Thales · Anaximander · Anaximenes · Heraclitus · Xenophanes · Parmenides · Zeno · Melissus · Pythagoras · Empedocles · Anaxagoras · Leucippus · Diogenes · Archelaus · Gorgias · Prodicus — The Presocratics

Contents — 14 sections

1. Plato, de Legg. x. 899 B
2. Arist
3. Arist. de Coelo ii. 13; 294 a 28
4. Arist. de Anima i. 2; 405 a 19
5. (Theophrastos, Dox. 475) Simpl
6. Hipp. i.; Dox. 555
7. Plut
8. Aet
9. Aet. ii. 1; Dox. 327
10. Aet. iii. 9-10; 376
11. Aet. iv. 1; 384
12. Aet. v. 26; 438
13. (Philodemos) Cic. de Nat
14. II.

Plato, de Legg. x. 899 B Cite

Plato, de Legg. x. 899 B. And as for all the stars and the moon and the years and the months and all the seasons, can we hold any other opinion about them than this same one—that inasmuch as soul or souls appear to be the cause of all these things, and good souls the cause of every excellence, we are to call them gods, whether they order the whole heavens as living beings in bodies, or whether they accomplish this in some other form and manner? Is there any one who acknowledges this, and yet holds that all things are not full of gods?

Arist Cite

Arist. Met. i. 3; 983 b 6. Most of the early students of philosophy thought that first principles in the form of matter, and only these, are the sources of all things; for that of which all things consist, the antecedent from which they have sprung, and into which they are finally resolved (in so far as being underlies them and is changed with their changes), this they say is the element and first principle of things. 983 b 18. As to the quantity and form of this first principle, there is a difference of opinion; but Thales, the founder of this sort of philosophy, says that it is water (accordingly he declares that the earth rests on water), getting the idea, I suppose, because he saw that the nourishment of all beings is moist, and that warmth itself is generated from moisture and persists in it (for that from which all things spring is the first principle of them); and getting the idea also from the fact that the germs of all beings are of a moist nature, while water is the first principle of the nature of what is moist. And there are some who think that the ancients, and they who lived long before the present generation, and the first students of the gods, had a similar idea in regard to nature; for in their poems Okeanos and Tethys were the parents of generation, and that by which the gods swore was water,—the poets themselves called it Styx; for that which is most ancient is most highly esteemed, and that which is most highly esteemed is an object to swear by. Whether there is any such ancient and early opinion concerning nature would be an obscure question; but Thales is said to have expressed this opinion in regard to the first cause.

Arist. de Coelo ii. 13; 294 a 28 Cite

Arist. de Coelo ii. 13; 294 a 28. Some say that the earth rests on water. We have ascertained that the oldest statement of this character is the one accredited to Thales the Milesian, to the effect that it rests on water, floating like a piece of wood or something else of that sort.

Arist. de Anima i. 2; 405 a 19 Cite

Arist. de Anima i. 2; 405 a 19. And Thales, according to what is related of him, seems to have regarded the soul as something endowed with the power of motion, if indeed he said that the loadstone has a soul because if moves iron. i. 5; 411 a 7. Some say that soul is diffused throughout the whole universe; and it may have been this which led Thales to think that all things are full of gods.

Simpl. in Arist. de Anima 8 r 32, 16.—Thales posits water as the element, but it is the element of bodies, and he thinks that the soul is not a body at all. 31, 21 D.—And in speaking thus of Thales he adds with a degree of reproach that he assigned a soul to the magnetic stone as the power which moves the iron, that he might prove soul to be a moving power in it; but he did not assert that this soul was water, although water had been designated as the element, since he said that water is the element of substances, but he supposed soul to be unsubstantial form. 20 r 73, 22. For Thales, also, I suppose, thought all things to be full of gods, the gods being blended with them; and this is strange.

(Theophrastos, Dox. 475) Simpl Cite

(Theophrastos, Dox. 475) Simpl. Phys. 6 r; 23, 21. Of those who say that the first principle [ἀρχή] is one and movable, to whom Aristotle applies the distinctive name of physicists, some say that it is limited; as, for instance, Thales of Miletos, son of Examyes, and Hippo who seems also to have lost belief in the gods. These say that the first principle is water, and they are led to this result by things that appear to sense; for warmth lives in moisture and dead things wither up and all germs are moist and all nutriment is moist. Now it is natural that things should be nourished by that from which each has come; and water is the first principle of moist nature ...; accordingly they assume that water is the first principle of all things, and they assert that the earth rests on water. Thales is the first to have set on foot the investigation of nature by the Greeks; although so many others preceded him, in Theophrastos’s opinion he so far surpassed them as to cause them to be forgotten. It is said that he left nothing in writing except a book entitled ‘Nautical Astronomy.’

Hipp. i.; Dox. 555 Cite

Hipp. i.; Dox. 555. It is said that Thales of Miletos, one of the seven wise men, was the first to undertake the study of physical philosophy. He said that the beginning (the first principle) and the end of all things is water. All things acquire firmness as this solidifies, and again as it is melted their existence is threatened; to this are due earthquakes and whirlwinds and movements of the stars. And all things are movable and in a fluid state, the character of the compound being determined by the nature of the principle from which it springs. This principle is god, and it has neither beginning nor end. Thales was the first of the Greeks to devote himself to the study and investigation of the stars, and was the originator of this branch of science; on one occasion he was looking up at the heavens, and was just saying he was intent on studying what was overhead, when he fell into a well; whereupon a maidservant named Thratta laughed at him and said: In his zeal for things in the sky he does not see what is at his feet. And he lived in the time of Kroesos.

Plut Cite

Plut. Strom. 1; Dox. 579. He says that Thales was the earliest thinker to regard water as the first principle of all things. For from this all things come, and to it they all return.

Aet Cite

Aet. Plac. i. 2; Dox. 275. Thales of Miletos regards the first principle and the elements as the same thing. But there is a very great difference between them, for elements are composite, but we claim that first principles are neither composite nor the result of processes. So we call earth, water, air, fire, elements; and we call them first principles for the reason that there is nothing antecedent to them from which they are sprung, since this would not be a first principle, but rather that from which it is derived. Now there is something anterior to earth and water from which they are derived, namely the matter that is formless and invisible, and the form which we call entelechy, and privation. So Thales was in error when he called water an element and a first principle. i. 3; 276. Thales the Milesian declared that the first principle of things is water. [This man seems to have been the first philosopher, and the Ionic school derived its name from him; for there were very many successive leaders in philosophy. And Thales was a student of philosophy in Egypt, but he came to Miletos in his old age.] For he says that all things come from water and all are resolved into water. The first basis for this conclusion is the fact that the seed of all animals is their first principle and it is moist; thus it is natural to conclude that all things come from water as their first principle. Secondly, the fact that all plants are nourished by moisture and bear fruit, and unless they get moisture they wither away. Thirdly, the fact that the very fire of the sun and the stars is fed by the exhalations from the waters, and so is the universe itself. 7; 301. Thales said that the mind in the universe is god, and the all is endowed with soul and is full of spirits; and its divine moving power pervades the elementary water. 8; 307. Thales et al. say that spirits are psychical beings; and that heroes are souls separated from bodies, good heroes are good souls, bad heroes are bad souls. 8; 307. The followers of Thales et al. assert that matter is turned about, varying, changing, and in a fluid state, the whole in every part of the whole. 12; 310. Thales and his successors declared that the first cause is immovable. 16; 314. The followers of Thales and Pythagoras hold that bodies can receive impressions and can be divided even to infinity; and so can all figures, lines, surfaces, solids, matter, place, and time. 18; 315. The physicists, followers of Thales, all recognise that the void is really a void. 21; 321. Thales: Necessity is most powerful, for it controls everything.

Aet. ii. 1; Dox. 327 Cite

Aet. ii. 1; Dox. 327. Thales and his successors hold that the universe is one. 12; 340. Thales et al. hold that the sphere of the entire heaven is divided into five circles which they call zones; and of these the first is called the arctic zone, and is always visible, the next is the summer solstice, the next is the equinoctial, the next the winter solstice, and the next the antarctic, which is invisible. And the ecliptic in the three middle ones is called the zodiac and is projected to touch the three middle ones. All these are cut by the meridian at a right angle from the north to the opposite quarter. 13; 341. The stars consist of earth, but are on fire. 20; 349. The sun consists of earth. 24; 353. The eclipses of the sun take place when the moon passes across it in direct line, since the moon is earthy in character; and it seems to the eye to be laid on the disk of the sun. 28; 358. The moon is lighted from the sun. 29; 360. Thales et al. agree with the mathematicians that the monthly phases of the moon show that it travels along with the sun and is lighted by it, and eclipses show that it comes into the shadow of the earth, the earth coming between the two heavenly bodies and blocking the light of the moon.

Aet. iii. 9-10; 376 Cite

Aet. iii. 9-10; 376. The earth is one and spherical in form. 11; 377. It is in the midst of the universe. 15; 379. Thales and Demokritos find in water the cause of earthquakes.

Aet. iv. 1; 384 Cite

Aet. iv. 1; 384. Thales thinks that the Etesian winds blowing against Egypt raise the mass of the Nile, because its outflow is beaten back by the swelling of the sea which lies over against its mouth. 2; 386. Thales was the first to declare that the soul is by nature always moving or self-moving.

Aet. v. 26; 438 Cite

Aet. v. 26; 438. Plants are living animals; this is evident from the fact that they wave their branches and keep them extended, and they yield to attack and relax them freely again, so that weights also draw them down.

(Philodemos) Cic. de Nat Cite

(Philodemos) Cic. de Nat. Deor. i. 10; Dox. 531. For Thales of Miletos, who first studied these matters, said that water is the first principle of things, while god is the mind which formed all things from water. If gods exist without sense and mind, why should god be connected with water, if mind itself can exist without a body?

II. Cite

II.

1. Fragment 1
2. Fragment 2

Fragment 1 Cite

‘Immortal and indestructible,’ ‘surrounds all and directs all.’

Source: Aristotle, Physics iii.4; 203 b 13 ff.

Fragment 2 Cite

‘(To that they return when they are destroyed) of necessity; for he says that they suffer punishment and give satisfaction to one another for injustice.’ (b) PASSAGES RELATING TO ANAXIMANDROS IN ARISTOTLE.

Source: Simplicius, Physics 6 r (24, 19); Diels, Dox. 476

Contents — 20 sections

1. Arist
2. Phys. iii. 4; 203 b 7
3. Phys. iii. 5; 204 b 22
4. Phys. iii. 8; 208 a 8
5. De Coelo iii. 5; 303 b 11
6. Meteor. 2; 355 a 21
7. Metaph. xii. 2; 1069 b 18
8. (Theophrastos, Dox. 477) Simpl
9. Simpl
10. Alex. in Meteor. 91 r (vol. i. 268 Id.), Dox. 494
11. Hipp
12. Plut
13. Herm
14. Aet
15. Aet. ii. 1; Dox. 327
16. Aet. iii. 3; Dox. 367
17. Aet. iv. 3; Dox. 387
18. Aet. v. 19; Dox. 430
19. Cic. de Nat
20. III.

Arist Cite

Arist. Phys. i. 4; 187 a 12. For some who hold that the real, the underlying substance, is a unity, either one of the three [elements] or something else that is denser than fire and more rarefied than air, teach that other things are generated by condensation and rarefaction.... 20. And others believe that existing opposites are separated from the unity, as Anaximandros says, and those also who say that unity and multiplicity exist, as Empedokles and Anaxagoras; for these separate other things from the mixture [μῖγμα].

Phys. iii. 4; 203 b 7 Cite

Phys. iii. 4; 203 b 7. There is no beginning of the infinite, for in that case it would have an end. But it is without beginning and indestructible, as being a sort of first principle; for it is necessary that whatever comes into existence should have an end, and there is a conclusion of all destruction. Wherefore as we say, there is no first principle of this [i.e. the infinite], but it itself seems to be the first principle of all other things and to surround all and to direct all, as they say who think that there are no other causes besides the infinite (such as mind, or friendship), but that it itself is divine; for it is immortal and indestructible, as Anaximandros and most of the physicists say.

Simpl. Phys. 32 r; 150, 20. There is another method, according to which they do not attribute change to matter itself, nor do they suppose that generation takes place by a transformation of the underlying substance, but by separation; for the opposites existing in the substance which is infinite matter are separated, according to Anaximandros, who was the earliest thinker to call the underlying substance the first principle. And the opposites are heat and cold, dry and moist, and the rest.

Phys. iii. 5; 204 b 22 Cite

Phys. iii. 5; 204 b 22. But it is not possible that infinite matter is one and simple; either, as some say, that it is something different from the elements, from which they are generated, or that it is absolutely one. For there are some who make the infinite of this character, but they do not consider it to be air or water, in order that other things may not be blotted out by the infinite; for these are mutually antagonistic to one another, inasmuch as air is cold, water is moist, and fire hot; if one of these were infinite, the rest would be at once blotted out; but now they say that the infinite is something different from these things, namely, that from which they come.

Phys. iii. 8; 208 a 8 Cite

Phys. iii. 8; 208 a 8. In order that generation may actually occur, it is not necessary to prove that the infinite should actually be matter that sense can perceive; for it is possible that destruction of one thing is generation of another, provided the all is limited.

De Coelo iii. 5; 303 b 11 Cite

De Coelo iii. 5; 303 b 11. For some say that there is only one underlying substance; and of these some say that it is water, some that it is air, some that it is fire, and some that it is more rarefied than water and denser than air; and these last say that being infinite it surrounds all the heavens.

Meteor. 2; 355 a 21 Cite

Meteor. 2; 355 a 21. It is natural that this very thing should be unintelligible to those who say that at first when the earth was moist and the universe including the earth was warmed by the sun, then air was formed and the whole heavens were dried, and this produced the winds and made the heavens revolve.

Metaph. xii. 2; 1069 b 18 Cite

Metaph. xii. 2; 1069 b 18. So not only is it very properly admitted that all things are generated from not-being, but also that they all come from being:—potentially from being, actually from not-being; and this is the unity of Anaxagoras (for this is better than to say that all things exist together [ὁμοῦ πάντα]), and it is the mixture [μῖγμα] of Empedokles and Anaximandros.

Plut. Symp. viii. 730 E. Wherefore they (the Syrians) reverence the fish as of the same origin and the same family as man, holding a more reasonable philosophy than that of Anaximandros; for he declares, not that fishes and men were generated at the same time, but that at first men were generated in the form of fishes, and that growing up as sharks do till they were able to help themselves, they then came forth on the dry ground.

(Theophrastos, Dox. 477) Simpl Cite

(Theophrastos, Dox. 477) Simpl. Phys. 6 r; 24, 26. Among those who say that the first principle is one and movable and infinite, is Anaximandros of Miletos, son of Praxiades, pupil and successor of Thales. He said that the first principle and element of all things is infinite, and he was the first to apply this word to the first principle; and he says that it is neither water nor any other one of the things called elements, but the infinite is something of a different nature, from which came all the heavens and the worlds in them; and from what source things arise, to that they return of necessity when they are destroyed; for he says that they suffer punishment and give satisfaction to one another for injustice according to the order of time, putting it in rather poetical language. Evidently when he sees the four elements changing into one another, he does not deem it right to make any one of these the underlying substance, but something else besides them. And he does not think that things come into being by change in the nature of the element, but by the separation of the opposites which the eternal motion causes. On this account Aristotle compares him with Anaxagoras.

Simpl Cite

Simpl. Phys. 6 v; 27, 23; Dox. 478. The translation is given under Anaxagoras, infra.

Alex. in Meteor. 91 r (vol. i. 268 Id.), Dox. 494 Cite

Alex. in Meteor. 91 r (vol. i. 268 Id.), Dox. 494. Some of the physicists say that the sea is what is left of the first moisture; for when the region about the earth was moist, the upper part of the moisture was evaporated by the sun, and from it came the winds and the revolutions of the sun and moon, since these made their revolutions by reason of the vapours and exhalations, and revolved in those regions where they found an abundance of them. What is left of this moisture in the hollow places is the sea; so it diminishes in quantity, being evaporated gradually by the sun, and finally it will be completely dried up. Theophrastos says that Anaximandros and Diogenes were of this opinion.

Hipp Cite

Hipp. Phil. 6; Dox. 559. Anaximandros was a pupil of Thales. He was a Milesian, son of Praxiades. He said that the first principle of things is of the nature of the infinite, and from this the heavens and the worlds in them arise. And this (first principle) is eternal and does not grow old, and it surrounds all the worlds. He says of time that in it generation and being and destruction are determined. He said that the first principle and the element of beings is the infinite, a word which he was the earliest to apply to the first principle. Besides this, motion is eternal, and as a result of it the heavens arise. The earth is a heavenly body, controlled by no other power, and keeping its position because it is the same distance from all things; the form of it is curved, cylindrical like a stone column; it has two faces, one of these is the ground beneath our feet, and the other is opposite to it. The stars are a circle of fire, separated from the fire about the world, and surrounded by air. There are certain breathing-holes like the holes of a flute through which we see the stars; so that when the holes are stopped up, there are eclipses. The moon is sometimes full and sometimes in other phases as these holes are stopped up or open. The circle of the sun is twenty-seven times that of the moon, and the sun is higher than the moon, but the circles of the fixed stars are lower. Animals come into being through vapours raised by the sun. Man, however, came into being from another animal, namely the fish, for at first he was like a fish. Winds are due to a separation of the lightest vapours and the motion of the masses of these vapours; and moisture comes from the vapour raised by the sun from them; and lightning occurs when a wind falls upon clouds and separates them. Anaximandros was born in the third year of the forty-second Olympiad.

Plut Cite

Plut. Strom. 2; Dox. 579. Anaximandros, the companion of Thales, says that the infinite is the sole cause of all generation and destruction, and from it the heavens were separated, and similarly all the worlds, which are infinite in number. And he declared that destruction and, far earlier, generation have taken place since an indefinite time, since all things are involved in a cycle. He says that the earth is a cylinder in form, and that its depth is one-third of its breadth. And he says that at the beginning of this world something [τι Diels] productive of heat and cold from the eternal being was separated therefrom, and a sort of sphere of this flame surrounded the air about the earth, as bark surrounds a tree; then this sphere was broken into parts and defined into distinct circles, and thus arose the sun and the moon and the stars. Farther he says that at the beginning man was generated from all sorts of animals, since all the rest can quickly get food for themselves, but man alone requires careful feeding for a long time; such a being at the beginning could not have preserved his existence. Such is the teaching of Anaximandros.

Herm Cite

Herm. I. G. P. 10; Dox. 653. His compatriot Anaximandros says that the first principle is older than water and is eternal motion; in this all things come into being, and all things perish.

Aet Cite

Aet. Plac. i. 3; Dox. 277. Anaximandros of Miletos, son of Praxiades, says that the first principle of things is the infinite; for from this all things come, and all things perish and return to this. Accordingly, an infinite number of worlds have been generated and have perished again and returned to their source. So he calls it infinite, in order that the generation which takes place may not lessen it. But he fails to say what the infinite is, whether it is air or water or earth or some other thing. He fails to show what matter is, and simply calls it the active cause. For the infinite is nothing else but matter; and matter cannot be energy, unless an active agent is its substance. 7; 302. Anaximandros declared that the infinite heavens are gods.

Aet. ii. 1; Dox. 327 Cite

Aet. ii. 1; Dox. 327. Anaximandros (et al.): Infinite worlds exist in the infinite in every cycle; Dox. 329, and these worlds are equally distant from each other. 4; 331. The world is perishable. 11; 340. Anaximandros: The heavens arise from a mixture of heat and cold. 13; 342. The stars are wheel-shaped masses of air, full of fire, breathing out flames from pores in different parts. 15; 345. Anaximandros et al.: The sun has the highest position of all, the moon is next in order, and beneath it are the fixed stars and the planets. 16; 345. The stars are carried on by the circles and the spheres in which each one moves. 20; 348. The circle of the sun is twenty-eight times as large as the earth, like a chariot wheel, having a hollow centre and this full of fire, shining in every part, and sending out fire through a narrow opening like the air from a flute. 21; 351. The sun is equal in size to the earth, but the circle from which it sends forth its exhalations, and by which it is borne through the heavens, is twenty-seven times as large as the earth. 24; 354. An eclipse takes place when the outlet for the fiery exhalations is closed. 25; 355. The circle of the moon is nineteen times as large as the earth, and like the circle of the sun is full of fire; and eclipses are due to the revolutions of the wheel; for it is like a chariot wheel, hollow inside, and the centre of it is full of fire, but there is only one exit for the fire. 28; 358. The moon shines by its own light. 29; 359. The moon is eclipsed when the hole in the wheel is stopped.

Aet. iii. 3; Dox. 367 Cite

Aet. iii. 3; Dox. 367. Anaximandros said that lightning is due to wind; for when it is surrounded and pressed together by a thick cloud and so driven out by reason of its lightness and rarefaction, then the breaking makes a noise, while the separation makes a rift of brightness in the darkness of the cloud.

Aet. iv. 3; Dox. 387 Cite

Aet. iv. 3; Dox. 387. Anaximandros et al.: The soul is like air in its nature.

Aet. v. 19; Dox. 430 Cite

Aet. v. 19; Dox. 430. Anaximandros said that the first animals were generated in the moisture, and were covered with a prickly skin; and as they grew older, they became drier, and after the skin broke off from them, they lived for a little while.

Cic. de Nat Cite

Cic. de Nat. Deor. i. 10; Dox. 531. It was the opinion of Anaximandros that gods have a beginning, at long intervals rising and setting, and that they are the innumerable worlds. But who of us can think of god except as immortal?

III. Cite

III.

1. Fragment 1

Fragment 1 Cite

Air is the nearest to an immaterial thing; for since we are generated in the flow of air, it is necessary that it should be infinite and abundant, because it is never exhausted. (b) PASSAGES RELATING TO ANAXIMENES IN ARISTOTLE, &c.

