960, p. 23.Google Scholar

1 The reading has better textual support, E K and Simplicius, though it is not adopted by Ross, , F H I J, is probably an attempt to explain a puzzling phrase. The process of expansion can be seen at work in Simplicius, cf. 1125. 5 and 17–18, from whom the fuller reading has possibly arisen. is all that is needed for the interpretation of Aristotle's note suggested below.

2 This latter sense would be like the use of as a pair or separately to describe the contrast between this world and the world of forms or the world beyond the grave, e.g. Plato, , Phaedo 107Google Scholar e, 117 c, Theaet. 176 a, and see L.S.J., s.v.

3 De gen. et corr. 334a5–9.

4 Aristotle's note suggests perhaps that he has taken the first three lines and the last two lines to describe not the same cycle from different points of view, which is Empedocles' intention, but different phases of the cycle. The first three lines could be taken to describe the elements passing into and out of the Sphere, ‘in so far as they grow to be one from many and then many from one’. This involves discontinuity of change from movement to rest and rest to movement, which Aristotle would agree was not . The last two lines, if they describe movement from here, i.e. from increasing Strife, would describe a period of movement with no rest, and this Aristotle would be inclined to agree is being ‘fixed in a cycle’.

5 Frr. 23, 24, 25, 26.

6 Arist. Met. 986a22–26. Porph, . Vit. Pyth. 38.Google Scholar Plut. De Is. et Os. 370D–E.

7 Fr. 8 especially lines 4, 26, 29–30, 36–41.

8 Anaxagoras' mixture, in some sense a unity, was at rest and the effect of movement was to separate out its parts.

9 Cf. Guthrie, , J.H.S. lxxvii (1957), 40–41.Google Scholar Simplicius was probably wrong to think of the atoms as , Phys. 42. 10–11.Google ScholarPubMed

10 57 e, cf. 52 e, 57 c, 58 d–e, 62 b 1. The association of rest and unity may be seen at Phaedrus 245 d 6–ei (preferably reading ), where there may be a reminiscence of the return of Empedocles’ world to the Sphere. Cf. Phaedo 72 b–d.

1 The notion of Love as primarily cause of rest is the more likely if, as we shall argue, Love's time of rest in the Sphere lasts for as long as the world of movement and plurality that in a sense ‘belongs’ to Strife.

2 Frr. 27. 1, 3–4, 31, ap. Simpl. Phys. 1183. 28–1184. 4.

3 Met. 1004b27–2g, cf. Phys. 201b16–21, De caelo 301a11–14, and Simplicius’ comments, Phys. 22. 16–18 and 42. 8–10 on Arist. Phys. 184b15–18.Google ScholarPubMed

4 252a31–32.

5 252a25–32.

6 252a20–21.

7 252a7–10.

1 Met. 1000b12–17.

2 e.g. Burnet, , Early Greek Philosophy, 4th edition, London, 1930, pp.234, 236, 24a.Google ScholarCornford, , From Religion to Philosophy, London, 1912, p. 239.Google Scholar Bignone, pp. 223, 576, 585. Frenkian, , Études de philosophic présocratique, ii, Paris, 1937, pp. 53–55.Google ScholarFreeman, , The Presocratic Philosophers, 2nd edition, Oxford, 1949, p. 186.Google ScholarSkemp, , Plato's Statesman, London, 1952, p. 90.Google ScholarMugler, , ‘Deux thèmes de la cosmologie grecque, devenir cyclique et pluralité des mondes’, Études et Commentaires xvii (1953), 42–43.Google ScholarZafiropulo, , Empédocle d'Agrigente, Paris, 1953, p. 151.Google ScholarRaven, , The Presocratic Philosophers, Cambridge, 1957, p. 346.Google ScholarSantillana, , The Origins of Scientific Thought, London, 1961, pp. 112–13.Google Scholar

1 Cicero, , De nat. deorum i. 103,Google Scholar 2. 84, 2. 116, Tusc, . Disp. 5. 69.Google Scholar Manilius, 1. 170. Macrobius, , in Somnium Scipionis i. 22. 4.Google Scholar

2 This change of mood Wilamowitz finds ‘undenkbar’, Hermes lxv (1930), 248–9,Google Scholar and Groningen ‘impossible’, ‘La composition littéraire archaïque grecque’, Verhandelingen dsr Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen, Afdelung Letterkunde, Nieuwe Reeks lxv. 2 (1958), 216 n. 2.Google Scholar

3 Il. 4. 141 ff.,Google ScholarPubMed 16. 297 ff., 21. 522 ff., quoted by Goodwin, , Moods and Tenses, sect. 547–9. The change of mood between optative and indicative in parallel subordinate clauses, sect. 467 and 534, should be explained in the same way.Google Scholar

4 The aorist subjunctive when followed in this way by a present indicative regularly has the sense of the English perfect, see Goodwin, sect. 90.

5 For the importance of equality in Empedocles and among the Presocratics generally see Vlastos, , ‘Equality and Justice in Early Greek Cosmologies’, Classical Philology xlii (1947), 156–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 Pour l'histoire de la science hellène, 2nd edition by Dies, , Paris, 1930, p. 319.Google Scholar

1 That is the view of among others Tannery, pp. 314–15, and evidently Burnet, pp. 208, 232, 236.

2 The formula for the volume of a sphere is . If, in order to approximate to the condition of the present world, we include water with earth and fire with air, then the ratio of the radius of the inner to the outer sphere is 1: 1.3. The suggestion is not that Empedocles would have wanted, or been able, to work out the mathematics precisely. The result of equal volumes can easily be visualized by someone who is not a mathematician.