Source: Olympiodorus, in Collection des anciens alchimistes grecs I (Paris, 1887), p. 83

Contents — 13 sections

1. Arist
2. Arist. de Coelo ii. 13; 294 b 13
3. Arist
4. Arist
5. Theophrastos; Simpl
6. Hipp
7. Plut
8. Cic. de Nat
9. Aet. i. 3; Dox. 278
10. Aet. ii. 1; 327
11. Aet. iii. 10; 377
12. Aet. iv. 3; 387
13. IV.

Arist Cite

Arist. Meteor. ii. 1; 354 a 28. Most of the earlier students of the heavenly bodies believed that the sun did not go underneath the earth, but rather around the earth and this region, and that it disappeared from view and produced night, because the earth was so high toward the north.

Simpl. de Coelo 273 b 45; Schol. Arist. 514 a 33. He regarded the first principle as unlimited, but not as undefined, for he called it air, thinking that air had a sufficient adaptability to change.

Simpl. Phys. 32 r 149, 32. Of this one writer alone, Theophrastos, in his account of the Physicists, uses the words μάνωσις and πύκνωσις of texture. The rest, of course, spoke of μανότης and πυκνότης.

Simpl. Phys. 257 v. Some say that the universe always existed, not that it has always been the same, but rather that it successively changes its character in certain periods of time; as, for instance, Anaximenes and Herakleitos and Diogenes.

Arist. de Coelo ii. 13; 294 b 13 Cite

Arist. de Coelo ii. 13; 294 b 13. Anaximenes and Anaxagoras and Demokritos say that the breadth of the earth is the reason why it remains where it is.

Arist Cite

Arist. Meteor. ii. 7; 365 (a 17), b 6. Anaximenes says that the earth was wet, and when it dried it broke apart, and that earthquakes are due to the breaking and falling of hills; accordingly earthquakes occur in droughts, and in rainy seasons also; they occur in drought, as has been said, because the earth dries and breaks apart, and it also crumbles when it is wet through with waters.

Arist Cite

Arist. Metaph. i. 3; 984 a 5. Anaximenes regarded air as the first principle.

Plut. Prim. Frig. vii. 3, p. 947. According to Anaximenes, the early philosopher, we should not neglect either cold or heat in being but should regard them as common experiences of matter which are incident to its changes. He says that the compressed and the condensed state of matter is cold, while the rarefied and relaxed (a word he himself uses) state of it is heat. Whence he says it is not strange that men breathe hot and cold out of the mouth; for the breath is cooled as it is compressed and condensed by the lips, but when the mouth is relaxed, it comes out warm by reason of its rarefaction.

Theophrastos; Simpl Cite

Theophrastos; Simpl. Phys. 6 r 24, 26; Dox. 476. Anaximenes of Miletos, son of Eurystratos, a companion of Anaximandros, agrees with him that the essential nature of things is one and infinite, but he regards it as not indeterminate but rather determinate, and calls it air; the air differs in rarity and in density as the nature of things is different; when very attenuated it becomes fire, when more condensed wind, and then cloud, and when still more condensed water and earth and stone, and all other things are composed of these; and he regards motion as eternal, and by this changes are produced.

Hipp Cite

Hipp. Philos. 7; Dox. 560. Anaximenes, himself a Milesian, son of Eurystratos, said that infinite air is the first principle, from which arise the things that have come and are coming into existence, and the things that will be, and gods and divine beings, while other things are produced from these. And the form of air is as follows:—When it is of a very even consistency, it is imperceptible to vision, but it becomes evident as the result of cold or heat or moisture, or when it is moved. It is always in motion; for things would not change as they do unless it were in motion. It has a different appearance when it is made more dense or thinner; when it is expanded into a thinner state it becomes fire, and again winds are condensed air, and air becomes cloud by compression, and water when it is compressed farther, and earth and finally stones as it is more condensed. So that generation is controlled by the opposites, heat and cold. And the broad earth is supported on air; similarly the sun and the moon and all the rest of the stars, being fiery bodies, are supported on the air by their breadth. And stars are made of earth, since exhalations arise from this, and these being attenuated become fire, and of this fire when it is raised to the heaven the stars are constituted. There are also bodies of an earthy nature in the place occupied by the stars, and carried along with them in their motion. He says that the stars do not move under the earth, as others have supposed, but around the earth, just as a cap is moved about the head. And the sun is hidden not by going underneath the earth, but because it is covered by some of the higher parts of the earth, and because of its greater distance from us. The stars do not give forth heat because they are so far away. Winds are produced when the air that has been attenuated is set in motion; and when it comes together and is yet farther condensed, clouds are produced, and so it changes into water. And hail is formed when the water descending from the clouds is frozen; and snow, when these being yet more filled with moisture become frozen; and lightning, when clouds are separated by violence of the winds; for when they are separated, the flash is bright and like fire. And a rainbow is produced when the sun’s rays fall on compressed air; and earthquakes are produced when the earth is changed yet more by heating and cooling. Such are the opinions of Anaximenes. And he flourished about the first year of the fifty-eighth Olympiad.

Plut Cite

Plut. Strom. 3; Dox. 579. Anaximenes says that air is the first principle of all things, and that it is infinite in quantity but is defined by its qualities; and all things are generated by a certain condensation or rarefaction of it. Motion also exists from eternity. And by compression of the air the earth was formed, and it is very broad; accordingly he says that this rests on air; and the sun and the moon and the rest of the stars were formed from earth. He declared that the sun is earth because of its swift motion, and it has the proper amount of heat.

Cic. de Nat Cite

Cic. de Nat. Deor. i. 10; Dox. 531. Afterwards Anaximenes said that air is god, [and that it arose] and that it is boundless and infinite and always in motion; just as though air without any form could be god, when it is very necessary that god should be not only of some form, but of the most beautiful form; or as though everything which comes into being were not thereby subject to death.

Aet. i. 3; Dox. 278 Cite

Aet. i. 3; Dox. 278. Anaximenes of Miletos, son of Eurystratos, declared that air is the first principle of things, for from this all things arise and into this they are all resolved again. As our soul which is air, he says, holds us together, so wind [i.e. breath, πνεῦμα] and air encompass the whole world. He uses these words ‘air’ and ‘wind’ synonymously. He is mistaken in thinking that animals are composed of simple homogeneous air and wind; for it is impossible that one first principle should constitute the substance of things, but an active cause is also necessary; just as silver alone is not enough to become coin, but there is need of an active cause, i.e. a coin-maker; [so there is need of copper and wood and other substances].

Aet. ii. 1; 327 Cite

Aet. ii. 1; 327. Anaximenes et al.: Infinite worlds exist in the infinite in every cycle. 4; 331. The world is perishable. 11; 339. The sky is the revolving vault most distant from the earth. 14; 344. The stars are fixed like nailheads in the crystalline (vault). 19; 347. The stars shine for none of these reasons, but solely by the light of the sun. 22; 352. The sun is broad [like a leaf]. 23; 352. The stars revolve, being pushed by condensed resisting air.

Aet. iii. 10; 377 Cite

Aet. iii. 10; 377. The form of the earth is like a table. 15; 379. The dryness of the air, due to drought, and its wetness, due to rainstorms, are the causes of earthquakes.

Aet. iv. 3; 387 Cite

Aet. iv. 3; 387. Anaximenes et al.: The soul is like air in its nature.

IV. Cite

IV.

Contents — 124 sections

1. Fragment 1 (DK B50)
2. Fragment 2 (DK B1)
3. Fragment 3 (DK B34)
4. Fragment 4
5. Fragment 5 (DK B17)
6. Fragment 6 (DK B127)
7. Fragment 7
8. Fragment 8
9. Fragment 9 (DK B122)
10. Fragment 10 (DK B124)
11. Fragment 11
12. Fragment 12 (DK B92)
13. Fragment 13 (DK B55)
14. Fragment 14
15. Fragment 15
16. Fragment 16 (DK B40)
17. Fragment 17
18. Fragment 18 (DK B108)
19. Fragment 19 (DK B41)
20. Fragment 20
21. Fragment 21 (DK B30)
22. Fragment 22
23. Fragment 23
24. Fragment 24 (DK B65)
25. Fragment 25 (DK B16)
26. Fragment 26 (DK B66)
27. Fragment 27
28. Fragment 28 (DK B64)
29. Fragment 29 (DK B94)
30. Fragment 30 (DK B120)
31. Fragment 31
32. Fragment 32 (DK B6)
33. Fragment 33
34. Fragment 34 (DK B99)
35. Fragment 35
36. Fragment 36 (DK B67)
37. Fragment 37 (DK B7)
38. Fragment 38 (DK B98)
39. Fragment 39 (DK B126)
40. Fragment 40 (DK B91)
41. Fragments 41-42
42. Fragment 43
43. Fragment 44 (DK B53)
44. Fragment 45
45. Fragment 46 (DK B8)
46. Fragment 47 (DK B54)
47. Fragment 48 (DK B47)
48. Fragment 49 (DK B35)
49. Fragment 50 (DK B59)
50. Fragment 51 (DK B9)
51. Fragment 52 (DK B61)
52. Fragments 53-54
53. Fragment 55
54. Fragment 57
55. Fragment 58 (DK B58)
56. Fragment 59 (DK B10)
57. Fragment 60
58. Fragment 61 (DK B102)
59. Fragment 62 (DK B79)
60. Fragment 63
61. Fragment 64
62. Fragment 66
63. Fragment 67 (DK B62)
64. Fragment 68 (DK B36)
65. Fragment 69
66. Fragment 70
67. Fragment 71 (DK B45)
68. Fragment 72
69. Fragment 73 (DK B117)
70. Fragment 74 (DK B119)
71. Fragment 77
72. Fragment 78 (DK B87)
73. Fragment 79
74. Fragment 80
75. Fragment 81 (DK B49)
76. Fragment 82 (DK B84)
77. Fragment 83
78. Fragment 84 (DK B125)
79. Fragment 85 (DK B96)
80. Fragment 86 (DK B12)
81. Fragment 90 (DK B75)
82. Fragment 91
83. Fragment 92
84. Fragment 93
85. Fragment 94 (DK B73)
86. Fragment 95 (DK B89)
87. Fragment 96 (DK B78)
88. Fragment 97
89. Fragment 100 (DK B44)
90. Fragment 101
91. Fragment 102
92. Fragment 103 (DK B43)
93. Fragment 104
94. Fragment 105
95. Fragment 106 (DK B116)
96. Fragment 107 (DK B112)
97. Fragment 108 (DK B95)
98. Fragment 109 (DK B109)
99. Fragment 110 (DK B33)
100. Fragment 111
101. Fragment 112
102. Fragment 113
103. Fragment 114 (DK B121)
104. Fragment 115
105. Fragment 116 (DK B86)
106. Fragment 117
107. Fragment 118
108. Fragment 119 (DK B42)
109. Fragment 120 (DK B5)
110. Fragment 121
111. Fragment 122 (DK B26)
112. Fragment 123 (DK B63)
113. Fragment 124
114. Fragment 125 (DK B14)
115. Fragment 127
116. Fragment 129 (DK B68)
117. Fragment 130
118. Fragment 131
119. Fragment 132
120. Fragment 133
121. Fragment 134
122. Fragment 135 (DK B134)
123. Fragment 136
124. Fragment 137 (DK B135)

Fragment 1 (DK B50) Cite

Not on my authority, but on that of truth, it is wise for you to accept the fact that all things are one.

Hippolytos quotes this with Fragment 45, to show that Herakleitos taught the underlying unity of all things. On the word λόγος (meaning both discourse and the truth the discourse contains), v. Zeller, i. 630, n. 1.

Source: π. διαίτης 1, 19, π. τροφῆς 9. Philo, Leg. all. i. 3, p. 44; Plut. de EI 8, p. 388 C.

Fragment 2 (DK B1) Cite

This truth, though it always exists, men do not understand, as well before they hear it as when they hear it for the first time. For although all things happen in accordance with this truth, men seem unskilled indeed when they make trial of words and matters such as I am setting forth, in my effort to discriminate each thing according to its nature, and to tell what its state is. But other men fail to notice what they do when awake, in the same manner that they forget what they do when asleep.

Hippolytos quotes this passage with reference to a universal all-pervading reason.

Source: Sext. Emp. adv. math. vii. 132; (except last clause) Hipp. Ref. haer. ix. 9. In part: Arist. Rhet. iii. 5, 1407 b 14; Clem. Al. Strom. v. 14, p. 716 (= Euseb. P. E. xiii. 13, p. 680); Amelius in Euseb. P. E. xi. 19, p. 540. (and elsewhere). Cf. Philo, Quis rer. div. haer. 43, p. 505; Joh. Sic. in Walz, Rhett. Gr. vi. p. 95.

Fragment 3 (DK B34) Cite

Those who hear without the power to understand are like deaf men; the proverb holds true of them—‘Present, they are absent.’

Quoted by Clement in illustration of Ev. Luc. xiv. 35.

Source: Clem. Al. Strom. v. 14, p. 718 (Euseb. P. E. xiii. 13, p. 681); Theod. Ther. i. 13, 49: ἀπιέναι MS. Clem.

Fragment 4 Cite

Eyes and ears are bad witnesses for men, since their souls lack understanding.

Sextus Emp. interprets this as meaning ‘rude souls trust the irrational senses.’ Cf. Zeller, i. 716, n. 5.

Source: Sext. Emp. adv. math. viii. 126; Stob. Flor. iv. 56; cf. Diog. Laer. ix. 7.

Fragment 5 (DK B17) Cite

Most men do not understand such things as they are wont to meet with; nor by learning do they come to know them, though they think they do.

Source: Clem. Al. Strom. ii. 2, p. 432; cf. M. Antoninus, iv. 46.

Fragment 6 (DK B127) Cite

They know not how to listen, nor how to speak.

Clement compares this with Eccles. vi. 35.

Source: fol. 90 r) gives first thirteen words (Byw. 130). Cf. Apollonius, Ep. 27. Byw. 126, the last sentence, from Origen, c. Cels. i. 5, p. 6 (quoting Celsus); and in part vii. 62, p. 384, Clem. Al. Prot. 4, p. 44. The whole passage, lacking the last eight words, is published by Neumann, Hermes xv. 1880, p. 605 (cf. also xvi. 159), from fol. 83 a of a MS. entitled Χρησμοὶ θεῶν (containing also works ascribed to Justin Martyr) formerly in the Strassburg library. This same MS. gives the following fragment, the last clauses of which Neumann joins to the passage as given in the text: δαιμόνων ἀγάλμασιν εὔχονται οὐκ ἀκούουσιν, ὥσπερ ἀκούοιεν, οὐκ ἀποδιδοῦσιν, ὥσπερ οὐκ ἀπαιτοῖεν. 130a. Given by Neumann from the Strassburg MS. just referred to. The saying is attributed to Xenophanes by Aristotle, Rhet. 23; 1400 b 5 and Plutarch, v. infra, p. 78.

Fragment 7 Cite

If you do not hope, you will not find that which is not hoped for; since it is difficult to discover and impossible to attain.

Clement compares this with Isaias vii. 9. With Gomperz’s punctuation: ‘Unless you expect the unexpected, you will not find truth; for, &c.’

Source: Clem. Al. Strom. ii. 4, p. 437; Theod. Ther. i. p. 15, 51.

Fragment 8 Cite

Seekers for gold dig much earth, and find little gold.

Source: Clem. Al. Strom. iv. 2, p. 565; Theod. Ther. i. p. 15, 52.

Fragment 9 (DK B122) Cite

Controversy.

Source: Suidas, under ἀμφισβατεῖν and ἀγχιβατεῖν.

Fragment 10 (DK B124) Cite

Nature loves to hide.

‘So we worship the creator of nature, because the knowledge of him is difficult.’

Source: Themist. Or. v. p. 69 (xii. p. 159). Cf. Philo, Qu. in gen. iv. 1 p. 237, de profug. 32, p. 573, de somn. i. 2, p. 621, de spec. legg. 8, p. 344; Julian, Or. vii. p. 216 C.

Fragment 11 Cite

The Lord [whose is the oracle] at Delphi neither speaks nor conceals, but gives a sign.

Source: Plut. de pyth. orac. 21, p. 404 E; Stob. Flor. v. 72, lxxxi. 17; Iambl. de myst. iii. 15. Cf. Lucian, vit. auct. 14.

Fragment 12 (DK B92) Cite

And the Sibyl with raving mouth, uttering words solemn, unadorned, and unsweetened, reaches with her voice a thousand years because of the god in her.

Quoted by Plutarch to show that allurements of sense are out of place in the holy responses of the god. Both this fragment and the preceding seem originally to have referred to the nature of Herakleitos’s teaching; it is obscure, and yet divine.

Source: p. 416 A; M. Antonin. ix. 3.

Fragment 13 (DK B55) Cite

What can be seen, heard, and learned, this I prize.

Hippolytos contrasts this with Fr. 47, and in this connection the translation of Schuster, ‘Am I to prize these (invisible) things above what can be seen, heard, learned?’ seems the more natural.

Source: Hipp. Ref. haer. ix. 9.

Fragment 14 Cite

(For this is characteristic of the present age, when, inasmuch as all lands and seas may be crossed by man, it would no longer be fitting to depend on the witness of poets and mythographers, as our ancestors generally did), ‘bringing forth untrustworthy witnesses to confirm disputed points,’ in the words of Herakleitos.

Source: Polyb. iv. 40.

Fragment 15 Cite

Eyes are more exact witnesses than ears.

Cf. Bernays, Rhein. Mus. ix. 261 sqq.

Source: Polyb. xii. 27; cf. Hdt. i.

Fragment 16 (DK B40) Cite

Much learning does not teach one to have understanding; else it would have taught Hesiod, and Pythagoras, and again Xenophanes, and Hekataios.

Source: Diog. Laer. ix. 1. First part: Aul. Gell. N. A. praef. 12; Clem. Al. Strom. i. 19, p. 373: Athen. xiii. p. 610 B: Julian, Or. vi. p. 187 D; Proklos in Tim. 31 F.

Fragment 17 Cite

Pythagoras, son of Mnesarchos, prosecuted investigations more than any other man, and [selecting these treatises] he made a wisdom of his own—much learning and bad art.

Source: Diog. Laer. viii. 6. Cf. Clem. Al. Strom. i. 21, p. 396.

Fragment 18 (DK B108) Cite

No one of all whose discourses I have heard has arrived at this result: the recognition that wisdom is apart from all other things.

V. Teichmüller, i. 109 ff. on the idea of katharsis in Herakleitos.

Source: p. 392 C (Eus. P. E. xi. 11, p. 528) and de prim. frig. 10, p. 949 A, gives simply πυρὸς θάνατος ἀέρος γένεσις.

Fragment 19 (DK B41) Cite

Wisdom is one thing: [to understand the intelligence by which all things are steered through all things]; it is willing and it is unwilling to be called by the name Zeus.

The first two clauses follow Fr. 16 in Diog. Laer.; the idea in parenthesis often appears in Stoic writers.

Source: Laer. Diog. ix. 1; Plut. de Is. 77, p. 382 C. Cf. Kleanthes, H. Z. 36; Pseudo-Linos, 13, Mul. Byw. 65; Clem. Al. Strom. v. 14, p. 718 (Euseb. P. E. xiii. 13, p. 681); Cf. Bernays, Rhein. Mus. ix. 256. The fragments are combined by Gomperz, l. c.

Fragment 20 Cite

This order, the same for all things, no one of gods or men has made, but it always was, and is, and ever shall be, an ever-living fire, kindling according to fixed measure, and extinguished according to fixed measure.

Zeller, i. 645 n. 1, discusses the various interpretations, and prefers to translate the first phrase ‘This world, the same for all,’ i.e. including gods and men.

Source: Clem. Al. Strom. v. 14, p. 711 (Euseb. P. E. xiii. 13, p. 676). First clause: Plut. de anim. procr. 5, p. 1014 A. Last clause: Sim. in Arist. de coelo, p. 132, Kars.; Olympiod. in Plat. Phaed. p. 201, Finc. Bywater traces the thought through writers of Stoical school.

Fragment 21 (DK B30) Cite

The transformations of fire are, first of all, sea; and of the sea one half is earth, and the other half is lightning flash.

Zeller, i. 647 n. 1, regards πρηστήρ as identical with κεραυνός of Fr. 28. Burnett, Early Greek Philosophy, p. 153 n. 53, suggests fiery stormcloud, Seneca’s igneus turbo.

Source: p. 497; Theodor. Ther. xi. p. 152, 25.

Fragment 22 Cite

All things are exchanged for fire, and fire for all things; as wares are exchanged for gold, and gold for wares.

Source: Plut. de EI 8, p. 388 E; cf. Philo, de incor. mun. 21, p. 508; Diog. Laer. ix. 8; Herakl. alleg. Hom. 43; Euseb. P. E. xiv. 3, p. 720 &c. Probably only the word ἀμείβομαι comes from Herakleitos; cf. the two forms of Fr. 31 in Plutarch.

Fragment 23 Cite

(The earth) is poured out as sea, and measures the same amount as existed before it became earth.

V. Lassalle, ii. 63; Heinze, Logos, p. 25; Schuster, p. 129; Zeller, i. 690 n. 1.

Source: Clem. Al. Strom. v. 14, p. 712 (Euseb. P. E. xiii. 13, p. 676).

Fragment 24 (DK B65) Cite

Want and satiety.

Context: Fire is intelligent and the governing cause of all things. Herakleitos calls it want and satiety. In his opinion want is the process of arrangement, and satiety the process of conflagration.

Source: Philo, Leg. all. iii. 3, p. 88, de vict. 6, p. 242; Hipp. Ref. haer. ix. 10. Cf. Plut. de EI 9, p. 389 C.

Fragment 25 (DK B16) Cite

Fire lives in the death of earth, and air lives in the death of fire; water lives in the death of air, and earth in that of water.

Not accepted by Zeller, i. 676, who regards it as a Stoic version of Fr. 68.

Source: Maxim. Tyr. xli. 4, p. 489. Cf. M. Antoninus, iv. 46. Plut. de EI

Fragment 26 (DK B66) Cite

Fire coming upon all things will test them, and lay hold of them.

Burnett suggests that the reference to a judgment (κρινέει) was inserted by Hippolytos to obtain the Christian idea of a judgment.

Source: Hipp. Ref. haer. ix. 10.

Fragment 27 Cite

How could one escape the notice of that which never sets?

Cf. Schuster, p. 184; Zeller, i. 649 n. 2; Teichmüller, i. 184.

Source: Clem. Al. Paedag. ii. 10, p. 229. τις, τινα Schleierm., τι Gataker.

Fragment 28 (DK B64) Cite

The thunderbolt directs the course of all things.

Cf. Fr. 19.

Source: Hipp. Ref. haer. ix. 10. Cf. Klean. H. Z. 10. Philodem. de piet. p. 70, Gomp.

Fragment 29 (DK B94) Cite

The sun will not overstep his bounds; if he does, the Erinnyes, allies of justice, will find him out.

Source: Plut. de exil. 11, p. 604 A; de Iside 48, p. 370 D. Cf. Hipp. Ref. haer. vi. 26; Iambl. Prot. 21, p. 132.

Fragment 30 (DK B120) Cite

The limit of the evening and the morning is the Bear; and opposite the Bear is the boundary of bright Zeus.

Strabo regards this as a Homeric expression for the fact that the northern circle is the boundary of rising and setting. Zeus aithrios means the clear heavens.

Source: Strabo, i. 6, p. 3. Vulg. adds γὰρ after ἠοῦς.

Fragment 31 Cite

If there were no sun, it would be night.

Source: Plut. Ag. et ign. 7, p. 957 A. Cf. Plut. de fort. 3, p. 98; Clem. Al. Prot. 11, p. 87; Somn. Scip. 1, 20.

Fragment 32 (DK B6) Cite

The sun is new every day.

Source: Arist. Met. ii. 2, p. 355 a 9; Alexander Aph. in Met. l. l. 93 a; Olymp. in Met. l. l.; Prokl. in Tim. p. 334 B. Cf. Plotin. Enn. ii. 1, p. 97; Plato, Polit. vi. p. 498 B (and Schol.); Olymp. in Plat. Phaed. p. 201 Finc.

Fragment 33 Cite

(Herakleitos and Demokritos bear witness that Thales was an astronomer, and predicted eclipses, etc.)

Fragment 34 (DK B99) Cite

The seasons bring all things.

‘Time is not motion of a simple sort, but, so to speak, motion in an order which has measure and limits and periods. The sun, guardian of these, ... appoints and announces the seasons, which, according to Herakleitos, bring all things.’

Source: Plut. Quaes. Plat. viii. 4, p. 1007 E. Cf. Plut. de def. orac.

Fragment 35 Cite

Hesiod is the teacher of most men; they suppose that his knowledge was very extensive, when in fact he did not know night and day, for they are one.

Source: Hipp. Ref. haer. ix. 10. MSS. εὐφροσύνην, corr. Miller.

Fragment 36 (DK B67) Cite

God is day and night, winter and summer, war and peace, satiety and hunger; but he assumes different forms, just as when incense is mingled with incense; every one gives him the name he pleases.

Source: Hipp. Ref. haer. ix. 10 (cf. v. 21).

Fragment 37 (DK B7) Cite

If all things should become smoke, then perception would be by the nostrils.

Arist. ‘Some think that odour is a smoky exhalation, ... and that every one is brought in contact with this in smelling. So Herakleitos says that if all things,’ etc. The reference is originally to the conflagration of the universe [ἐκπύρωσις].

Source: Arist. de sensu 5, p. 443 a 21.

Fragment 38 (DK B98) Cite

Souls smell in Hades.

Plutarch adds the reason: Because they retain a perception of what is fiery.

Source: Plut. de fac. in orbe lun. 28, p. 943 E. Patin, Einheitslehre, p. 23, points out that this so-called fragment is probably due to a misunderstanding of the passage in Aristotle (Fr. 37).

Fragment 39 (DK B126) Cite

Cool things become warm, the warm grows cool; the wet dries, the parched becomes wet.

Source: p. 768.

Fragment 40 (DK B91) Cite

It scatters and brings together; it approaches and departs.

This follows the next fragment, as illustrating change.

Source: Plut. de EI 18, p. 392 B. V. Pseudo-Herakl. Epist. vi.

Fragments 41-42 Cite

You could not step twice in the same rivers; for other and yet other waters are ever flowing on.

Source: Plut. Quaes. nat. 2, p. 912 A. First half: Plato, Krat. 402 A; Arist. Metaph. xiv. 5, p. 1010 a 13; Plut. de sera num. vind. 15, p. 559 C; de EI 18, p. 392 A; Simplic. in Arist. Phys. 17 p. 77, 32; Ibid. f. 308 v.; Arius Didymus in Euseb. P. E. xv. 20, p. 821. [Cf. Sext. Emp. Pyrrh. hyp. iii. 115.] ποταμοῖσι τοῖσι αὐτοῖσι ἐμβαίνουσιν ἕτερα καὶ ἕτερα ὕδατα ἐπιρρεῖ.

Fragment 43 Cite

Herakleitos blamed Homer for saying: Would that strife might perish from among gods and men! For then, said he, all things would pass away.

Aristotle assigns a different reason: For there could be no harmony without sharps and flats, nor living beings without male and female, which are contraries.

Source: Simpl. in Arist. Cat. p. 104 Δ ed. Basil. (Scholl. in Arist. 88 b 28); Schol. Ven. ad Il. xviii. 107, and Eustath. p. 1133, 56. Cf. Arist. Eth. Eud. vii. 1, p. 1235 a 26; Plutarch de Isid. 48, 370 D; Numen. in Chalcid. on Tim. 295.

Fragment 44 (DK B53) Cite

War is father of all and king of all; and some he made gods and some men, some slaves and some free.

Source: Hipp. Ref. haer. ix. 9. First part: Plut. de Iside 48, p. 370 D; Prok on Tim. 54 A (cf. 24. B); Lucian, quomodo hist. consc. 2; Icar. 8.

Fragment 45 Cite

Men do not understand how that which draws apart agrees with itself; harmony lies in the bending back, as for instance of the bow and of the lyre.

V. Bernays, Rhein. Mus. vii. p. 94. Reading παλίντονος from fragment 56, we obtain the meaning ‘opposite tension’ more distinctly.

Source: Hipp. Ref. haer. ix. 9. Cf. Plato, Symp. 187 A, Soph. 242 D; Plut. de anim. procr. 27, p. 1026 B.

Fragment 46 (DK B8) Cite

Opposition unites. From what draws apart results the most beautiful harmony. All things take place by strife.

Quoted by Aristotle as an illustration of the search for a deeper principle, more in accordance with nature.

Source: Arist. Eth. Nic. viii. 2, p. 1155 b 14. Cf. Theophr. Metaph. 15; Arist. Eth. Eud. vii. 1; 1235 a 13. These are rather summary phrases than quotations.

Fragment 47 (DK B54) Cite

Hidden harmony is better than manifest.

Source: Plut. de anim. procr. 27, p. 1026 C; Hipp. Ref. haer. ix. 9-10.

Fragment 48 (DK B47) Cite

Let us not make rash conjectures about the greatest things.

Source: Diog. Laer. ix. 73.

Fragment 49 (DK B35) Cite

Men who desire wisdom must be learners of very many things.

Source: Clem. Al. Strom. v. 14, p. 733.

Fragment 50 (DK B59) Cite

For woolcarders the straight and the crooked path is one and the same.

Source: Hipp. Ref. haer. ix. 10. MSS. γραφέων, corr. Duncker. The MSS. reading may be a participle introducing the quotation, and wrongly included in the excerpt, as Tannery suggests (Science hellèn. pp. 198 ff.).

Fragment 51 (DK B9) Cite

Asses would rather have refuse than gold.

Source: Arist. Eth. Nic. x. 5, p. 1176 a 6. Cf. Albertus M. de veget. vi. 401 (p. 545 Mey.) R. P. 40 B: ‘Boves ... felices ... cum inveniant orobum ad comendum.’ Bywater, Journal Philol. 1880, p. 230.

Fragment 52 (DK B61) Cite

The sea is the purest and the foulest water; it is drinkable and healthful for fishes; but for men it is unfit to drink and hurtful.

Quoted by Hippolytos as an example of Herakleitos’ identification of opposites.

Source: Hipp. Ref. haer. ix. 10. Cf. Sext. Emp. Pyrrh. hyp. i. 55.

Fragments 53-54 Cite

Swine like to wash in the mire; barnyard fowls in the dust.

Source: Columella, de R. R. viii. 4. Cf. Galen, Protrept. 13, p. 5 ed. Bas.; Athen. v. 178 F. Cf. Clem. Al. Protrept. 10, p. 75; Sext. Emp. Pyrrh. hyp. i. 55; Plotin. Enn. i. 6, p. 55.

Fragment 55 Cite

Every beast is tended by blows.

Cf. Zeller, i. p. 724: ‘Every creature feeds on earth.’

Source: Arist. de mundo 6, p. 401 a 8 (Apuleius, de mundo 36; Stob. Ecl. i. 2, p. 86). From Cod. Flor. of Apuleius Goldbacher obtains the following (Zeit. f. d. Oester. Gymn. 1876, p. 496): Ζεὺς ἅπαντα εὐεργετεῖ ὁμῶς ὡς ἄν τινα μέρη σώματος αὑτοῦ.

Fragment 57 Cite

Good and bad are the same.

Source: Arist. Top. viii. 5, p. 159 b 30; Phys. i. 2, p. 185 b 20; Hipp. Ref. haer. ix. 10; Simpl. in Phys. 11 v. 50, 11; 18 v. 82, 23.

Fragment 58 (DK B58) Cite

(Good and bad are one; at any rate, as Herakleitos says) physicians, who cut and burn and in every way torment the sick, complain that they do not receive any adequate recompense from them.

Source: Hipp. Ref. haer. ix. 10. Cf. Xen. Mem. i. 2, 54; Plato, Gorg. 521 E, Polit. 293 B; Simpl. in Epict. 13, p. 83 D, and 27 p. 178 A.

Fragment 59 (DK B10) Cite

Thou shouldst unite things whole and things not whole, that which tends to unite and that which tends to separate, the harmonious and the discordant; from all things arises the one, and from the one all things.

Source: Arist. de mundo 5, p. 396 b 12 (Apuleius, de mundo 20; Stob. Ecl. i. 34, p. 690).

Fragment 60 Cite

They would not have known the name of justice, were it not for these things.

According to the context in Clement ‘these things’ refers to injustice.

Source: Clem. Al. Strom. iv. 3, p. 568. Cf. Pseudo-Herakl. Epist. vii.

Fragment 61 (DK B102) Cite

(God, ordering things as they ought to be, perfects all things in the harmony of the whole, as Herakleitos says that) for god all things are fair and good and just, but men suppose that some are unjust and others just.

Cf. Hippocr. de Diaeta (Bernays, Herakl. 22; RP 37 c) Accordingly the arrangements (laws) which men have made are never constant, either when they are right, or when they are not right; but the arrangements the gods have made are always right, both those which are right and those which are not right; so great is the difference between them.

Source: Schol. B in Il. iv. 4, p. 120 Bk. Cf. Hippokr. de diaeta i. 11 RP. 37 C; Bernays, Herakl. 22. Probably a Stoic deduction from Herakleitos, and therefore to be omitted here.

Fragment 62 (DK B79) Cite

Men should know that war is general and that justice is strife; all things arise and [pass away] through strife.

Source: Orig. cont. Cels. vi. 42, p. 312. Cf. Plut. de soll. anim. 7, p. 964; Laer. Diog. ix. 8.

Fragment 63 Cite

For they are absolutely destined....

Source: Stob. Ecl. i. 6, p. 178. Vulg. εἱμαρμένη, A εἱμαρμένα.

Fragment 64 Cite

All the things we see when awake are death, and all the things we see when asleep are sleep.

For various interpretations, v. Teichmüller, i. 97 sq.; Zeller, i. 715; Patin, Einheitslehre, 19.

Source: Clem. Al. Strom. iii. 3, p. 520. Cf. Strom. v. 14, p. 712; Philo, de Joseph. 22, p. 59.

Fragment 66 Cite

The name of the bow is life, but its work is death.

A similar play on words is found in Fr. 101.

Source: Schol. in Il. i. 49; Cramer, A. P. iii. p. 122; Etym. Mag. under βίος; Tzetz. Ex. in Il. p. 101; Eust. in Il. i. 49, p. 41. Cf. Hippokr. de diaeta 21 οὔνομα τρόφη, ἔργον δὲ οὐχί.

Fragment 67 (DK B62) Cite

Gods are mortals, men are immortals, each living in the others’ death and dying in the others’ life.

Cf. Sext. Emp. Pyrrh. iii. 230, R. P. 38.

Source: Hipp. Ref. haer. ix. 10; Herakl. Alleg. Hom. 24, p. 51; Maxim. Tyr. x. 4, p. 107, xli. 4, p. 489; Lucian, Vit. auct. 14; Porph. de ant. nymph. 10; Clem. Al. Paed. iii. 1, p. 251; Philo, Leg. alleg. i. 33, p. 65, and Qu. in Gen. iv. 152, p. 360. Human and divine nature identical: Dio Cass. Frr. i.-xxxv. Ch. 30, i. 40 Dind.; Stob. Ecl. i.

Fragment 68 (DK B36) Cite

For to souls it is death to become water, and for water it is death to become earth; but water is formed from earth, and from water, soul.

Clement quotes this as borrowed from Orpheus; and Hippolytos also found it in the poets.

Source: Philo, de incorr. mundi 21, p. 509; Aristides Quint. ii. p. 106 Meib.; Clem. Al. Strom. vi. 2, p. 746; Hipp. Ref. haer. v. 16; Julian, Or. v. p. 165 D; Prokl. in Tim. p. 36 C; Olympiod. in Plat. Gorg. p. 357 Jahn; idem, p. 542.

Fragment 69 Cite

Upward, downward, the way is one and the same.

Source: Hipp. Ref. haer. ix. 10. Cf. Plato, Phileb. 43 A; Kleomed. π. μετεώρων i. p. 75 Bak.; Maximus Tyr. xli. 4, p. 489; Tertull. adv. Marc. ii. 28; Diog. Laer. ix. 8; Plotin. Enn. iv. 8, p. 468; Iambl. Stob. Ecl. i. 41; Hippokr. π. τροφῆς 45; Philo, de incorr. mun. 21, p. 508; and de somn. i. 24, p. 644; and de vit. Moys. i. 6, p. 85; Muson. Stob. Flor. cviii. 60; M. Antonin. vi. 17.

Fragment 70 Cite

Beginning and end are common (to both ways).

Source: Porphyr. Schol. B. Il. xiv. 200, p. 392 Bek. Cf. Hippokr. π. τόπων

Fragment 71 (DK B45) Cite

The limits of the soul you could not discover, though traversing every path.

Source: Diog. Laer. ix. 7; Tertull. de anima 2. Cf. Hipp. Ref. haer. v. 7.

Fragment 72 Cite

It is a delight to souls to become wet.

Source: Numen. Porphyr. de antro nymph. 10.

Fragment 73 (DK B117) Cite

Whenever a man gets drunk, he is led about by a beardless boy, stumbling, not knowing whither he goes, for his soul is wet.

Source: Stob. Flor. v. 120. Cf. M. Antonin. iv. 46.

Fragment 74 (DK B119) Cite

The dry soul is wisest and best.

Byw. 75. A dry beam is the wisest and best soul; Fr. 76. Where the earth is dry, the soul is wisest and best. If Fr. 74 is the genuine form, the corruptions are very early. We cannot, however, regard all three forms as genuine, and it is at least doubtful whether Fr. 75 expresses a Herakleitean idea. Zeller and others add to Fr. 74 the rest of the phrase in Plutarch, ‘flashing through the body as lightning through the cloud.’

Source: Plutarch, Rom. 28; Aristid. Quint. ii. p. 106; Porphyr. de antro nymph. 11; Synesius, de insomn. p. 140 A Petav.; Stob. Flor. v. 120; Glykas, Ann. i. p. 74 B; Eustath. Il. xxiii. 261, p. 1299, 17.

Fragment 77 Cite

Man, like a light in the night, is kindled and put out.

Source: Clem. Al. Strom. iv. 22, p. 628.

Fragment 78 (DK B87) Cite

Life and death, and waking and sleeping, and youth and old age, are the same; for the latter change and are the former, and the former change back to the latter.

Source: Plut. Consol. ad Apoll. 10, p. 106 E; and de EI 18, p. 392 D. (Bernays, Rhein. Mus. vii. p. 100, thinks that more of the contents of these passages is drawn from Herakleitean sources.) Clem. Al. Strom. iv. 22, p. 628; Sext. Emp. Pyrrh. iii. 230; Tzetz. Chil. ii. 722.

Fragment 79 Cite

Lifetime is a child playing draughts; the kingdom is a child’s.

Clement understood αἰών to be Zeus; Hippolytos made it equivalent to αἰώνιος, the eternal (king).

Source: Hipp. Ref. haer. ix. 9. Cf. Clem. Al. Paed. i. 5, p. 111; Iambl. Stob. Ecl. ii. 1, p. 12; Prokl. in Tim. 101 F; Plato, Legg. i. 644 D, x. 903 D; Philo, de vit. Moys. i. 6, p. 85; Plut. de EI 21, p. 393 E; Lucian, vit. auct. 14.

Fragment 80 Cite

I inquired of myself.

The translation follows the sense in Diogenes; in Plutarch it is parallel with the Delphic oracle, ‘I have sought to know myself.’

Source: Plut. adv. Colot. 20, p. 1118 C; Dio Chrys. Or. 55, p. 282; Tatian, Or. ad Graec.; Diog. Laer. ix. 5; Plotin. Enn. iv. 8, p. 468; Julian, Or. vi. p. 185 A; Prokl. on Tim. 106 E; Suidas s. v. ποστοῦμος. Cf. Clem. Al. Strom. ii. 1, p. 429; Plotin. Enn. v. 9, p. 559; Hesychius ἐδίζησα.

Fragment 81 (DK B49) Cite

In the same rivers we step and we do not step; we are and we are not.

Cf. Fr. 41.

Source: Herakl. Alleg. Hom. 24; Seneca, Epist. 58. Cf. Epicharm. Fr. B 40 Lorenz.

Fragment 82 (DK B84) Cite

It is weariness to toil at the same things, and to be subject to them.

Source: These passages do not yield any definite fragment of Herakleitos.

Fragment 83 Cite

Changing it finds rest.

Source: Plotin. Enn. iv. 8, p. 468 and p. 473; Iambl. Stob. Ecl. i. 41, p. 906 and p. 894; Aeneas G. Theophrast. p. 9 and p. 11.

Fragment 84 (DK B125) Cite

Even a potion separates into its ingredients when it is not stirred.

Source: Theophrast. π. ἰλίγγων 9, p. 138 Wim.; Alexand. Aphr. Probl. p. 11 Usen. Cf. M. Antonin. iv. 27.

Fragment 85 (DK B96) Cite

Corpses are more fit to be thrown away than dung.

Source: Strabo, xvi. 26, p. 784; Plutarch, Qu. conv. iv. 4, p. 669 A; Pollux, Onom. v. 163; Origen, c. Cels. v. 14, p. 247 (quoting Celsus, v. 24, p. 253); Julian, Or. vii. p. 226 C. Cf. Philo, de profug. ii. p. 555; Plotin. Enn. v. 1, p. 483; Schol. V. ad Il. xxiv. 54 (= Eustath. ad Il. p. 1338, 47); Epictet. Diss. ii. 4, 5.

Fragment 86 (DK B12) Cite

Being born they wish to live and to meet death, [or rather to find rest,] and they leave behind children to die.

87. Thirty years make a generation, according to Herakleitos. 88. Not without reason does Herakleitos call a month a generation. 89. A man may become a grandfather in thirty years.

Source: Clem. Al. Strom. iii. 3, p. 516. Mullach assigns the bracketed words to Clement.

Fragment 90 (DK B75) Cite

The sleeping are workmen (and fellow-workers) in what happens in the world.

Source: M. Antonin. vi. 42. Pfleiderer rejects καὶ συνεργοὺς.

Fragment 91 Cite

Understanding is common to all. It is necessary for those who speak with intelligence to hold fast to the common element of all, as a city holds fast to law, and much more strongly. For all human laws are nourished by one which is divine, and it has power so much as it will; and it suffices for all things and more than suffices.

Source: Stob. Flor. iii. 84. Cf. Kleanth. H. Zeus 24; Hippokr. π. τροφῆς 15; Plut. de Isid. 45, p. 369 A; Plotin. Enn. vi. 5, p. 668; Empedokles, v. 231 Stn.

Fragment 92 Cite

And though reason is common, most people live as though they had an understanding peculiar to themselves.

Source: Sext. Emp. Math. vii. 133, where the quotation is apparently longer. Burnett, 140, n. 35, acutely suggests φρονέειν for λόγου.

Fragment 93 Cite

With what they most constantly associate, with this they are at variance.

Source: M. Antonin. iv. 46.

Fragment 94 (DK B73) Cite

It is not meet to act and speak like men asleep.

Cf. Fr. 2 and 90.

Source: M. Antonin. iv. 46.

Fragment 95 (DK B89) Cite

They that are awake have one world in common, but of the sleeping each turns aside into a world of his own.

Source: Plut. de superst. 3, p. 166 C. Cf. Hippolyt. Ref. haer. vi. 26; Iambl. Protrept. 21, p. 132 Arcer. The form is Plutarch’s.

Fragment 96 (DK B78) Cite

For human nature has not wisdom, but divine nature has.

Source: Origen, c. Cels. vi. 12, p. 291.

Fragment 97 Cite

Man is called a baby by god, even as a child is by man.