3 De gen. et corr. 333a16–34, cf. Meteor. 340a8–18.

4 This is apparently the view of Bignone, s.v. fr. 17, but cf. p. 541 and Studi sul pensiero antico, Naples, 1939, p. 338.Google Scholar

5 Sextus, , Adv. Math. 9. 10,Google Scholar 10. 317, and Hippolytus, , Ref. 10. 7.Google Scholar 5, have or . Simplicius, , Phys. 26. 3Google Scholar and 158. 18, has . Panzerbieter reads and suggests for Sextus, Beiträge zur Kritik und Erklärung des Empedokles, Meiningen, 1844, ad loc.Google Scholar

6 We cannot perhaps entirely exclude the possibility that with the reading Strife is said to be ‘everywhere equal (sc. to all the elements taken together)’, and so too that Love is ‘equal in length and breadth (sc. to all the elements taken together)’.

1 Diels, for Simpl. Phys. 146. 22.Google Scholar

2 Schneidewin, , Philologus vi (1851), 161,Google Scholar for loos Hipp, . Ref. 7. 29. 13.Google Scholar

3 This verse is quoted anonymously by Stob, . Ecl. i. 15.Google Scholar 2 = 1. 144. 20 Wachsmuth, but followed by a verse, fr. 28. 2 = fr. 27. 4, attributed by several authors to Empedocles. add. Maas, Grotius, Diels, Wachsmuth.

4 Timon is describing Xenophanes' god, probably with the thought of it being , cf. [Arist.] De MXG 977bi.

5 This is probably imitated in Ovid's description of the earth, Met. i. 13Google Scholarponderibus librata suis, cf. 34–35 aequalis ah omni parte.

6 This may also be the implication of the juxtaposition of fire and water in line 18: these two contrasting elements are united by the power of Love.

7 Millerd, , On the interpretation of Empedocles., dissertation, Chicago, 1908, p. 46.Google Scholar Millerd's description is apparently taken from Simplicius, Phys. 1124. 7–9,Google Scholar where, however, the temporary advances and withdrawals of Love and Strife take place within a single and eternal sensible realm and are an attempt to explain the ‘mythical’ alternation of Love and Strife within this framework in a way that would mitigate the extreme neoPlatonic view whereby Strife alone is active in the sublunary world.

1 Arist. De caelo 300b25–31. De gen. anim. 722b17–20 and b26. Simpl. De caelo 587. 8–26. Phys. 371. 33–35.

2 Arist. De gen. anim. 722b24–26. Aet. 5. 22. I as corrected by Diels. Cf. fr. 96. 1.

3 Phys. 371. 34.Google Scholar

4 Arist. De anima 430a30. Cf. De gen. anim. 722b20–28. Simpl. Phys. 371. 35, 381. 22–25. De caelo 587. 18–19.

5 Aristotle in the passage quoted from the De anima may be thinking of separate limbs joining to form men and women.

6 Phys. 199b5.

7 The formation of bones, one of the animal parts that arose at the beginning of Love's world, Arist. De caelo 300b29, was described in the first book, Simpl. Phys. 300. 20 quoting fr. 96. Whole-natured creatures were described in the second book, Simpl. Phys. 381. 29 quoting fr. 62.

8 Arist. De gen. anim. 765a8–10. De part. anim. 648a28–31. Frr. 65 and 67. Aet. 5. 7. 1, cf. 5. 26. 4.

9 Simpl. Phys. 381. 29–30.

10 Phys. 382. 20.

11 Arist. De gen. anim. 722b11, cf. Plato, , Symp. 191 d.Google Scholar

12 Rudberg, , ‘Empedokles und Evolution’, Eranos 1 (1952), 23–30, esp. p. 28.Google Scholar

1 Phys. 371. 33–372. 11 on Arist. Phys. 198b10–34.

1 Cf. used of separate limbs in fr. 57 and Simplicius, De caelo 587. 19.

3 Poetarum Philosophomm Fragmenta, ad loc.

4 At greatest length by Ziegler, , ‘Menschen- und Weltenwerden, ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Mikrokosmosidee’, Neue Jahrbücher xxxi (1913), 529–73, who, however, supposes that there is only one zoogonical sequence.Google Scholar

1 193 a. This is explained as one of Plato's jokes by Ziegler, p. 547 cf. p. 557.

2 192 d–e, 193 c–d.

3 Thus Aristophanes alone among the earlier speakers shares with Diotima the attitude to Love as not simply an immediate delight, but a yearning that can find complete fulfilment only beyond the immediate world. Diotima in effect acknowledges the similarity at 205 d 1 c–e, cf. perhaps 212c 4–6.

4 The reason for this would again have been that Love's zoogony was described first. Empedocles regularly speaks of increasing Love before increasing Strife, frr. 17. 1–17, 20. 1–4, 26. 5–12; there is the same order in the passage quoted above from Aristotle's Physics, 250b27–2g. Fr. 21. 7–8 is an exception in putting increasing Strife before increasing Love, probably because there Empedocles is appealing to our experience of the present world. Aristotle, De gen. et corr. 334a5–7, and Theophrastus, De sens. 20, speak of increasing Love as in the past (Aristotle's shows that Theophrastus' does not refer to the future). The priority of Love's zoogony is probably the reason for the tense of , Aristotle Phys. 198b31, describing monsters in Love's world, and , Theophrastus, De caus. pl. 1. 22. 2, describing fish which are fiery creatures and so in Love's world took up their habitat in a cool element, water, cf. 1. 21. 5.