The translation is Burnett’s, following the suggestion of Petersen in Hermes xiv. 1879, p. 304. Fr. 98. And does not Herakleitos, whom you bring forward, say this very thing, that the wisest of men will appear as an ape before God, both in wisdom and in beauty and in all other respects? Fr. 99. You are ignorant, sir, of that fine saying of Herakleitos, that the most beautiful of apes is ugly in comparison with beings of another kind, and the most beautiful of earthen pots is ugly in comparison with maidenkind, as Hippias the wise man says.

Source: Origen, c. Cels. vi. 12, p. 291. Cf. M. Antonin. iv. 46 Bern.

Fragment 100 (DK B44) Cite

The people ought to fight for their law as for a wall.

Source: Diog. Laer. ix. 2.

Fragment 101 Cite

Greater deaths gain greater portions.

Source: Clem. Al. Strom. iv. 7, p. 586; Theodor. Ther. viii. p. 117, 33. Cf. Hipp. Ref. haer. 8. Theodor. reads μόνοι.

Fragment 102 Cite

Gods and men honour those slain in battle.

Source: Clem. Al. Strom. iv. 4, p. 571; Theodor. Ther. viii. p. 117, 33.

Fragment 103 (DK B43) Cite

Wantonness must be quenched more than a conflagration.

Source: Diog. Laer. ix. 2. M Cobet σβεννύναι, L σβεννύην.

Fragment 104 Cite

It is not good for men to have whatever they want. Disease makes health sweet and good; hunger, satiety; toil, rest.

Source: Stob. Flor. iii. 83, 4. Cf. εὐαρέστησις, Clem. Al. Strom. ii.

Fragment 105 Cite

It is hard to contend with passion; for whatever it desires to get it buys at the cost of soul.

106. It is the part of all men to know themselves and to be temperate. 107. To be temperate is the greatest virtue; and it is wisdom to speak the truth and to act according to nature with understanding.

Source: Arist. Eth. Nic. ii. 2, p. 1105 a 8; and Eth. Eud. ii. 7, p. 1223 b 22; and Pol. v. 11, p. 1315 a 29; Plut. de cohib. ira 9, p. 457 D; and Erot. 11, p. 755 D; Iambl. Protrep. p. 140 Arc.; and Coriol. 22.

Fragment 106 (DK B116) Cite

Stob. Flor. v. 119. Neither this nor the following fragment can be regarded as genuine.

Fragment 107 (DK B112) Cite

Stob. Flor. iii. 84.

Fragment 108 (DK B95) Cite

It is better to conceal stupidity, but it is an effort in time of relaxation and over the wine.

Source: Plut. qu. conv. iii. proœm. p. 644 F; and de audien. 12, p. 43 D; and virt. doc. posse 2, p. 439 D; Stob. Flor. xviii. 32.

Fragment 109 (DK B109) Cite

It is better to conceal ignorance than to put it forth into the midst.

Source: Stob. Flor. iii. 82 κρύπτειν ἀμαθίην κρέσσον ἢ ἐς τὸ μέσον φέρειν. A variation of 108.

Fragment 110 (DK B33) Cite

It is law to obey the counsel of one.

Source: Clem. Al. Strom. v. 14, p. 718 (Euseb. P. E. xiii. 13, p. 681).

Fragment 111 Cite

For what sense or understanding have they? They follow the bards and employ the crowd as their teacher, not knowing that many are bad and few good. For the very best choose one thing before all others, immortal glory among mortals, while the masses eat their fill like cattle.

Source: Clem. Al. Strom. v. 9, p. 682; and iv. 7, p. 586; Prokl. on Alkib. p. 255 Creuz, ii. 525 Cous. Clement omits first clause; Proklos ends with ἀγαθοί.

Fragment 112 Cite

In Priene was born Bias son of Teutamas, who is of more account than the rest.

Diogenes adds the apothegm ‘most men are bad.’

Source: Diog. Laer. i. 88.

Fragment 113 Cite

To me one man is ten thousand if he be the best.

Source: Galen, π. διαγνώσεως σφυγμῶν I. I. iii. p. 53 ed. Bas.; Symmachus, Epist. ix. 115 (105 Paris 1604); Theod. Prod. in Lazerii Misc. i. p. 20; and Tetrastich. in Basil. i. (fol. κ 2 vers. ed. Bas.); Diog. Laer. ix. 16; Cicero, ad Att. xvi. 11; Cf. Seneca, Ep. 7.

Fragment 114 (DK B121) Cite

The Ephesians deserve to be hanged, every one that is a man grown, and the youth to abandon the city, for they cast out Hermodoros the best man among them, saying:—Let no one among us be best, and if one be best, let him be so elsewhere and among others.

Source: Strabo, xiv. 25, p. 642; Cicero, Tusc. v. 105; Muson., Stob. Flor. xl. 9; Laer. Diog. ix. 2; Iambl. de vita Pyth. 30, p. 154 Arc. Cf. Lucian vit. auct. 14.

Fragment 115 Cite

Dogs also bark at those they do not know.

Source: Plut. An seni sit ger. resp. vii. p. 787.

Fragment 116 (DK B86) Cite

As the result of incredulity (divine things) miss being known.

Either because men are incredulous, or the things incredible. Cf. Zeller, Phil. Gr. i.⁴ 574 A 2. Gomperz combined this with fragment 10.

Source: Plut. Coriol. 38; Clem. Al. Strom. v. 13, p. 699. Clem. ἀπιστίη.

Fragment 117 Cite

The fool is wont to be in a flutter at every word.

Source: Plutarch, de audiendo 7, p. 41 A; de aud. poet., p. 28 D.

Fragment 118 Cite

The most esteemed of those in estimation knows how to be on his guard; yet truly justice shall overtake forgers of lies and witnesses to them.

If the reference is to Homer, read πλάσσειν, ‘knows how to create myths.’

Source: Clem. Al. Strom. v. 1, p. 649. Bergk φλυάσσειν, Bernays Bywater πλάσσειν.

Fragment 119 (DK B42) Cite

(He used to say that) Homer deserved to be cast out of the lists and flogged, and Archilochos likewise.

Source: Diog. Laer. ix. 1. Schleiermacher attributes to H. on the basis of Schol. Ven. A. on Iliad xviii. 251 Eustath. 1142, 5; Bywater suggests Herakleides and compares Eust. p. 705, 60, and Achilles Tat. Isag. p. 124 B Petav.

Fragment 120 (DK B5) Cite

One day is equal to every other.

Fragment 121 Cite

Character is a man’s guardian divinity.

Source: Plutarch, Qu. Plat. i. 2, 999 E; Alex. Aphrod. de fato 6, p. 16 (de anima ii. 48, p. 150); Stob. Flor. civ. 23. Cf. Pseudo-Herakl. Ep. 9.

Fragment 122 (DK B26) Cite

There awaits men at death what they do not expect or think.

Source: Clem. Al. Strom. iv. 22, p. 630; Protrept. 2, p. 18 (Euseb. P. E. ii. 3, p. 66); Theodoret. Ther. viii. p. 118, 1. Cf. Themist. (Plut.) in Stob. Flor. cxx. 28.

Fragment 123 (DK B63) Cite

Then [it is necessary] that God raise them up, and that they become guardians of the living and the dead.

Or adopting Sauppe’s conjectures in full ‘that he become a watchful guardian....’

Source: Hippolyt. Ref. haer. ix. 10; the fragment is quoted to show that Herakleitos believes in the resurrection of the flesh, and recognises that god is the cause of this resurrection. Cf. Clem. Al. Strom. v. 1, p. 649.

Fragment 124 Cite

Night-walkers, wizards, bacchanals, revellers, sharers in the mysteries.

Source: Clem. Al. Protrept. 2, p. 18 (Euseb. P. E. ii. 3, p. 66).

Fragment 125 (DK B14) Cite

For what are esteemed mysteries among men they celebrate in an unholy way.

Source: Clem. Al. Protrept. 2. p. 19 (Euseb. P. E. ii. p. 67). Bywater compares Arnobius adv. nat. v. 29.

Fragment 127 Cite

For if it were not to Dionysos that they made the procession and sang the song with phallic symbols, their deeds would indeed be most shameful; but Hades and Dionysos are the same, to whomever they go mad and share the revel.

128. I distinguish two kinds of sacrifices; those of men altogether purified, which would occur rarely, as Herakleitos says, in the case of a single individual, or of some very few men easily counted; secondly, those that are material and corporeal and composite through change, such as are in harmony with those who are still restrained by the body.

Source: Clem. Al. Protrept. 2, p. 30. MSS. ἐποιοῦντο, corr. Lobeck: MSS. εἴργασται, corr. Schleierm. Clem. Al. ὅτεῳ, Plutarch, de Isid. 28, p. 362 A ὅτε οὖν ... ληραίνουσιν.

Fragment 129 (DK B68) Cite

(Herakleitos fittingly called religious rites) cures (for the soul).

Source: Iamblich. de Myst. i. 11.

Fragment 130 Cite

They purify themselves by defiling themselves with blood, as if one who had stepped into the mud were to wash it off with mud. If any one of men should observe him doing so, he would think he was insane. And to these images they pray, just as if one were to converse with men’s houses, for they know not what gods and heroes are. 130a. If they are gods, why do ye lament them? And if ye lament them, no longer consider them gods.

The fragment in the critical notes reads: ‘To images of gods they pray, to those who do not hear, as though they might hear; to those who do not answer, as though they might not make request.’

Source: Greg. Naz. Or. xxv. (xxiii.) 15, p. 466, ed. Par. 1778 πηλῷ πηλὸν καθαιρόντων. Elias Cretensis on the Gregory passage (cod. Vat. Pii II.

Fragment 131 Cite

All things are full of souls and of divine spirits.

Source: Diog. Laer. ix. 7.

Fragment 132 Cite

He was wont to say that false opinion is a sacred disease, and that vision is deceitful.

Source: Diog. Laer. ix. 7. Cf. Floril. Monac. 195, p. 282.

Fragment 133 Cite

Each one who has come to be esteemed without due grounds, ought to hide his face.

Source: Apollonius, Ep. 18.

Fragment 134 Cite

False opinion of progress is the stoppage of progress.

Source: Floril. Monac. 199, p. 283. Cf. Philo, ap. Ioan. Dam. S. P. 693 E, fr. p. 652 Mang. Stob. Flor. iv. 88 credits it to Bion; Maxim. Conf. Serm. 34, p. 624 Combef.

Fragment 135 (DK B134) Cite

Their education is a second sun to those that have been educated.

Source: Floril. Monac. 200, p. 283.

Fragment 136 Cite

As food is timely in famine, so opportune favour heals the need of the soul.

Source: Maximus Conf. Serm. 8, p. 557.

Fragment 137 (DK B135) Cite

The same one was wont to say that the shortest way to glory was to become good. PASSAGES IN PLATO AND ARISTOTLE REFERRING TO HERAKLEITOS. Plato, Theaet. 160 D. Homer, and Herakleitos, and the whole company which say that all things are in motion and in a state of flux. Cf. 152 D H. Kratylos, 401 D. According to Herakleitos all things are in motion and nothing abides. Cf. 402 A, and frag. 41; also 412 D, 440 C. Plato also alludes to fragments 32, 45, 98-99. Aristotle: Topica i. 11, 104 f 21. All things are in motion, according to Herakleitos. Top. viii. 5; 155 f 30. Wherefore those that hold different opinions, as that good and bad are the same thing, as Herakleitos says, do not grant that the opposite cannot coexist with itself; not as though they did not think this to be the case, but because as followers of Herakleitos they are obliged to speak as they do. Phys. i. 2; 185 b 19. But still, if in the argument all things that exist are one, as a cloak or a himation, it turns out that they are stating the position of Herakleitos; for the same thing will apply to good and bad, and to good and not-good, so that good and not-good, and man and horse, will be the same; and they will not be arguing that all things are one, but that they are nothing, and that the same thing applies to such and to so much. Phys. iii. 5; 205 a 3. As Herakleitos says that all things sometime become fire. De coelo i. 10; 279 b 16. And others in their turn say that sometimes combination is taking place, and at other times destruction, and that this will always continue, as Empedokles of Agrigentum, and Herakleitos of Ephesos. De anima i. 2; 405 a 25. And Herakleitos also says that the first principle is soul, as it were a fiery exhalation, of which all other things consist; for it is the least corporeal and always in a state of flux, and the moving is known by the moving; and he agreed with most thinkers in holding that things are in motion. De part anim. i. 5; 645 a 17. And as Herakleitos is reported to have said to strangers who wanted to meet him, who stopped when they entered and saw him getting warm by an oven—for he bade them enter boldly, since, said he, gods are here—so should one enter upon the investigation of each of the animals without timidity, as there is in them all something natural and beautiful. Met. i. 3; 984 a 7. Hippasos of Metapontum and Herakleitos of Ephesos call fire the first cause. Cf. 996 a 9, 1001 a 15. Met. iii. 3; 1005 b 24. For it is impossible for any one to postulate that the same thing is and is not, as some think Herakleitos says. Met. iii. 5; 1010 a 13. V. Frag. 41-42, supra. Met. iii. 7; 1012 a 24. For the word of Herakleitos, that all things are and are not, seems to make all things true. Met. x. 5; 1062 a 32. For one might ask Herakleitos himself after this manner and speedily compel him to agree that it is never possible for opposite statements to be true about the same things. Cf. 1063 b 24. Met. xii. 4; 1078 b 12. For the doctrine of ideas is held by its supporters because they are convinced by Herakleitos’s words in regard to the truth, viz., that all things perceived by the senses are always in a state of flux; so that if there is to be a science and a knowledge of anything, it is necessary to assume the existence of other objects in nature besides those that are perceived by sense, for there can be no science of things in a state of flux. Eth. ii. 3; 1105 a 8. It is harder to fight against pleasure than against anger, as Herakleitos says. Eth. vii. 3; 1146 b 30. For some believe their opinions no less strongly than what they know by scientific procedure; and Herakleitos is an example of this. Eth. viii. 2; 1155 b 4. And Herakleitos says that opposition unites, and that the most beautiful harmony results from opposites, and that all things come into being through strife. Eth. x. 5; 1176 a 6. As Herakleitos says, an ass would prefer refuse to gold, for natural food is sweeter to asses than gold. PASSAGES REFERRING TO HERAKLEITOS IN THE ‘DOXOGRAPHISTS.’

138. Timaios wrote thus: So Pythagoras does not appear to have discovered the true art of words, nor yet the one accused by Herakleitos, but Herakleitos himself is the one who is the pretender.

Sext. Emp. adv. Math. vii. 129. According to Herakleitos we become intelligent when we get this divine reason by breathing it in, and in sleep we are forgetful, but on waking we gain our senses again. For in sleep since the pores of the senses are closed, the mind in us is separated from what is akin to it in what surrounds us, and its connection through pores is only preserved like a sort of root; and being cut off it loses its former power of memory; but when we wake it peeps out through the pores of sense as through little doors, and entering into connection with what surrounds us it regains the power of reason.

Source: Maximus Conf. Serm. 46, p. 646.

Contents — 21 sections

1. Ar. Did. Epit. 39, 2; Dox. 471. Zeno as well as Herakleitos says that the soul
2. Sim. in Phys. 6 r; Dox. 475
3. Theoph. de Sens. 1; Dox. 499
4. Phil. de Piet. 14, 25; Dox. 548
5. Hipp
6. Epi. adv. Haer. iii. 20; Dox. 591. Herakleitos the Ephesian, son of Blyson,
7. Galen, His
8. Herm
9. Aet. i. 3; Dox. 283
10. Aet. 1. 5; Dox. 292
11. Aet. i. 7; Dox. 303
12. Aet. i. 9; Dox. 307
13. Aet. i. 13; Dox. 312
14. Aet. i. 23; Dox. 320
15. Aet. i. 27; Dox. 322
16. Aet. i. 23; Dox. 323
17. Aet. ii. 1; Dox. 327, Herakleitos et al
18. Aet. iii. 3; Dox. 369
19. Aet. iv. 3; Dox. 338
20. Aet. v. 23; Dox. 434
21. V.

Ar. Did. Epit. 39, 2; Dox. 471. Zeno as well as Herakleitos says that the soul Cite

Ar. Did. Epit. 39, 2; Dox. 471. Zeno as well as Herakleitos says that the soul is a perceptive exhalation. The latter desiring to make it clear that souls always gain mental faculties by giving forth exhalations, likened them to rivers; and these are his words: (Fr. 42) ‘Other and yet other waters are flowing on upon those who step in the same rivers.’

Sim. in Phys. 6 r; Dox. 475 Cite

Sim. in Phys. 6 r; Dox. 475. (Theophrastos says) Hippasos of Metapontum and Herakleitos of Ephesos teach that the one is moved and limited, but they make fire the first principle and derive all things from fire by condensation and rarefaction, and again they resolve them into fire since this one thing is the essential nature underlying their appearance; for Herakleitos says that all things are transformations of fire [πυρὸς ἀμοιβὴν], and he finds a certain order and definite time in the changes of the universe according to a fated [εἱμαρμένην] necessity.

Theoph. de Sens. 1; Dox. 499 Cite

Theoph. de Sens. 1; Dox. 499. The followers of Anaxagoras and Herakleitos say that men perceive by the presence in themselves of the opposite quality.

Phil. de Piet. 14, 25; Dox. 548 Cite

Phil. de Piet. 14, 25; Dox. 548. (Chrysippos) in his third book says that the universe is one of the beings endowed with sense, fellow-citizen with men and gods, and that strife and Zeus are the same thing, as Herakleitos says.

Hipp Cite

Hipp. Phil. 44; Dox. 558. Herakleitos the Ephesian, a philosopher of the physical school, was always lamenting, charging all men with ignorance of the whole of life, but still he pitied the life of mortals. For he would say that he himself knew all things, but that other men knew nothing. His language agrees quite well with that of Empedokles when he says that strife and love are the first principles of all things, and that god is intelligent fire, and that all things enter into a common motion and do not stand still. And as Empedokles said that the whole region occupied by man is full of evils, and that the evils extend from the region about the earth as far as the moon but do not go farther, inasmuch as all the region beyond the moon is purer, so also it seemed to Herakleitos.

Epi. adv. Haer. iii. 20; Dox. 591. Herakleitos the Ephesian, son of Blyson, Cite

Epi. adv. Haer. iii. 20; Dox. 591. Herakleitos the Ephesian, son of Blyson, said that fire is the source of all things, and that all things are resolved into fire again.

Galen, His Cite

Galen, His. Phil. 62; Dox. 626. Herakleitos says that the sun is a burning mass, kindled at its rising, and quenched at its setting.

Herm Cite

Herm. I. G. P. 13; Dox. 654. Perhaps I might yield to the arguments of noble Demokritos and want to laugh with him, unless Herakleitos led me to the opposite view as he said weeping: Fire is the first principle of all things, and it is subject to rarefaction and condensation, the one active, the other passive, the one synthetic, the other analytic. Enough for me, for I am already steeped in such first principles.

Aet. i. 3; Dox. 283 Cite

Aet. i. 3; Dox. 283. Herakleitos and Hippasos say that the first principle of all things is fire; for they say that all things arise from fire and they all end by becoming fire. As this is quenched all things come into the order of the universe; for first the dense part of it contracting into itself becomes earth, then the earth becoming relaxed by fire is rendered water in its nature, then it is sublimated and becomes air; and again the universe and all bodies are consumed by fire in the conflagration. [Fire then is the first principle because all things arise from this, and the final principle because all things are resolved into this.]

Aet. 1. 5; Dox. 292 Cite

Aet. 1. 5; Dox. 292. Hippasos of Metapontum and Herakleitos the Ephesian say that the all is one, ever moving and limited, and that fire is its first principle.

Aet. i. 7; Dox. 303 Cite

Aet. i. 7; Dox. 303. Herakleitos says that the periodic fire is eternal, and that destined reason working through opposition is the creator [δημιουργὸν] of things.

Aet. i. 9; Dox. 307 Cite

Aet. i. 9; Dox. 307. H. et al. declare that matter is subject to change, variation, and transformation, and that it flows the whole through the whole.

Aet. i. 13; Dox. 312 Cite

Aet. i. 13; Dox. 312. H. introduces certain very small and indivisible particles (or H. seems to some to leave particles, instead of the unity).

Aet. i. 23; Dox. 320 Cite

Aet. i. 23; Dox. 320. H. denies rest and fixed position to the whole; for this is the attribute of dead bodies; but he assigns eternal motion to what is eternal, perishable motion to what is perishable.

Aet. i. 27; Dox. 322 Cite

Aet. i. 27; Dox. 322. H. says that all things happen according to fate and that fate itself is necessity. Indeed he writes ‘For it is absolutely destined.’ (Frag. 63.)

Aet. i. 23; Dox. 323 Cite

Aet. i. 23; Dox. 323. H. declares that reason, pervading the essence of the all, is the essence of fate. And it is itself ethereal matter, seed of the generation of the all, and measure of the allotted period.

Aet. ii. 1; Dox. 327, Herakleitos et al Cite

Aet. ii. 1; Dox. 327, Herakleitos et al. The universe is one. 4; Dox. 331. The universe is generated not according to time, but according to thought. 11; Dox. 340; H. et al. The heaven is of a fiery nature. 13; Dox. 342. H. and Parmenides. The stars are compressed bits of fire. 17; Dox. 346. H. and Parm. The stars are nurtured by an exhalation from the earth. 20; Dox. 351. H. and Hekataios. The sun is an intelligent burning mass rising out of the sea. (The same words are assigned to Stoics, Plut. 2, 890 A; Dox. 349.) 21; Dox. 351. It is as great ‘as the width of a human foot.’ 22; Dox. 352. It is bowl-shaped, rather gibbous. 24; Dox. 354. An eclipse takes place by the turning of the bowl-shaped body so that the concave side is upward, and the convex side downward toward our vision. [25; Dox. 356. The earth is surrounded with mist.] 27; Dox. 358. (The moon) is bowl-shaped. 28; Dox. 359. Sun and moon are subject to the same influences. For these heavenly bodies being bowl-shaped, receive bright rays from the moist exhalation, and give light in appearance [πρὸς τὴν φαντασίαν]; the sun more brightly, for it moves in purer aether [ἀήρ], and the moon moves in thicker aether and so it shines more dimly. 29; Dox. 359. Eclipses of the moon are occasioned by the turning of the bowl-shaped body. 32; Dox. 364. The great year consists of eighteen thousand sun-years. According to Diogenes and Herakleitos the year consists of three hundred and sixty-five days.

Aet. iii. 3; Dox. 369 Cite

Aet. iii. 3; Dox. 369. Thunder is occasioned by a gathering of winds and clouds, and the impact of gusts of wind on the clouds; and lightning by a kindling of the exhalations; and fiery whirlwinds [πρηστῆρας] by a burning and a quenching of the clouds.

Aet. iv. 3; Dox. 338 Cite

Aet. iv. 3; Dox. 338. Parmenides and Hippasos and Herakleitos call the soul a fiery substance. 7; Dox. 392. H. says that souls set free from the body go into the soul of the all, inasmuch as it is akin to them in nature and essence.

Aet. v. 23; Dox. 434 Cite

Aet. v. 23; Dox. 434. Herakleitos and the Stoics say that men come to maturity at about fourteen years, with the beginning of sexual life; for trees come to maturity when they begin to bear fruit.... And at about the age of fourteen men gain understanding of good and evil, and of instruction as to these matters.

V. Cite

V.

Contents — 31 sections

1. Fragment 1 (DK B23)
2. Fragment 2 (DK B24)
3. Fragment 3 (DK B25)
4. Fragment 4 (DK B26)
5. Fragment 5 (DK B14)
6. Fragment 6 (DK B15)
7. Fragment 7
8. Fragment 8
9. Fragment 9 (DK B33)
10. Fragment 10 (DK B29)
11. Fragment 11
12. Fragment 12 (DK B28)
13. Fragment 13 (DK B32)
14. Fragment 14 (DK B34)
15. Fragment 15
16. Fragment 16 (DK B18)
17. Fragment 17 (DK B22)
18. Fragment 18
19. Fragment 19
20. Fragment 20
21. Fragment 21
22. Fragment 22 (DK B6)
23. Fragment 23 (DK B5)
24. Fragment 24 (DK B7)
25. Fragment 25
26. Fragment 26 (DK B9)
27. Fragment 27
28. Fragment 28 (DK B10)
29. Fragment 29 (DK B37)
30. Fragment 30
31. Fragment 31 (DK B36)

Fragment 1 (DK B23) Cite

God is one, supreme among gods and men, and not like mortals in body or in mind.

Source: viii. p. 62. Last half line: Sext. Emp. Pyrrh. ii. 18; Proklos in Tim. p. 78, &c.

Fragment 2 (DK B24) Cite

The whole [of god] sees, the whole perceives, the whole hears.

Source: Sext. Emp. Math. ix. 144.

Fragment 3 (DK B25) Cite

But without effort he sets in motion all things by mind and thought.

Source: Simplic. Phys. 6 r 23, 20; Dox. 481.

Fragment 4 (DK B26) Cite

It [i.e. being] always abides in the same place, not moved at all, nor is it fitting that it should move from one place to another.

Source: Simplic. Phys. 6 r 23, 11; Dox. 481.

Fragment 5 (DK B14) Cite

But mortals suppose that the gods are born (as they themselves are), and that they wear man’s clothing and have human voice and body.

Source: Clem. Al. Strom. v. p. 714; Euseb. Praep. Ev. xiii. 13, p. 678 D, following Fr. 1. Theodoret, Gr. Aff. Curat. iii. 72, p. 49.

Fragment 6 (DK B15) Cite

But if cattle or lions had hands, so as to paint with their hands and produce works of art as men do, they would paint their gods and give them bodies in form like their own—horses like horses, cattle like cattle.

Source: Clem. Euseb. and Theod. after preceding fragment. Line 5 stands third in MSS. and earlier texts; Karsten places it fifth.

Fragment 7 Cite

Homer and Hesiod attributed to the gods all things which are disreputable and worthy of blame when done by men; and they told of them many lawless deeds, stealing, adultery, and deception of each other.

Source: Sext. Emp. Math. ix. 193 and i. 289 combined.

Fragment 8 Cite

For all things come from earth, and all things end by becoming earth.

Source: Sext. Emp. Math. x. 313; Stob. Ecl. Phys. i. p. 294, Dox. 284; Schol. Vill. and Schol. Min. to Homer, Il. Η 99.

Fragment 9 (DK B33) Cite

For we are all sprung from earth and water.

Source: Sext. Emp. Math. ix. 361 and x. 313; Eustath. Il. Η 99, p. 668, 60.

Fragment 10 (DK B29) Cite

All things that come into being and grow are earth and water.

Source: Simplic. Phys. 41 r 189, 1, attributes this verse to Anaximenes on the authority of Porphyry. Joh. Philoponus (Phys. i. 188 b 30) attributes it to Xenophanes on the same authority.

Fragment 11 Cite

The sea is the source of water and the source of wind; for neither would blasts of wind arise in the clouds and blow out from within them, except for the great sea, nor would the streams of rivers nor the rain-water in the sky exist but for the sea; but the great sea is the begetter of clouds and winds and rivers.

Source: Schol. Genev. to Homer, Il. Ι 199, 2. V. Sitz. d. berl. Akad. June 18, 1891. I have inserted Diels’ emendation in lines 2 and 3. The first line also occurs in Stob. Flor. ed. Gais. iv. App. p. 6.

Fragment 12 (DK B28) Cite

This upper limit of earth at our feet is visible and †touches the air,† but below it reaches to infinity.

Source: Achill. Tat. in Isagoge ad Aratum (Petavii Doctr. Tempor. iii. p. 76). Cf. Aristotle, de Xenophane, &c., 2; 976 a 32.

Fragment 13 (DK B32) Cite

She whom men call Iris (rainbow), this also is by nature cloud, violet and red and pale green to behold.

Source: Eustath. Il. Λ 24, p. 827, 59; Schol. Vill. ad Il. Λ 27 and Schol. Leyd. in Valckenaer, Diatr. Eurip. p. 195.

Fragment 14 (DK B34) Cite

Accordingly there has not been a man, nor will there be, who knows distinctly what I say about the gods or in regard to all things, for even if one chances for the most part to say what is true, still he would not know; but every one thinks he knows.

Source: Sext. Emp. Math. vii. 49 and 110, and viii. 326. Vv. 1-2: Plut. aud. poet. 17 E; Laer. Diog. ix. 72. Vv. 3-4: Hipp. Phil. 14, Dox. 565; Origen, Philos. xiv. vol. i. p. 892; Galen, de diff. puls. iii.

Fragment 15 Cite

These things have seemed to me to resemble the truth.

Source: Plut. Symp. ix. 746 B. Karst. reads δεδόξασται.

Fragment 16 (DK B18) Cite

In the beginning the gods did not at all reveal all things clearly to mortals, but by searching men in the course of time find them out better.

Source: Stob. Flor. xxix. 41 G, Ecl. Phys., I. 224.

Fragment 17 (DK B22) Cite

The following are fit topics for conversation for men reclining on a soft couch by the fire in the winter season, when after a meal they are drinking sweet wine and eating a little pulse: Who are you, and what is your family? What is your age, my friend? How old were you when the Medes invaded this land?

Source: Athen. ii. p. 54 E. V. 3: Eustath. p. 948, 40.

Fragment 18 Cite

Now, however, I come to another topic, and I will show the way.... They say that once on a time when a hound was badly treated a passer-by pitied him and said, ‘Stop beating him, for it is the soul of a dear friend; I recognised him on hearing his voice.’

Source: Diog. Laer. viii. 36; Suidas, v. Ξενοφάνης. Anthol. Graec. i.

Fragment 19 Cite

But if one wins a victory by swiftness of foot, or in the pentathlon, where the grove of Zeus lies by Pisas’ stream at Olympia, or as a wrestler, or in painful boxing, or in that severe contest called the pancration, he would {5} be more glorious in the eyes of the citizens, he would win a front seat at assemblies, and would be entertained by the city at the public table, and he would receive a gift which would be a keepsake for him. If he won by means of horses he would get all these things {10} although he did not deserve them, as I deserve them, for our wisdom is better than the strength of men or of horses. This is indeed a very wrong custom, nor is it right to prefer strength to excellent wisdom. For if there should be in the city a man good at boxing, or in the {15} pentathlon, or in wrestling, or in swiftness of foot, which is honoured more than strength (among the contests men enter into at the games), the city would not on that account be any better governed. Small joy would it be to any city in this case if a citizen conquers at the games {20} on the banks of the Pisas, for this does not fill with wealth its secret chambers.

Source: Athen. x. 413 F.

Fragment 20 Cite

Having learned profitless luxuries from the Lydians, while as yet they had no experience of hateful tyranny, they proceeded into the market-place, no less than a thousand in number all told, with purple garments completely covering them, boastful, proud of their comely locks, anointed with unguents of rich perfume.

Source: Athen. xii. p. 526.

Fragment 21 Cite

For now the floor is clean, the hands of all and the cups are clean; one puts on the woven garlands, another passes around the fragrant ointment in a vase; the mixing bowl stands full of good cheer, and more wine, mild and of delicate bouquet, is at hand in jars, which {5} says it will never fail. In the midst frankincense sends forth its sacred fragrance, and there is water, cold, and sweet, and pure; the yellow loaves are near at hand, and the table of honour is loaded with cheese and rich honey. The altar in the midst is thickly covered with {10} flowers on every side; singing and mirth fill the house. Men making merry should first hymn the god with propitious stanzas and pure words; and when they have poured out libations and prayed for power to do the right (since this lies nearest at hand), then it is no unfitting {15} thing to drink as much as will not prevent your walking home without a slave, if you are not very old. And one ought to praise that man who, when he has drunk, unfolds noble things as his memory and his toil for virtue suggest; but there is nothing praiseworthy in {20} discussing battles of Titans or of Giants or Centaurs, fictions of former ages, nor in plotting violent revolutions. But it is good always to pay careful respect to the gods.

Source: Athen. xi. p. 462.

Fragment 22 (DK B6) Cite

For sending the thigh-bone of a goat, thou didst receive the rich leg of a fatted bull, an honourable present to a man, the fame whereof shall come to all Greece, and shall not cease so long as there is a race of Greek bards.

Source: Athen. ix. P. 368 E. V. 3: MSS. ἀφίξεται, corr. Karst. V. 4: Meineke κλέος Ἑλλαδικῶν, Bergk ἀοιδοπόλων ᾖ γένος Ἑλλαδικῶν.

Fragment 23 (DK B5) Cite

Nor would any one first pour the wine into the cup to mix it, but water first and the wine above it.

Source: Athen. xi. p. 782. V. 2: Vulg. ἐγχεύας, corr. Casaub.

Fragment 24 (DK B7) Cite

Already now sixty-seven years my thoughts have been tossed restlessly up and down Greece, but then it was twenty and five years from my birth, if I know how to speak the truth about these things.

Source: Diog. Laer. ix. 19.

Fragment 25 Cite

Nor is this (an oath) an equal demand to make of an impious man as compared with a pious man.

Source: Arist. Rhet. i. 15; p. 377 a 20.

Fragment 26 (DK B9) Cite

Much more feeble than an aged man.

Source: Etym. Magn. s.v. Γηράς; attributed to Xenophon.

Fragment 27 Cite

Bacchic wands of fir stand about the firmly built house.

Source: Schol. ad Aristoph. Equit. v. 408. Vulg. ἐλάται, MS. θ ἐλάτε, V ἐλάτη. Lobeck, Aglaoph. p. 308 i, suggests ἐκστᾶσιν δ’ ἐλατῶν πυκινοὶ περὶ δώματα βάκχοι, and compares Eurip. Bacch. 110. (28). Draco Straton. p. 33, ed. Herm.; Cram. An. Oxon. iii. p. 296 (Herod. περὶ διχρόν. p. 367 Lehrs); Cram. An. Oxon. iv. p. 415 (Choerob. dict. p. 566 Gais.). (29). Herod. περὶ μον. λέξ. 41, 5. MSS. Ξενοφῶν, corr. Dind. Cf. Etym. Magn. 235, 4. Etym. Gud. 301, 15. (30). Herod. Ibid. 30, 30. MSS. καὶ μὴν, corr. Lehrs. Cf. περὶ κλισ. ὄνομ. 772, 33. (31). Herod. περὶ διχρόν. 296, 5.

Fragment 28 (DK B10) Cite

From the beginning, according to Homer, since all have learned them.

Fragment 29 (DK B37) Cite

If the god had not made light-coloured honey, I should have said that a fig was far sweeter.

Fragment 30 Cite

Holy water trickles down in thy grottoes.

Fragment 31 (DK B36) Cite

As many things as they have made plain for mortals to see!

Contents — 23 sections

1. Arist
2. Ibid. 1400 b 5 (K. 35)
3. Plutarch, de vit. pud. p. 530 F (K. 36)
4. Diog
5. Plut. de comm. not. p. 1084 E (K. 38)
6. Diog
7. Clem
8. A. Gellius, Noct. Att. iii. 11 (K. 31). Some writers have stated that Homer
9. Plato, Soph. 242 D
10. De Coelo, ii. 13; 294 a 21
11. De mirac. oscult. 38; 833 a 16
12. Metaph. i. 5; 986 b 10
13. Theophrastos, Fr. 5; Simpl
14. Theophrast
15. Hipp
16. Plut
17. Galen, Hist
18. Aet
19. Aet. ii. 4; Dox. 332
20. Aet. iii. 2; 367
21. Aet. iv. 9; 396
22. Aet. v. 1; 415
23. VI.

Arist Cite

Arist. Rhet. ii. 23; 1399 b 6 (Karsten, Fr. 34). Xenophanes asserts that those who say the gods are born are as impious as those who say that they die; for in both cases it amounts to this, that the gods do not exist at all.

Ibid. 1400 b 5 (K. 35) Cite

Ibid. 1400 b 5 (K. 35). When the inhabitants of Elea asked Xenophanes whether they should sacrifice to Leukothea and sing a dirge or not, he advised them not to sing a dirge if they thought her divine, and if they thought her human not to sacrifice to her.

Plutarch, de vit. pud. p. 530 F (K. 36) Cite

Plutarch, de vit. pud. p. 530 F (K. 36). When Lasos, son of Hermiones, called that man a coward who was unwilling to play at dice with him, Xenophanes answered that he was very cowardly and without daring in regard to dishonourable things.

Diog Cite

Diog. Laer. ix. 20 (K. 37). When Empedokles said to him (Xenophanes) that the wise man was not to be found, he answered: Naturally, for it would take a wise man to recognise a wise man.

Plut. de comm. not. p. 1084 E (K. 38) Cite

Plut. de comm. not. p. 1084 E (K. 38). Xenophanes, when some one told him that he had seen eels living in hot water, said: Then we will boil them in cold water.

Diog Cite

Diog. Laer. ix. 19 (K. 39). ‘Have intercourse with tyrants either as little as possible, or as agreeably as possible.’

Clem Cite

Clem. Al. Strom. vii. p. 841. And Greeks suppose the gods to be like men in their passions as well as in their forms; and accordingly they represent them, each race in forms like their own, in the words of Xenophanes: Ethiopians make their gods black and snub-nosed, Thracians red-haired and with blue eyes; so also they conceive the spirits of the gods to be like themselves.

A. Gellius, Noct. Att. iii. 11 (K. 31). Some writers have stated that Homer Cite

A. Gellius, Noct. Att. iii. 11 (K. 31). Some writers have stated that Homer antedated Hesiod, and among these were Philochoros and Xenophanes of Kolophon; others assert that he was later than Hesiod.

Plato, Soph. 242 D Cite

Plato, Soph. 242 D. And the Eleatic group of thinkers among us, beginning with Xenophanes and even earlier, set forth in tales how what men call all things is really one.

De Coelo, ii. 13; 294 a 21 Cite

De Coelo, ii. 13; 294 a 21. On this account some assert that there is no limit to the earth underneath us, saying that it is rooted in infinity, as, for instance, Xenophanes of Kolophon; in order that they may not have the trouble of seeking the cause.

De mirac. oscult. 38; 833 a 16 Cite

De mirac. oscult. 38; 833 a 16. The fire at Lipara, Xenophanes says, ceased once for sixteen years, and came back in the seventeenth. And he says that the lava-stream from Aetna is neither of the nature of fire, nor is it continuous, but it appears at intervals of many years.

Metaph. i. 5; 986 b 10 Cite

Metaph. i. 5; 986 b 10. There are some who have expressed the opinion about the All that it is one in its essential nature, but they have not expressed this opinion after the same manner nor in an orderly or natural way. 986 b 23. Xenophanes first taught the unity of these things (Parmenides is said to have been his pupil), but he did not make anything clear, nor did he seem to get at the nature of either of these things, but looking up into the broad heavens he said: The unity is god. These, as we have said, are to be dismissed from the present investigation, two of them entirely as being rather more crude, Xenophanes and Melissos; but Parmenides seems to speak in some places with greater care.

Theophrastos, Fr. 5; Simpl Cite

Theophrastos, Fr. 5; Simpl. Phys. 5 v: 22, 36; Dox. 480. Theophrastos says that Xenophanes of Kolophon, teacher of Parmenides, asserted that the first principle is one, and that being is one and all-embracing, and is neither limited nor infinite, neither moving nor at rest. Theophrastos admits, however, that the record of his opinion is derived from some other source than the investigation of nature. This all-embracing unity Xenophanes called god; he shows that god is one because god is the most powerful of all things; for, he says, if there be a multiplicity of things, it is necessary that power should exist in them all alike; but the most powerful and most excellent of all things is god. And he shows that god must have been without beginning, since whatever comes into being must come either from what is like it or from what is unlike it; but, he says, it is no more natural that like should give birth to like, than that like should be born from like; but if it had sprung from what is unlike it, then being would have sprung from not-being. So he showed that god is without beginning and eternal. Nor is it either infinite or subject to limits; for not-being is infinite, as having neither beginning nor middle nor end; moreover limits arise through the relation of a multiplicity of things to each other. Similarly he denies to it both motion and rest; for not-being is immovable, since neither could anything else come into it nor could it itself come into anything else; motion, on the one hand, arises among the several parts of the one, for one thing changes its position with reference to another, so that when he says that it abides in the same state and is not moved (Frag. 4.), ‘And it always abides in the same place, not moved at all, nor is it fitting that it should move from one place to another,’ he does not mean that it abides in a rest that is the antithesis of motion, but rather in a stillness that is out of the sphere of both motion and rest. Nikolaos of Damascus in his book On the Gods mentions him as saying that the first principle of things is infinite and immovable. According to Alexander he regards this principle as limited and spherical. But that Xenophanes shows it to be neither limited nor infinite is clear from the very words quoted,—Alexander says that he regarded it as limited and spherical because it is homogeneous throughout; and he holds that it perceives all things, saying (Frag. 3) ‘But without effort he sets in motion all things by mind and thought.’

Theophrast Cite

Theophrast. Fr. 5 a; Galen, in Hipp. d. n. h. xv. 35 K.; Dox. 481. Several of the commentators have made false statements about Xenophanes, as for instance Sabinos, who uses almost these very words: ‘I say that man is not air, as Anaximenes taught, nor water, as Thales taught, nor earth, as Xenophanes says in some book;’ but no such opinion is found to be expressed by Xenophanes anywhere. And it is clear from Sabinos’s own words that he made a false statement intentionally and did not fall into error through ignorance. Else he would certainly have mentioned by name the book in which Xenophanes expressed this opinion. On the contrary he wrote ‘as Xenophanes says in some book.’ Theophrastos would have recorded this opinion of Xenophanes in his abridgment of the opinions of the physicists, if it were really true. And if you are interested in the investigation of these things, you can read the books of Theophrastos in which he made this abridgment of the opinions of the physicists.

Hipp Cite

Hipp. Philos. i. 14; Dox. 565. Xenophanes of Kolophon, son of Orthomenes, lived to the time of Cyrus. He was the first to say that all things are incomprehensible, in the following verses: (Frag. 14) ‘For even if one chances for the most part to say what is true, still he would not know; but every one thinks he knows.’ And he says that nothing comes into being, nor is anything destroyed, nor moved; and that the universe is one and is not subject to change. And he says that god is eternal and one, homogeneous throughout, limited, spherical, with power of sense-perception in all parts. The sun is formed each day from small fiery particles which are gathered together; the earth is infinite, and is not surrounded by air or by sky; an infinite number of suns and moons exist, and all things come from earth. The sea, he said, is salt because so many things flow together and become mixed in it; but Metrodoros assigns as the reason for its saltness that it has filtered through the earth. And Xenophanes believes that once the earth was mingled with the sea, but in the course of time it became freed from moisture; and his proofs are such as these: that shells are found in the midst of the land and among the mountains, that in the quarries of Syracuse the imprints of a fish and of seals had been found, and in Paros the imprint of an anchovy at some depth in the stone, and in Melite shallow impressions of all sorts of sea products. He says that these imprints were made when everything long ago was covered with mud, and then the imprint dried in the mud. Farther he says that all men will be destroyed when the earth sinks into the sea and becomes mud, and that the race will begin anew from the beginning; and this transformation takes place for all worlds.

Plut Cite

Plut. Strom. 4; Dox. 580. Xenophanes of Kolophon, going his own way and differing from all those that had gone before, did not admit either genesis or destruction, but says that the all is always the same. For if it came into being, it could not have existed before this; and not-being could not come into existence nor could it accomplish anything, nor could anything come from not-being. And he declares that sensations are deceptive, and together with them he does away with the authority of reason itself. And he declares that the earth is constantly sinking little by little into the sea. He says that the sun is composed of numerous fiery particles massed together. And with regard to the gods he declares that there is no rule of one god over another, for it is impious that any of the gods should be ruled; and none of the gods have need of anything at all, for a god hears and sees in all his parts and not in some particular organs. He declares that the earth is infinite and is not surrounded on every side by air; and all things arise from earth; and he says that the sun and the stars arise from clouds.

Galen, Hist Cite

Galen, Hist. Phil. 3; Dox. 601. Xenophanes of Kolophon is said to be the chief of this school, which is ordinarily considered aporetic (skeptical) rather than dogmatic. 7; Dox. 604. To the class holding eclectic views belongs Xenophanes, who has his doubts as to all things, except that he holds this one dogma: that all things are one, and that this is god, who is limited, endowed with reason, and immovable.

Aet Cite

Aet. Plac. i. 3; Dox. 284. Xenophanes held that the first principle of all things is earth, for he wrote in his book on nature: ‘All things come from earth, and all things end by becoming earth.’

Aet. ii. 4; Dox. 332 Cite

Aet. ii. 4; Dox. 332. Xenophanes et al.: The world is without beginning, eternal, imperishable. 13; 343. The stars are formed of burning cloud; these are extinguished each day, but they are kindled again at night, like coals; for their risings and settings are really kindlings and extinguishings. 18; 347. The objects which appear to those on vessels like stars, and which some call Dioscuri, are little clouds which have become luminous by a certain kind of motion. 20; 348. The sun is composed of fiery particles collected from the moist exhalation and massed together, or of burning clouds. 24; 354. Eclipses occur by extinction of the sun; and the sun is born anew at its risings. Xenophanes recorded an eclipse of the sun for a whole month, and another eclipse so complete that the day seemed as night. 24; 355. Xenophanes held that there are many suns and moons according to the different regions and sections and zones of the earth; and that at some fitting time the disk of the sun comes into a region of the earth not inhabited by us, and so it suffers eclipse as though it had gone into a hole; he adds that the sun goes on for an infinite distance, but it seems to turn around by reason of the great distance. 25; 356. The moon is a compressed cloud. 28; 358. It shines by its own light. 29; 360. The moon disappears each month because it is extinguished. 30; 362. The sun serves a purpose in the generation of the world and of the animals on it, as well as in sustaining them, and it drags the moon after it.

Aet. iii. 2; 367 Cite

Aet. iii. 2; 367. Comets are groups or motions of burning clouds. 3; 368. Lightnings take place when clouds shine in motion. 4; 371. The phenomena of the heavens come from the warmth of the sun as the principal cause. For when the moisture is drawn up from the sea, the sweet water separated by reason of its lightness becomes mist and passes into clouds, and falls as rain when compressed, and the winds scatter it; for he writes expressly (Frag. 11): ‘The sea is the source of water.’

Aet. iv. 9; 396 Cite

Aet. iv. 9; 396. Sensations are deceptive.

Aet. v. 1; 415 Cite

Aet. v. 1; 415. Xenophanes and Epikouros abolished the prophetic art.

VI. Cite

VI.

Contents — 20 sections

1. Fragment B1 (verses 1–32)
2. Fragment B2 (verses 33–40)
3. Fragment B3 (verse 40)
4. Fragment B4 (verses 89–92)
5. Fragment B5 (verses 41–42)
6. Fragment B6 (verses 43–51)
7. Fragment B7 (verses 52–57)
8. Fragment B8 (verses 57–120)
9. Fragment B9 (verses 121–124)
10. Fragment B10 (verses 132–138)
11. Fragment B11 (verses 139–143)
12. Fragment B12 (verses 125–127)
13. Fragment B13 (verses 128–131)
14. Fragment B14 (verse 144)
15. Fragment B15 (verse 145)
16. Fragment B16 (verses 146–149)
17. Fragment B17 (verse 150)
18. Fragment B18 (Latin)
19. Fragment B19 (verses 151–153)
20. Additional fragment (Simplicius, Physics 7)

Fragment B1 (verses 1–32) Cite

(Proœmium) The horses which bear me conducted me as far as desire may go, when they had brought me speeding along to the far-famed road of a divinity who herself bears onward through all things the man of understanding. Along this road I was borne, along this the horses, wise indeed, bore me hastening the chariot on, and maidens guided my course. The axle in its box, enkindled by the heat, uttered the sound of a pipe (for it was driven on by the rolling wheels on either side), when the maiden daughters of Helios hastened to conduct me to the light, leaving the realms of night, pushing aside with the hand the veils from their heads. There is the gate between the ways of day and night; lintel above it, and stone threshold beneath, hold it in place, and high in air it is fitted with great doors; retributive Justice holds the keys that open and shut them.[57] However, the maidens addressed her with mild words, and found means to persuade her to thrust back speedily for them the fastened bolt from the doors; and the gate swinging free made the opening wide, turning in their sockets the bronze hinges, well fastened with bolts and nails; then through this the maidens kept horses and chariot straight on the high-road. The goddess received me with kindness, and, taking my right hand in hers, she addressed me with these words:—Youth joined with drivers immortal, who hast come with the horses that bear thee, to our dwelling, hail! since no evil fate has bid thee come on this road (for it lies far outside the beaten track of men), but right and justice. ’Tis necessary for thee to learn all things, both the abiding essence of persuasive truth, and men’s opinions in which rests no true belief. But nevertheless these things also thou shalt learn, since it is necessary to judge accurately the things that rest on opinion, passing all things carefully in review.

Fragment B2 (verses 33–40) Cite

Come now I will tell thee—and do thou hear my word and heed it—what are the only ways of enquiry that lead to knowledge. The one way, assuming that being is and that it is impossible for it not to be, is the trustworthy path, for truth attends it. The other, that not-being is and that it necessarily is, I call a wholly incredible course, since thou canst not recognise not-being (for this is impossible), nor couldst thou speak of it,

Fragment B3 (verse 40) Cite

for thought and being are the same thing.

Fragment B4 (verses 89–92) Cite

Nevertheless, behold steadfastly all absent things as present to thy mind; for thou canst not separate being in one place from contact with being in another place; it is not scattered here and there through the universe, nor is it compounded of parts. [Verses 89–92 also appear within the continuous text of Fragment B8.]

Fragment B5 (verses 41–42) Cite

It makes no difference to me at what point I begin, for I shall always come back again to this.

Fragment B6 (verses 43–51) Cite

It is necessary both to say and to think that being is; for it is possible that being is, and it is impossible that not-being is; this is what I bid thee ponder. I restrain thee from this first course of investigation; and from that course also along which mortals knowing nothing wander aimlessly, since helplessness directs the roaming thought in their bosoms, and they are borne on deaf and likewise blind, amazed, headstrong races, they who consider being and not-being as the same and not the same; and that all things follow a back-turning course.[58]

Fragment B7 (verses 52–57) Cite

That things which are not are, shall never prevail, she said, but do thou restrain thy mind from this course of investigation. And let not long-practised habit compel thee along this path, thine eye careless, thine ear and thy tongue overpowered by noise; but do thou weigh the much contested refutation of their words, which I have uttered.

Fragment B8 (verses 57–120) Cite

There is left but this single path to tell thee of: namely, that being is. And on this path there are many proofs that being is without beginning and indestructible; it is universal, existing alone, immovable and without end; nor ever was it nor will it be, since it now is, all together, one, and continuous. For what generating of it wilt thou seek out? From what did it grow, and how? I will not permit thee to say or to think that it came from not-being; for it is impossible to think or to say that not-being is. What thing would then have stirred it into activity that it should arise from not-being later rather than earlier? So it is necessary that being either is absolutely or is not. Nor will the force of the argument permit that anything spring from being except being itself. Therefore justice does not slacken her fetters to permit generation or destruction, but holds being firm. (The decision as to these things comes in at this point.) Either being exists or it does not exist. It has been decided in accordance with necessity to leave the unthinkable, unspeakable path, as this is not the true path, but that the other path exists and is true. How then should being suffer destruction? How come into existence? If it came into existence, it is not being, nor will it be if it ever is to come into existence.... So its generation is extinguished, and its destruction is proved incredible. Nor is it subject to division, for it is all alike; nor is anything more in it, so as to prevent its cohesion, nor anything less, but all is full of being; therefore the all is continuous, for being is contiguous to being. Farther it is unmoved, in the hold of great chains, without beginning or end, since generation and destruction have completely disappeared and true belief has rejected them. It lies the same, abiding in the same state and by itself; accordingly it abides fixed in the same spot. For powerful necessity holds it in confining bonds, which restrain it on all sides. Therefore divine right does not permit being to have any end; but it is lacking in nothing, for if it lacked anything it would lack everything.[59] Therefore thinking and that by reason of which Nevertheless, behold steadfastly all absent things as present to thy mind; for thou canst not separate being in one place from contact with being in another place; it is not scattered here and there through the universe, nor is it compounded of parts. thought exists are one and the same thing, for thou wilt not find thinking without the being from which it receives its name. Nor is there nor will there be anything apart from being; for fate has linked it together, so that it is a whole and immovable. Wherefore all these things will be but a name, all these things which mortals determined in the belief that they were true, viz. that things arise and perish, that they are and are not, that they change their position and vary in colour. But since there is a final limit, it is perfected on every side, like the mass of a rounded sphere, equally distant from the centre at every point. For it is necessary that it should neither be greater at all nor less anywhere, since there is no not-being which can prevent it from arriving at equality, nor is being such that there may ever be more than what is in one part and less in another, since the whole is inviolate. For if it is equal on all sides, it abides in equality within its limits. At this point I cease trustworthy discourse and the thought about truth; from here on, learn the opinions of mortals, hearing of the illusive order of my verses. not to name, and in so doing they have erred. They distinguish them as antithetic in character, and give them each character and attributes distinct from those of the other. On the one hand there is the aethereal flame of fire, fine, rarefied, everywhere identical with itself and not identical with its opposite; and on the other hand, opposed to the first, is the second principle, flameless darkness, dense and heavy in character. Of these two principles I declare to thee every arrangement as it appears to men, so that no knowledge among mortals may surpass thine.

Fragment B9 (verses 121–124) Cite

Men have determined in their minds to name two principles [lit. forms]; but one of these they ought But since all things are called light and darkness, and the peculiar properties of these are predicated of one thing and another, everything is at the same time full of light and of obscure darkness, of both

Fragment B10 (verses 132–138) Cite

Thou shalt know the nature of the heavens and all signs that are in the sky, the destructive deeds of the pure bright torch of the sun and whence they arose, and thou shalt learn the wandering deeds of the round-eyed moon and its nature. Thou shalt know also the sky surrounding all, whence it arose, and how necessity took it and chained it so as to serve as

Plato, Symp. 178 B; Arist. Met. i. 4, 984 b 26; Plut. Amat. 756 F; Sext. Emp. Math. ix. 9; Stob. Ecl. i. 10, p. 274; Simpl. Phys. 9 r 39, 18.

Fragment B11 (verses 139–143) Cite

a limit to the courses of the stars. How earth and sun and moon and common sky and the milky way of the heavens and highest Olympos and the burning (might of the) stars began to be.

Fragment B12 (verses 125–127) Cite

equally, since neither has anything in common with the other. And the smaller circles are filled with unmixed fire, and those next them with darkness into which their portion of light penetrates; in the midst of these is the divinity who directs the course of all. For she controls dreaded birth and coition in every

Fragment B13 (verses 128–131) Cite

part of the universe, sending female to join with male, and again male to female. First of all the gods she devised love.

Fragment B14 (verse 144) Cite

It (the moon) wanders about the earth, shining

Plut. Colot. p. 1116 A.

Fragment B15 (verse 145) Cite

at night with borrowed light. She is always gazing earnestly toward the rays of the sun.

Plut. Quaest. Rom. 282 A; de fac. lun. 929 A.

Fragment B16 (verses 146–149) Cite

For as at any time is the blending of very complex members in a man, so is the mind in men constituted; for that which thinks is the same in all men and in every man, viz. the essence of the members of the body; and the element that is in

Fragment B17 (verse 150) Cite

excess is thought. On the right hand boys, on the left hand girls.

Galen, Hipp. Epid. vi. 48; Comm. ii. (ix. p. 430 Char).

Fragment B18 (Latin) Cite

{K. 150} When male and female mingle seed of Venus in the form [the body] of one, the excellence from the two different bloods, if it preserves harmony, fashions a well-formed body; but if when the seed is mingled the excellencies fight against each other and do not unite into one, they will distress the sex that is coming into existence, as the twofold seed is mingled in the body of the unfortunate woman.

Caelius Aurelianus, _De Morb. Chron._ iv. 9 (as cited by Fairbanks).

Fragment B19 (verses 151–153) Cite

So, according to men’s opinions, did things arise, and so they are now, and from this state when they shall have reached maturity shall they perish. For each of these men has determined a name as a distinguishing mark.

Additional fragment (Simplicius, Physics 7) Cite

With this there are fineness and heat and light and softness and brightness; and with the dense are classed cold and darkness and hardness and weight, for these are separated the ones on one side, the others on the other.

Simplicius, _Physics_ 7, v. 31, 4 (as cited by Fairbanks).

Contents — 27 sections

1. Plato, Theaet. 180 D
2. Ibid. 183 E
3. Soph. 238 C (concluding a discussion of Parmenides)
4. Parm. 150 E
5. Ibid. 168 C
6. Arist
7. Ibid. i. 3; 186 a 4
8. Ibid. i. 5; 188 a 20
9. Ibid. iii. 6; 207 a 15
10. Gen. Corr. i. 3; 318 b 6. Parmenides says that the two exist, both being and
11. Metaph. i. 3; 984 b 1
12. Metaph. i. 5; 986 b 18
13. Metaph. ii. 4; 1001 a 32
14. Theophrastos, Fr. 6; Alexander Metaph. p. 24, 5 Bon.; Dox. 482
15. Theophrastos, Fr. 6 a; Laer
16. Theoph. Fr. 17; Diog. Laer. viii. 48; Dox. 492. Theophrastos says that
17. Theoph. de Sens. 3; Dox. 499
18. Theophr
19. Hipp
20. Plut
21. Epiph. adv. Haer. iii. 10; Dox. 590. Parmenides, the son of Pyres, himself also
22. Cic. de Nat
23. Aet. i. 3; Dox. 284
24. Aet. ii. 1; Dox. 327
25. Aet. iii. 1; 365
26. Aet. iv. 3; 388
27. Aet. v. 7; 419

Plato, Theaet. 180 D Cite

Plato, Theaet. 180 D. I almost forgot, Theodoros, that there were others who asserted opinions the very opposite of these: ‘the all is alone, unmoved; to this all names apply,’ and the other emphatic statements in opposition to those referred to, which the school of Melissos and Parmenides make, to the effect that all things are one, and that the all stands itself in itself, not having space in which it is moved.

Ibid. 183 E Cite

Ibid. 183 E. Feeling ashamed before Melissos and the rest who assert that the all is one being, for fear we should examine the matter somewhat crudely, I am even more ashamed in view of the fact that Parmenides is one of them. Parmenides seems to me, in the words of Homer, a man to be reverenced and at the same time feared. For when I was a mere youth and he a very old man, I conversed with him, and he seemed to me to have an exceedingly wonderful depth of mind. I fear lest we may not understand what he said, and that we may fail still more to understand his thoughts in saying it; and, what is most important, I fear lest the question before us should fail to receive due consideration....

Soph. 238 C (concluding a discussion of Parmenides) Cite

Soph. 238 C (concluding a discussion of Parmenides). You understand then that it is really impossible to speak of not-being or to say anything about it or to conceive it by itself, but it is inconceivable, not to be spoken of or mentioned, and irrational.

Parm. 150 E Cite

Parm. 150 E. Accordingly the unity itself in relation to itself is as follows: Having in itself neither greatness nor littleness, it could not be exceeded by itself nor could it exceed itself, but being equal it would be equal to itself.

Ibid. 168 C Cite

Ibid. 168 C. This statement: It does not exist, means absolutely that it does not exist anywhere in any way, nor does not-being have any share at all in being. Accordingly not-being could not exist, nor in any other way could it have a share in being.

Arist Cite

Arist. Phys. i. 2; 184 b 16. The first principle must be one, unmoved, as Parmenides and Melissos say, ...

Ibid. i. 3; 186 a 4 Cite

Ibid. i. 3; 186 a 4. To those proceeding after this impossible manner things seem to be one, and it is not difficult to refute them from their own statements. For both of them reason in a fallacious manner, both Parmenides and Melissos; for they make false assumptions, and at the same time their course of reasoning is not logical.... And the same sort of arguments are used by Parmenides, although he has some others of his own, and the refutation consists in showing both that he makes mistakes of fact and that he does not draw his conclusions correctly. He makes a mistake in assuming that being is to be spoken of absolutely, speaking of it thus many times; and he draws the false conclusion that, in case only whites are considered, white meaning one thing, none the less there are many whites and not one; since neither in the succession of things nor in the argument will whiteness be one. For what is predicated of white will not be the same as what is predicated of the object which is white, and nothing except white will be separated from the object; since there is no other ground of separation except the fact that the white is different from the object in which the white exists. But Parmenides had not yet arrived at the knowledge of this.

Ibid. i. 5; 188 a 20 Cite

Ibid. i. 5; 188 a 20. Parmenides also makes heat and cold first principles; and he calls them fire and earth.

Ibid. iii. 6; 207 a 15 Cite

Ibid. iii. 6; 207 a 15. Wherefore we must regard Parmenides as a more acute thinker than Melissos, for the latter says that the infinite is the all, but the former asserts that the all is limited, equally distant from the centre [on every side].

Gen. Corr. i. 3; 318 b 6. Parmenides says that the two exist, both being and Cite

Gen. Corr. i. 3; 318 b 6. Parmenides says that the two exist, both being and not being—i.e. earth and water.

Metaph. i. 3; 984 b 1 Cite

Metaph. i. 3; 984 b 1. None of those who have affirmed that the all is one have, it happens, seen the nature of such a cause clearly, except, perhaps, Parmenides, and he in so far as he sometimes asserts that there is not one cause alone, but two causes.

Metaph. i. 5; 986 b 18 Cite

Metaph. i. 5; 986 b 18. For Parmenides seemed to lay hold of a unity according to reason, and Melissos according to matter; wherefore the former says it is limited, the latter that it is unlimited. Xenophanes first taught the unity of things (Parmenides is said to have been his pupil), but he did not make anything clear, nor did he seem to get at the nature of either finiteness or infinity, but, looking up into the broad heavens, he said, the unity is god. These, as we said, are to be dismissed from the present investigation, two of them entirely as being somewhat more crude, Xenophanes and Melissos; but Parmenides seems to speak in some places with greater care. For believing that not-being does not exist in addition to being, of necessity he thinks that being is one and that there is nothing else, ... and being compelled to account for phenomena, and assuming that things are one from the standpoint of reason, plural from the standpoint of sense, he again asserts that there are two causes and two first principles, heat and cold, or, as he calls them, fire and earth; of these he regards heat as being, its opposite as not-being.

Metaph. ii. 4; 1001 a 32 Cite

Metaph. ii. 4; 1001 a 32. There is nothing different from being, so that it is necessary to agree with the reasoning of Parmenides that all things are one, and that this is being.

Theophrastos, Fr. 6; Alexander Metaph. p. 24, 5 Bon.; Dox. 482 Cite

Theophrastos, Fr. 6; Alexander Metaph. p. 24, 5 Bon.; Dox. 482. And succeeding him Parmenides, son of Pyres, the Eleatic—Theophrastos adds the name of Xenophanes—followed both ways. For in declaring that the all is eternal, and in attempting to explain the genesis of things, he expresses different opinions according to the two standpoints:—from the standpoint of truth he supposes the all to be one and not generated and spheroidal in form, while from the standpoint of popular opinion, in order to explain generation of phenomena, he uses two first principles, fire and earth, the one as matter, the other as cause and agent.

Theophrastos, Fr. 6 a; Laer Cite

Theophrastos, Fr. 6 a; Laer. Diog. ix. 21, 22; Dox. 482. Parmenides, son of Pyres, the Eleatic, was a pupil of Xenophanes, yet he did not accept his doctrines.... He was the first to declare that the earth is spheroidal and situated in the middle of the universe. He said that there are two elements, fire and earth; the one has the office of demiurge, the other that of matter. Men first arose from mud; heat and cold are the elements of which all things are composed. He holds that intelligence and life are the same, as Theophrastos records in his book on physics, where he put down the opinions of almost everybody. He said that philosophy has a twofold office, to understand both the truth and also what men believe. Accordingly he says: (Vv. 28-30), ‘’Tis necessary for thee to learn all things, both the abiding essence of persuasive truth, and men’s opinions in which rests no true belief.’

Theoph. Fr. 17; Diog. Laer. viii. 48; Dox. 492. Theophrastos says that Cite

Theoph. Fr. 17; Diog. Laer. viii. 48; Dox. 492. Theophrastos says that Parmenides was the first to call the heavens a universe and the earth spheroidal.

Theoph. de Sens. 3; Dox. 499 Cite

Theoph. de Sens. 3; Dox. 499. Parmenides does not make any definite statements as to sensation, except that knowledge is in proportion to the excess of one of the two elements. Intelligence varies as the heat or the cold is in excess, and it is better and purer by reason of heat; but nevertheless it has need of a certain symmetry. (Vv. 146-149) ‘For,’ he says, ‘as at any time is the blending of very complex members in a man, so is the mind in men constituted; for that which thinks is the same in all men and in every man, viz., the essence of the members of the body; and the element that is in excess is thought.’ He says that perceiving and thinking are the same thing, and that remembering and forgetting come from these as the result of mixture, but he does not say definitely whether, if they enter into the mixture in equal quantities, thought will arise or not, nor what the disposition should be. But it is evident that he believes sensation to take place by the presence of some quality in contrast with its opposite, where he says that a corpse does not perceive light and heat and sound by reason of the absence of fire, but that it perceives cold and silence and the similar contrasted qualities, and in general that being as a whole has a certain knowledge. So in his statements he seems to do away with what is difficult by leaving it out.

Theophr Cite

Theophr. Fr. 7; Simpl. Phys. 25 r 115; Dox. 483. In the first book of his physics Theophrastos gives as the opinion of Parmenides: That which is outside of being is not-being, not-being is nothing, accordingly being is one.

Hipp Cite

Hipp. Phil. 11; Dox. 564. Parmenides supposes that the all is one and eternal, and without beginning and spheroidal in form; but even he does not escape the opinion of the many, for he speaks of fire and earth as first principles of the all, of earth as matter, and of fire as agent and cause, and he says that the earth will come to an end, but in what way he does not say. He says that the all is eternal, and not generated, and spherical, and homogeneous, not having place in itself, and unmoved, and limited.

Plut Cite

Plut. Strom. 5; Dox. 580. Parmenides the Eleatic, the companion of Xenophanes, both laid claim to his opinions, and at the same time took the opposite standpoint. For he declared the all to be eternal and immovable according to the real state of the case; for it is alone, existing alone, immovable and without beginning (v. 60); but there is a generation of the things that seem to be according to false opinion, and he excepts sense perceptions from the truth. He says that if anything exists besides being, this is not-being, but not-being does not exist at all. So there is left the being that has no beginning; and he says that the earth was formed by the precipitation of dense air.

Epiph. adv. Haer. iii. 10; Dox. 590. Parmenides, the son of Pyres, himself also Cite

Epiph. adv. Haer. iii. 10; Dox. 590. Parmenides, the son of Pyres, himself also of the Eleatic school, said that the first principle of all things is the infinite.

Cic. de Nat Cite

Cic. de Nat. Deor. i. 11; Dox. 534. For Parmenides devised a sort of contrivance like a crown (he applied to it the word στεφάνη), an orb of light with continuous heat, which arched the sky, and this he called god, but in it no one could suspect a divine form or a divine sentiment, and he made many monstrosities of this sort; moreover, he raised to the rank of gods War, Discord, Desire, and many other things which disease or sleep or forgetfulness or old age destroys; and similarly with reference to the stars he expresses opinions which have been criticised elsewhere and are omitted here.

Aet. i. 3; Dox. 284 Cite

Aet. i. 3; Dox. 284. Parmenides, the Eleatic, son of Pyrrhes, was a companion of Xenophanes, and in his first book the doctrines agree with those of his master; for here that verse occurs: (v. 60), Universal, existing alone, immovable and without beginning. He said that the cause of all things is not earth alone, as his master said, but also fire. 7; 303. The world is immovable and limited, and spheroidal in form. 24; 320. Parmenides and Melissos did away with generation and destruction, because they thought that the all is unmoved. 25; 321. All things are controlled by necessity; this is fated, it is justice and forethought, and the producer of the world.

Aet. ii. 1; Dox. 327 Cite

Aet. ii. 1; Dox. 327. The world is one. 4; 332. It is without beginning and eternal and indestructible. 7; 335. Parmenides taught that there were crowns encircling one another in close succession, one of rarefied matter, another of dense, and between these other mixed crowns of light and darkness; and that which surrounded all was solid like a wall, and under this was a crown of fire; and the centre of all the crowns was solid, and around it was a circle of fire; and of the mixed crowns the one nearest the centre was the source of motion and generation for all, and this ‘the goddess who directs the helm and holds the keys,’ he calls ‘justice and necessity.’ The air is that which is separated from the earth, being evaporated by the forcible pressure of the earth; the sun and the circle of the milky way are the exhalation of fire, and the moon is the mixture of both, namely of air and fire. The aether stands highest of all and surrounding all, and beneath this is ranged the fiery element which we call the heavens, and beneath this are the things of earth. 11; 339. The revolving vault highest above the earth is the heavens. 340. The heavens are of a fiery nature. 13; 342. The stars are masses of fire. 15; 345. He ranks the morning star, which he considers the same as the evening star, first in the aether; and after this the sun, and beneath this the stars in the fiery vault which he calls the heavens. 17; 346. Stars are fed from the exhalations of the earth. 20; 349. The sun is of a fiery nature. The sun and the moon are separated from the milky way, the one from the thinner mixture, which is hot, the other from the denser, which is cold. 25; 356. The moon is of a fiery nature. 26; 357. The moon is of the same size as the sun, and derives its light from it. 30; 361. (The moon appears dark) because darkness is mingled with its fiery nature, whence he calls it the star that shines with a false light.

Aet. iii. 1; 365 Cite

Aet. iii. 1; 365. The mixture of dense and thin gives its milk-like appearance to the milky way. 11; 377. Parmenides first defined the inhabited parts of the earth by the two tropical zones. 15; 380. Because the earth is equally distant on all sides from other bodies, and so rests in an equilibrium, not having any reason for swaying one way rather than another; on this account it only shakes and does not move from its place.

Aet. iv. 3; 388 Cite

Aet. iv. 3; 388. The soul is of a fiery nature. 5; 391. The reason is in the whole breast. 392. Life and intelligence are the same thing, nor could there be any living being entirely without reason. 9; 397. Sensations arise part by part according to the symmetry of the pores, each particular object of sense being adapted to each sense (organ). 398. Desire is produced by lack of nourishment.

Aet. v. 7; 419 Cite

Aet. v. 7; 419. Parmenides holds the opposite opinion; males are produced in the northern part, for this shares the greater density; and females in the southern part by reason of its rarefied state. 420. Some descend from the right side to the right parts of the womb, others from the left to the left parts of the womb; but if they cross in the descent females are born. 11; 422. When the child comes from the right side of the womb, it resembles the father; when it comes from the left side, the mother. 30; 443. Old age attends the failure of heat.

1. Fragment 1
2. Fragment 2
3. Fragment 3
4. Fragment 4

Fragment 1 Cite

For if, he says, anything were added to another being, it could not make it any greater; for since greatness does not exist, it is impossible to increase the greatness of a thing by adding to it. So that which is added would be nothing. If when something is taken away that which is left is no less, and if it becomes no greater by receiving additions, evidently that which has been added or taken away is nothing.

Source: Simpl. Phys. 30 r 139, 11.

Fragment 2 Cite

If there is a multiplicity of things, it is necessary that these should be just as many as exist, and not more nor fewer. If there are just as many as there are, then the number would be finite. If there is a multiplicity at all, the number is infinite, for there are always others between any two, and yet others between each pair of these. So the number of things is infinite.

Source: Simpl. Phys. 30 r 140, 29.

Fragment 3 Cite

if being did not have magnitude, it would not exist at all, if anything exists, it is necessary that each thing should have some magnitude and thickness, and that one part of it should be separated from another. The same argument applies to the thing that precedes this. That also will have magnitude and will have something before it. The same may be said of each thing once for all, for there will be no such thing as last, nor will one thing differ from another. So if there is a multiplicity of things, it is necessary that these should be great and small—small enough not to have any magnitude, and great enough to be infinite.

Source: Simpl. Phys. 30 v 141, 1.

Fragment 4 Cite

If there is such a thing as place, it will be in something, for all being is in something, and that which is in something is in some place. Then this place will be in a place, and so on indefinitely. Accordingly there is no such thing as place.

Source: Simpl. Phys. 130 ν 562, 4.

Contents — 18 sections

1. OF THE FRAGMENTS.
2. 30 r 138, 30
3. These things Zeno says, not denying the one, but holding that each thing has
4. Ibid. 30 v 140, 27
5. So by the process of division he shows that their number is infinite. And as to
6. Ibid. 130 v 562, 3
7. Ibid. 131 r 563, 17
8. Ibid. 236 v
9. 237 r
10. 255 r
11. (b) ZENO’S ARGUMENTS AS DESCRIBED BY ARISTOTLE.
12. Phys. iv. 1; 209 a 23
13. vi. 2; 233 a 21
14. vi. 9; 239 b 5
15. Plut
16. Epiph. adv. Haer. iii. 11; Dox. 590. Zeno the Eleatic, a dialectician equal to
17. Galen, Hist
18. Aet. i. 7; Dox. 303

OF THE FRAGMENTS. Cite

OF THE FRAGMENTS.

30 r 138, 30 Cite

30 r 138, 30. For Eudemos says in his Physics, ‘Then does not this exist, and is there any one? This was the problem. He reports Zeno as saying that if any one explains to him the one, what it is, he can tell him what things are. But he is puzzled, it seems, because each of the senses declares that there are many things, both absolutely, and as the result of division, but no one establishes the mathematical point. He thinks that what is not increased by receiving additions, or decreased as parts are taken away, is not one of the things that are.’ It was natural that Zeno, who, as if for the sake of exercise, argued both sides of a case (so that he is called double-tongued), should utter such statements raising difficulties about the one; but in his book which has many arguments in regard to each point, he shows that a man who affirms multiplicity naturally falls into contradictions. Among these arguments is one by which he shows that if there are many things, these are both small and great—great enough to be infinite in size, and small enough to be nothing in size. By this he shows that what has neither greatness nor thickness nor bulk could not even be.

These things Zeno says, not denying the one, but holding that each thing has Cite

These things Zeno says, not denying the one, but holding that each thing has the greatness of many and infinite things, since there is always something before that which is apprehended, by reason of its infinite divisibility; and this he proves by first showing that nothing has any greatness because each thing of the many is identical with itself and is one.

Ibid. 30 v 140, 27 Cite

Ibid. 30 v 140, 27. And why is it necessary to say that there is a multiplicity of things when it is set forth in Zeno’s own book? For again in showing that, if there is a multiplicity of things, the same things are both finite and infinite, Zeno writes as follows, to use his own words:

So by the process of division he shows that their number is infinite. And as to Cite

So by the process of division he shows that their number is infinite. And as to magnitude, he begins with this same argument. For first showing that

Ibid. 130 v 562, 3 Cite

Ibid. 130 v 562, 3. Zeno’s argument seems to deny that place exists, putting the question as follows:

Ibid. 131 r 563, 17 Cite

Ibid. 131 r 563, 17. Eudemos’ account of Zeno’s opinion runs as follows:—‘Zeno’s problem seems to come to the same thing. For it is natural that all being should be somewhere, and if there is a place for things, where would this place be? In some other place, and that in another, and so on indefinitely.’

Ibid. 236 v Cite

Ibid. 236 v. Zeno’s argument that when anything is in a space equal to itself, it is either in motion or at rest, and that nothing is moved in the present moment, and that the moving body is always in a space equal to itself at each present moment, may, I think, be put in a syllogism as follows: The arrow which is moving forward is at every present moment in a space equal to itself, accordingly it is <in a space equal to itself> in all time; but that which is in a space equal to itself in the present moment is not in motion. Accordingly it is in a state of rest, since it is not moved in the present moment, and that which is not moving is at rest, since everything is either in motion or at rest. So the arrow which is moving forward is at rest while it is moving forward, in every moment of its motion.

237 r Cite

237 r. The Achilles argument is so named because Achilles is named in it as the example, and the argument shows that if he pursued a tortoise it would be impossible for him to overtake it.

255 r Cite

255 r. Aristotle accordingly solves the problem of Zeno the Eleatic, which he propounded to Protagoras the Sophist. Tell me, Protagoras, said he, does one grain of millet make a noise when it falls, or does the ten-thousandth part of a grain? On receiving the answer that it does not, he went on: Does a measure of millet grains make a noise when it falls, or not? He answered, it does make a noise. Well, said Zeno, does not the statement about the measure of millet apply to the one grain and the ten-thousandth part of a grain? He assented, and Zeno continued, Are not the statements as to the noise the same in regard to each? For as are the things that make a noise, so are the noises. Since this is the case, if the measure of millet makes a noise, the one grain and the ten-thousandth part of a grain make a noise.

(b) ZENO’S ARGUMENTS AS DESCRIBED BY ARISTOTLE. Cite

(b) ZENO’S ARGUMENTS AS DESCRIBED BY ARISTOTLE.

Phys. iv. 1; 209 a 23 Cite

Phys. iv. 1; 209 a 23. Zeno’s problem demands some consideration; if all being is in some place, evidently there must be a place of this place, and so on indefinitely. 3; 210 b 22. It is not difficult to solve Zeno’s problem, that if place is anything, it will be in some place; there is no reason why the first place should not be in something else, not however as in that place, but just as health exists in warm beings as a state while warmth exists in matter as a property of it. So it is not necessary to assume an indefinite series of places.

vi. 2; 233 a 21 Cite

vi. 2; 233 a 21. (Time and space are continuous ... the divisions of time and space are the same.) Accordingly Zeno’s argument is erroneous, that it is not possible to traverse infinite spaces, or to come in contact with infinite spaces successively in a finite time. Both space and time can be called infinite in two ways, either absolutely as a continuous whole, or by division into the smallest parts. With infinites in point of quantity, it is not possible for anything to come in contact in a finite time, but it is possible in the case of the infinites reached by division, for time itself is infinite from this standpoint. So the result is that it traverses the infinite in an infinite, not a finite time, and that infinites, not finites, come in contact with infinites.

vi. 9; 239 b 5 Cite

vi. 9; 239 b 5. And Zeno’s reasoning is fallacious. For if, he says, everything is at rest [or in motion] when it is in a space equal to itself, and the moving body is always in the present moment <in a space equal to itself,> then the moving arrow is still. This is false; for time is not composed of present moments that are indivisible, nor indeed is any other quantity. Zeno presents four arguments concerning motion which involve puzzles to be solved, and the first of these shows that motion does not exist because the moving body must go half the distance before it goes the whole distance; of this we have spoken before (Phys. viii. 8; 263 a 5). And the second is called the Achilles argument; it is this:—The slow runner will never be overtaken by the swiftest, for it is necessary that the pursuer should first reach the point from which the pursued started, so that necessarily the slower is always somewhat in advance. This argument is the same as the preceding, the only difference being that the distance is not divided each time into halves.... His opinion is false that the one in advance is not overtaken; he is not indeed overtaken while he is in advance; but nevertheless he is overtaken, if you will grant that he passes through the limited space. These are the first two arguments, and the third is the one that has been alluded to, that the arrow in its flight is stationary. This depends on the assumption that time is composed of present moments; there will be no syllogism if this is not granted. And the fourth argument is with reference to equal bodies moving in opposite directions past equal bodies in the stadium with equal speed, some from the end of the stadium, others from the middle; in which case he thinks half the time equal to twice the time. The fallacy lies in the fact that while he postulates that bodies of equal size move forward with equal speed for an equal time, he compares the one with something in motion, the other with something at rest.

Plut Cite

Plut. Strom. 6; Dox. 581. Zeno the Eleatic brought out nothing peculiar to himself, but he started farther difficulties about these things.

Epiph. adv. Haer. iii. 11; Dox. 590. Zeno the Eleatic, a dialectician equal to Cite

Epiph. adv. Haer. iii. 11; Dox. 590. Zeno the Eleatic, a dialectician equal to the other Zeno, says that the earth does not move, and that no space is void of content. He speaks as follows:—That which is moved is moved in the place in which it is, or in the place in which it is not; it is neither moved in the place in which it is, nor in the place in which it is not; accordingly it is not moved at all.

Galen, Hist Cite

Galen, Hist. Phil. 3; Dox. 601. Zeno the Eleatic is said to have introduced the dialectic philosophy. 7; Dox. 604. He was a skeptic.

Aet. i. 7; Dox. 303 Cite

Aet. i. 7; Dox. 303. Melissos and Zeno say that the one is universal, and that it exists alone, eternal, and unlimited. And this one is necessity [Heeren inserts here the name Empedokles], and the material of it is the four elements, and the forms are strife and love. He says that the elements are gods, and the mixture of them is the world. The uniform will be resolved into them; he thinks that souls are divine, and that pure men who share these things in a pure way are divine. 23; 320. Zeno et al. denied generation and destruction, because they thought that the all is unmoved.

Contents — 17 sections

1. Fragment 1
2. Fragment 2
3. Fragment 3
4. Fragment 4
5. Fragment 5
6. Fragment 6 (DK B1)
7. Fragment 7 (DK B2)
8. Fragment 8
9. Fragment 9
10. Fragment 10 (DK B4)
11. Fragment 11
12. Fragment 12 (DK B6)
13. Fragment 13
14. Fragment 14
15. Fragment 15
16. Fragment 16 (DK B9)
17. Fragment 17 (DK B8)

Fragment 1 Cite

If nothing is, how could this be spoken of as though something is? And if anything is, either it has come into being, or else it always has been. If it came into being, it sprung either from being or from not-being; but it is impossible that any such thing should have sprung from not-being (for nothing else that is could have sprung from it, much less pure being); nor could it have sprung from being, for in that case it <would simply be, and> would not have come into existence. So then being is not generated; being always is, nor will it be destroyed. For being could not be changed into not-being (this also is conceded by the physicists), nor into being; for then it would abide as it is, and would not be destroyed. Accordingly being was not generated, nor will it be destroyed; so it always was and always will be.

Fragment 2 Cite

But while that which comes into existence has a beginning, that which does not come into existence does not have a beginning, and being which did not come into existence would not have a beginning. Farther, that which is destroyed has an end; but if anything is not subject to destruction, it does not have an end; and that which has neither beginning nor end is of course infinite; so being is infinite.

Fragment 3 Cite

And if it is infinite, it is one; for if being were two, both parts could not be infinite, but each would be limited by the other. But being is infinite; there could not be several beings; accordingly being is one.

Fragment 4 Cite

Farther, if being is one it does not move; for the one is always homogeneous [lit. like itself]; and that which is homogeneous could not perish or become greater or change its arrangement or suffer pain or annoyance. If it experienced any of these things it would not be one; for that which is moved with any sort of motion changes something from one thing into something different; but there is nothing else except being, so this will not be moved.

Fragment 5 Cite

To follow another line of argument: there is no place void of being, for the void is nothing; but that which is nothing could not exist; so then being is not moved: it is impossible for it to go anywhere, if there is no void. Nor is it possible for it to contract into itself, for in that case different degrees of density would arise, and this is impossible; for it is impossible that the rare should be as full as the dense; but the rare is more empty than the dense, and there is no such thing as emptiness. It is necessary to judge whether being is full or not by its capacity to receive something else: if it will not receive anything it is full; if it will receive something it is not full. Now if the void does not exist, it must of necessity be full; and if this is the case it does not move, not because it is impossible for it to move through space already filled, as we say of bodies, but because all being cannot be moved into being (for there is nothing besides itself), nor can being be moved into not-being, for not-being does not exist.

Fragment 6 (DK B1) Cite

What was, always was and always will be; for if it had come into existence, it necessarily would have been nothing before it came into existence. If now there were nothing existing, nothing would ever have come into existence from nothing.

Source: Phys. 34 v 162, 24.

Fragment 7 (DK B2) Cite

Since then it did not come into being but is, it always was and always will be, and has neither beginning nor end, but is infinite. For if it had come into existence it would have had a beginning (for that which once came into existence would have a beginning) and an end (for that which once came into existence would come to an end); if it neither had a beginning nor came to an end, it always was and always will be; it has not beginning or end; but it is impossible that anything which is not the whole should always exist.... l. 31.

Source: Simpl. Phys. 23 v 109, 20

Fragment 8 Cite

But as it always exists, so it is necessary also that it be always infinite in magnitude. l. 33.

Source: Simpl. Phys. 23 v 109, 20, l. 31.

Fragment 9 Cite

Nothing which has beginning and end is either eternal or infinite. l. 5

Source: Phys. 24 r 110, 1., l. 3.

Fragment 10 (DK B4) Cite

If it were not one, it would be bounded by something else.

Source: Phys. 24 r 110, 1., l. 5.

Fragment 11 Cite

So then the all is eternal and infinite and homogeneous; and it could neither perish nor become greater nor change its arrangement nor suffer pain or distress. If it experienced any of these things it would no longer be one; for if it becomes different, it is necessary that being should not be homogeneous, but that which was before must perish, and that which was not must come into existence. If then the all should become different by a single hair in ten thousand years, it would perish in the whole of time.

Source: Phys. 247 r 111, 19.

Fragment 12 (DK B6) Cite

And it is impossible for its order to change, for the order existing before does not perish, nor does another which did not exist come into being; and since nothing is added to it or subtracted from it or made different, how could any of the things that are change their order? But if anything became different, its order would already have been changed.

Source: Phys. 247 r 111, 19., l. 24.

Fragment 13 Cite

Nor does it suffer pain, for the all could not be pained; it would be impossible for anything suffering pain always to be; nor does it have power equal to the power of what is healthy. It would not be homogeneous if it suffered pain; it would suffer pain whenever anything was added or taken away, and it would no longer be homogeneous. Nor could what is healthy suffer a pang of pain, for both the healthy and being would perish, and not-being would come into existence. The same reasoning that applies to pain applies also to distress.

Source: Phys. 247 r 111, 19., l. 24.

Fragment 14 Cite

Nor is there any void, for the void is nothing, and that which is nothing could not be. Nor does it move, for it has nowhere to go to, since it is full; for if there were a void it could go into the void, but since there is no void it has nowhere to go to. It could not be rare and dense, for it is not possible for the rare to be as full as the dense, but the rare is already more empty than the dense. This is the test of what is full and what is not full: if it has room for anything, or admits anything into it, it is not full; if it does not have room for anything, or admit anything into it, it is full. If no void exists it must be full; if then it is full it does not move. These are the doctrines of Melissos.

Source: Phys. 247 r 111, 19., l. 6.

Fragment 15 Cite

If being is separated it moves; and that which moves could not exist simultaneously.

Source: Simpl. Phys. 23 v 109, 20, l. 33.

Fragment 16 (DK B9) Cite

If being exists it must be one, and being one it is necessary that it should not itself have body; (19; 87, 6) and if it should have thickness, it would have parts and would no longer be a unity. l. 3

Source: Phys. 24 r 110, 1.

Fragment 17 (DK B8) Cite

This argument is the strongest proof that being is one only. And the proofs are as follows: For if a multiplicity of things existed it would be necessary that these things should be just such as I say the one is. For if earth exists, and water and air and iron and gold and fire and the living and the dead and black and white, and everything else which men say is real,—if these things exist and we see and hear them correctly, it is necessary that each thing should be such as we first determined, namely, it should not change its character or become different, but should always be each thing what it is. Now we say that we see and hear and understand correctly; but it seems to us that hot becomes cold and cold hot, that hard becomes soft and soft hard, that the living being dies and life comes from what is not living; and that all these things become different, and what they are is not like what they were. It seems to us that iron, being hard to the touch, wastes away †becoming liquefied,† and so does gold, and rock, and whatever else seems to be strong, so that we conclude that we do not see or know things that are. And earth and rock arise from water. These things then do not harmonise with each other. Though we said that many things are eternal, and have forms and strength, it seems that they all become different and change their character each time they are seen. Evidently we do not see correctly, nor is the appearance of multiplicity correct; for they would not change their character if they were real, but would remain each thing as it seemed, for nothing is nobler than that which is real. But if they change their character, being perishes and not-being comes into existence. So then if a multiplicity of things exist, it is necessary that they should be such as the one is. (b) ARISTOTLE’S ACCOUNT OF MELISSOS.

Source: Simpl. de Coelo, 137 r; Schol. Aristot. 509 b 18; cf. Aristokl. Euseb. Pr. Ev. xiv. 17.

Contents — 14 sections

1. FRAGMENTS.
2. 22; 103, 13
3. 23; 109, 7
4. 24; 110, 1
5. 24; 111, 18
6. 34; 162, 24.
7. Simpl. de Coelo 137 r; Schol
8. Phys. i. 3; 186 a 6
9. Soph. Elen. 5; 163 b 13. The same is true of syllogisms, as for instance in the
10. Soph. Elen. 6; 164 b 35. Or again, as Melissos assumes in his argument that
11. Epiph. adv. Haer. iii. 12; Dox. 590. Melissos of Samos, son of Ithagenes, said
12. Aet
13. Aet. ii. 1; 327
14. Aet. iv. 9; 396

FRAGMENTS. Cite

FRAGMENTS.

22; 103, 13 Cite

22; 103, 13. Now let us glance at Melissos’ argument, which we ran across a few lines back. Melissos, making use of the axioms of the physicists, in regard to generation and destruction, begins his book as follows:

23; 109, 7 Cite

23; 109, 7. Melissos also is blamed because in his frequent references to the beginning he does not use the word to mean a beginning in time which applies to that which comes into existence, but rather to mean a logical beginning which does not apply to the things that are changing collectively. He seems to have seen clearly before Aristotle that all matter, even that which is eternal, being limited has a limited capacity, and in itself is always at the end of time, and because of the ever-moving beginning of that which passes, it is always at the beginning, and remains eternal, so that that which has beginning and end in quantity has also beginning and end in time, and the reverse; for that which has beginning and end in time is not everything simultaneously. So he bases his proof on beginning and end in time. Accordingly he says that that which is not everything—i.e. which is not the whole simultaneously—is not without beginning or end; what applies to things that are indivisible and infinite in their being, applies so much the more to pure being; and that all applies to being. Melissos puts it as follows:

24; 110, 1 Cite

24; 110, 1

24; 111, 18 Cite

24; 111, 18. Melissos bringing his previous topic to a conclusion goes on to consider motion.

34; 162, 24. Cite

34; 162, 24.

Simpl. de Coelo 137 r; Schol Cite

Simpl. de Coelo 137 r; Schol. Aristot. 509 b; cf. Aristokl. Euseb. Pr. Ev. xiv. 17.

Phys. i. 3; 186 a 6 Cite

Phys. i. 3; 186 a 6. Both Melissos and Parmenides argue fallaciously, and they make false assumptions and their reasonings are not logical; but the argument of Melissos is the more wearisome, for it sets no problem, but granted one strange thing, others follow; and there is no difficulty in this. The error in the reasoning of Melissos is plain, for he thinks that if everything which has come into being has a beginning, he can assume that that which has not come into being does not have a beginning. This, then, is strange, that he should think that everything has a beginning except time, and this does not, and that simple generation has no beginning but change alone begins, as though change as a whole did not come into being. Even if the all is a unity, why then should it not move? Why should not the whole be moved even as a part of it which is a unity, namely water, is moved in itself? Then why should there not be change? It is not possible that being should be one in form, but only in its source.

Soph. Elen. 5; 163 b 13. The same is true of syllogisms, as for instance in the Cite

Soph. Elen. 5; 163 b 13. The same is true of syllogisms, as for instance in the case of Melissos’ argument that the all is infinite; in this he assumes that the all is not generated (for nothing is generated from not-being), and that that which is generated, is generated from a beginning. If then the all was not generated, it does not have a beginning, so it is infinite. It is not necessary to assent to this, for even if everything which is generated has a beginning, it does not follow that if anything has a beginning it was generated, as a man with a fever is warm, but one who is warm may not have a fever.

Soph. Elen. 6; 164 b 35. Or again, as Melissos assumes in his argument that Cite

Soph. Elen. 6; 164 b 35. Or again, as Melissos assumes in his argument that generation and having a beginning are the same thing, or that that which is generated from equals has the same size. The two statements, that what is generated has a beginning, and that what has a beginning is generated, he deems equivalent, so that the generated and the limited are both the same in that they each have a beginning. Because what is generated has a beginning, he postulates that what has a beginning is generated, as though both that which is generated and that which is finite were the same in having a beginning.

Epiph. adv. Haer. iii. 12; Dox. 590. Melissos of Samos, son of Ithagenes, said Cite

Epiph. adv. Haer. iii. 12; Dox. 590. Melissos of Samos, son of Ithagenes, said that the all is one in kind, but that nothing is fixed in its nature, for all things are potentially destructible.

Aet Cite

Aet. Plac. i. 3; Dox. 285. Melissos of Miletos, son of Ithagenes, became his companion, but he did not preserve in its purity the doctrine that was transmitted to him. For he said in regard to the infinite that the world of those things that appear is limited. i. 7; 303. Melissos and Zeno say that the one is universal, and that it exists alone, eternal, and unlimited. And this unity is necessity [Heeren inserts here the name Empedokles], and the material of which it consists is the four elements, and the forms are love and strife. He calls the elements gods, and the mixture of them the world. And the uniform will be resolved. He thinks that souls are divine, and that pure men who share these things in a pure way are divine. i. 24; 320. Melissos (et al.) deny generation and destruction, because they think that the all is unmoved.

Aet. ii. 1; 327 Cite

Aet. ii. 1; 327. Melissos (et al.): The universe is one. 328. The all is infinite, but the world is limited. 4; 332. Melissos (et al.): The world is not generated, not to be destroyed, eternal.

Aet. iv. 9; 396 Cite

Aet. iv. 9; 396. Melissos (et al.): Sensations are deceptive.

Contents — 55 sections

1. Phaedo 62 B
2. Kratyl. 400 B
3. Gorg. 493 A
4. Gorg. 507 E
5. PASSAGES IN ARISTOTLE REFERRING TO THE PYTHAGOREANS.
6. Phys. iii. 4; 203 a 1
7. iii. 4; 204 a 33
8. iv. 6; 213 b 22
9. De coel. i. 1; 268 a 10
10. ii. 2; 284 b 6
11. ii. 2; 285 a 10
12. ii. 2; 285 b 23
13. ii. 9; 290 b 15
14. ii. 9; 291 a 7
15. ii. 13; 293 a 19
16. iii. 1; 300 a 15
17. Metaphys. i. 5; 985 b 23-986 b 8
18. †And further, discerning in numbers the conditions and reasons of harmonies
19. A different party in this same school say that the first principles are ten,
20. 987 a 9-27
21. i. 6; 987 b 10
22. i. 6; 987 b 22
23. i. 8; 989 b 32-990 a 32
24. ii. 1; 996 a 4
25. ii. 4; 1001 a 9
26. 1036 b 17
27. ix. 2; 1053 b 11
28. xi. 7; 1072 b 31
29. xii. 4; 1078 b 21
30. xii. 6; 1080 b 16
31. xii. 8; 1083 b 9
32. xiii. 3; 1090 a 20
33. Eth. i. 4; 1096 b 5
34. ii. 5; 1106 b 29
35. v. 8; 1132 b 21
36. Mor. i. 1; 1118 a 11
37. PYTHAGORAS AND THE PYTHAGOREANS: PASSAGES IN THE DOXOGRAPHISTS.
38. Aet
39. Aet. i. 7; Dox. 302
40. Aet
41. Aet
42. Aet. iii. 2; 366
43. Aet. iv. 2; Dox. 386
44. Aet
45. Ar. Did. Ep. Fr. 32; Dox. 467. Apollodoros in the second book Concerning the
46. Theophr
47. Cic. de Deor
48. Hippol
49. Number is the first principle, a thing which is undefined, incomprehensible,
50. All numbers, then, taken by classes are fours (for number is undefined in
51. He said that the soul is immortal, and that it changes from one body to
52. He perished in a conflagration with his disciples in Kroton in Italy. And it
53. Epiph. Pro. i.; Dox. 587. Pythagoras laid down the doctrine of the monad and of
54. Epiph. Haer. iii. 8; Dox. 390. Pythagoras the Samian, son of Mnesarchos, said
55. Herm

Phaedo 62 B Cite

Phaedo 62 B. The saying that is uttered in secret rites, to the effect that we men are in a sort of prison, and that one ought not to loose himself from it nor yet to run away, seems to me something great and not easy to see through; but this at least I think is well said, that it is the gods who care for us, and we men are one of the possessions of the gods.

Kratyl. 400 B Cite

Kratyl. 400 B. For some say that it (the body) is the tomb of the soul—I think it was the followers of Orpheus in particular who introduced this word—which has this enclosure like a prison in order that it may be kept safe.

Gorg. 493 A Cite

Gorg. 493 A. I once heard one of the wise men say that now we are dead and the body is our tomb, and that that part of the soul where desires are, it so happens, is open to persuasion, and moves upward or downward. And, indeed, a clever man—perhaps some inhabitant of Sicily or Italy—speaking allegorically, and taking the word from ‘credible’ (πίθανος) and ‘persuadable’ (πιστικός), called this a jar (πίθος); and he called those without intelligence uninitiated, and that part of the soul of uninitiated persons where the desires are, he called its intemperateness, and said it was not watertight, as a jar might be pierced with holes—using the simile because of its insatiate desires.

Gorg. 507 E Cite

Gorg. 507 E. And the wise men say that one community embraces heaven and earth and gods and men and friendship and order and temperance and righteousness, and for that reason they call this whole a universe, my friend, for it is not without order nor yet is there excess. It seems to me that you do not pay attention to these things, though you are wise in regard to them. But it has escaped your notice that geometrical equality prevails widely among both gods and men.

PASSAGES IN ARISTOTLE REFERRING TO THE PYTHAGOREANS. Cite

PASSAGES IN ARISTOTLE REFERRING TO THE PYTHAGOREANS.

Phys. iii. 4; 203 a 1 Cite

Phys. iii. 4; 203 a 1. For all who think they have worthily applied themselves to such philosophy, have discoursed concerning the infinite, and they all have asserted some first principle of things—some, like the Pythagoreans and Plato, a first principle existing by itself, not connected with anything else, but being itself the infinite in its essence. Only the Pythagoreans found it among things perceived by sense (for they say that number is not an abstraction), and they held that it was the infinite outside the heavens.

iii. 4; 204 a 33 Cite

iii. 4; 204 a 33. (The Pythagoreans) both hold that the infinite is being, and divide it.

iv. 6; 213 b 22 Cite

iv. 6; 213 b 22. And the Pythagoreans say that there is a void, and that it enters into the heaven itself from the infinite air, as though it (the heaven) were breathing; and this void defines the natures of things, inasmuch as it is a certain separation and definition of things that lie together; and this is true first in the case of numbers, for the void defines the nature of these.

De coel. i. 1; 268 a 10 Cite

De coel. i. 1; 268 a 10. For as the Pythagoreans say, the all and all things are defined by threes; for end and middle and beginning constitute the number of the all, and also the number of the triad.

ii. 2; 284 b 6 Cite

ii. 2; 284 b 6. And since there are some who say that there is a right and left of the heavens, as, for instance, those that are called Pythagoreans (for such is their doctrine), we must investigate whether it is as they say.

ii. 2; 285 a 10 Cite

ii. 2; 285 a 10. Wherefore one of the Pythagoreans might be surprised in that they say that there are only these two first principles, the right and the left, and they pass over four of them as not having the least validity; for there is no less difference up and down, and front and back than there is right and left in all creatures.

ii. 2; 285 b 23 Cite

ii. 2; 285 b 23. And some are dwelling in the upper hemisphere and to the right, while we dwell below and to the left, which is the opposite to what the Pythagoreans say; for they put us above and to the right, while the others are below and at the left.

ii. 9; 290 b 15 Cite

ii. 9; 290 b 15. Some think it necessary that noise should arise when so great bodies are in motion, since sound does arise from bodies among us which are not so large and do not move so swiftly; and from the sun and moon and from the stars in so great number, and of so great size, moving so swiftly, there must necessarily arise a sound inconceivably great. Assuming these things and that the swiftness has the principle of harmony by reason of the intervals, they say that the sound of the stars moving on in a circle becomes musical. And since it seems unreasonable that we also do not hear this sound, they say that the reason for this is that the noise exists in the very nature of things, so as not to be distinguishable from the opposite silence; for the distinction of sound and silence lies in their contrast with each other, so that as blacksmiths think there is no difference between them because they are accustomed to the sound, so the same thing happens to men.

ii. 9; 291 a 7 Cite

ii. 9; 291 a 7. What occasions the difficulty and makes the Pythagoreans say that there is a harmony of the bodies as they move, is a proof. For whatever things move themselves make a sound and noise; but whatever things are fastened in what moves or exist in it as the parts in a ship, cannot make a noise, nor yet does the ship if it moves in a river.

ii. 13; 293 a 19 Cite

ii. 13; 293 a 19. They say that the whole heaven is limited, the opposite to what those of Italy, called the Pythagoreans, say; for these say that fire is at the centre and that the earth is one of the stars, and that moving in a circle about the centre it produces night and day. And they assume yet another earth opposite this which they call the counter-earth [ἀντίχθων], not seeking reasons and causes for phenomena, but stretching phenomena to meet certain assumptions and opinions of theirs and attempting to arrange them in a system.... And farther the Pythagoreans say that the most authoritative part of the All stands guard, because it is specially fitting that it should, and this part is the centre; and this place that the fire occupies, they call the guard of Zeus, as it is called simply the centre, that is, the centre of space and the centre of matter and of nature.

iii. 1; 300 a 15 Cite

iii. 1; 300 a 15. The same holds true for those who construct the heaven out of numbers; for some construct nature out of numbers, as do certain of the Pythagoreans.

Metaphys. i. 5; 985 b 23-986 b 8 Cite

Metaphys. i. 5; 985 b 23-986 b 8. With these and before them (Anaxagoras, Empedokles, Atomists) those called Pythagoreans applying themselves to the sciences, first developed them; and being brought up in them they thought that the first principles of these (i.e. numbers) were the first principles of all things. And since of these (sciences) numbers are by nature the first, in numbers rather than in fire and earth and water they thought they saw many likenesses to things that are and that are coming to be, as, for instance, justice is such a property of numbers, and soul and mind are such a property, and another is opportunity, and of other things one may say the same of each one.

†And further, discerning in numbers the conditions and reasons of harmonies Cite

†And further, discerning in numbers the conditions and reasons of harmonies also†; since, moreover, other things seemed to be like numbers in their entire nature, and numbers were the first of every nature, they assumed that the elements of numbers were the elements of all things, and that the whole heavens were harmony and number. And whatever characteristics in numbers and harmonies they could show were in agreement with the properties of the heavens and its parts and with its whole arrangement, these they collected and adapted; and if there chanced to be any gap anywhere, they eagerly sought that the whole system might be connected with these (stray phenomena). To give an example of my meaning: inasmuch as ten seemed to be the perfect number and to embrace the whole nature of numbers, they asserted that the number of bodies moving through the heavens were ten, and when only nine were visible, for the reason just stated they postulated the counter-earth as the tenth. We have given a more definite account of these thinkers in other parts of our writings. But we have referred to them here with this purpose in view, that we might ascertain from them what they asserted as the first principles and in what manner they came upon the causes that have been enumerated. They certainly seem to consider number as the first principle and as it were the matter in things and in their conditions and states; and the odd and the even are elements of number, and of these the one is infinite and the other finite, and unity is the product of both of them, for it is both odd and even, and number arises from unity, and the whole heaven, as has been said, is numbers.

A different party in this same school say that the first principles are ten, Cite

A different party in this same school say that the first principles are ten, named according to the following table:—finite and infinite, even and odd, one and many, right and left, male and female, rest and motion, straight and crooked, light and darkness, good and bad, square and oblong. After this manner Alkmaeon of Kroton seems to have conceived them, and either he received this doctrine from them or they from him; for Alkmaeon arrived at maturity when Pythagoras was an old man, and his teachings resembled theirs. For he says that most human affairs are twofold, not meaning opposites reached by definition, as did the former party, but opposites by chance—as, for example, white-black, sweet-bitter, good-bad, small-great. This philosopher let fall his opinions indefinitely about the rest, but the Pythagoreans declared the number of the opposites and what they were. From both one may learn this much, that opposites are the first principles of things; but from the latter he may learn the number of these, and what they are. But how it is possible to bring them into relation with the causes of which we have spoken if they have not clearly worked out; but they seem to range their elements under the category of matter, for they say that being is compounded and formed from them, and that they inhere in it.

987 a 9-27 Cite

987 a 9-27. Down to the Italian philosophers and with the exception of them the rest have spoken more reasonably about these principles, except that, as we said, they do indeed use two principles, and the one of these, whence is motion, some regard as one and others as twofold. The Pythagoreans, however, while they in similar manner assume two first principles, add this which is peculiar to themselves: that they do not think that the finite and the infinite and the one are certain other things by nature, such as fire or earth or any other such thing, but the infinite itself and unity itself are the essence of the things of which they are predicated, and so they make number the essence of all things. So they taught after this manner about them, and began to discourse and to define what being is, but they made it altogether too simple a matter. For they made their definitions superficially, and to whatever first the definition might apply, this they thought to be the essence of the matter; as if one should say that twofold and two were the same, because the twofold subsists in the two. But undoubtedly the two and the twofold are not the same; otherwise the one will be many—a consequence which even they would not draw. So much then may be learned from the earlier philosophers and from their successors.

i. 6; 987 b 10 Cite

i. 6; 987 b 10. And Plato only changed the name, for the Pythagoreans say that things exist by imitation of numbers, but Plato, by sharing the nature of numbers.

i. 6; 987 b 22 Cite

i. 6; 987 b 22. But that the one is the real essence of things, and not something else with unity as an attribute, he affirms, agreeing with the Pythagoreans; and in harmony with them he affirms that numbers are the principles of being for other things. But it is peculiar to him that instead of a single infinite he posits a double infinite, an infinite of greatness and of littleness; and it is also peculiar to him that he separates numbers from things that are seen, while they say that numbers are the things themselves, and do not interpose mathematical objects between them. This separation of the one and numbers from things, in contrast with the position of the Pythagoreans, and the introduction of ideas, are the consequence of his investigation by concepts.

i. 8; 989 b 32-990 a 32 Cite

i. 8; 989 b 32-990 a 32. Those, however, who carry on their investigation with reference to all things, and divide things into what are perceived and what are not perceived by sense, evidently examine both classes, so one must delay a little longer over what they say. They speak correctly and incorrectly in reference to the questions now before us. Now those who are called Pythagoreans use principles and elements yet stranger than those of the physicists, in that they do not take them from the sphere of sense, for mathematical objects are without motion, except in the case of astronomy. Still, they discourse about everything in nature and study it; they construct the heaven, they observe what happens in its parts †and their states and motions†; they apply to these their first principles and causes, as though they agreed entirely with the other physicists that being is only what is perceptible and what that which is called heaven includes. But their causes and first principles, they say, are such as to lead up to the higher parts of reality, and are in harmony with this rather than with the doctrines of nature. In what manner motion will take place when finite and infinite, odd and even, are the only underlying realities, they do not say; nor how it is possible for genesis and destruction to take place without motion and change, or for the heavenly bodies to revolve. Farther, if one grant to them that greatness arises from these principles, or if this could be proved, nevertheless, how will it be that some bodies are light and some heavy? For their postulates and statements apply no more to mathematical objects than to things of sense; accordingly they have said nothing at all about fire or earth or any such objects, because I think they have no distinctive doctrine about things of sense. Farther, how is it necessary to assume that number and states of number are the causes of what is in the heavens and what is taking place there from the beginning and now, and that there is no other number than that out of which the world is composed? For when opinion and opportune time are at a certain point in the heavens, and a little farther up or down are injustice and judgment or a mixture of them, and they bring forward as proof that each one of these is number, and the result then is that at this place there is already a multitude of compounded quantities because those states of number have each their place—is this number in heaven the same which it is necessary to assume that each of these things is, or is it something different? Plato says it is different; still, he thinks that both these things and the causes of them are numbers; but the one class are ideal causes, and the others are sense causes.

ii. 1; 996 a 4 Cite

ii. 1; 996 a 4. And the most difficult and perplexing question of all is whether unity and being are not, as Plato and the Pythagoreans say, something different from things but their very essence, or whether the underlying substance is something different, friendship, as Empedokles says, or as another says, fire, or water, or air.

ii. 4; 1001 a 9 Cite

ii. 4; 1001 a 9. Plato and the Pythagoreans assert that neither being nor yet unity is something different from things, but that it is the very nature of them, as though essence itself consisted in unity and existence.

1036 b 17 Cite

1036 b 17. So it turns out that many things of which the forms appear different have one form, as the Pythagoreans discovered; and one can say that there is one form for everything, and the others are not forms; and thus all things will be one.

ix. 2; 1053 b 11 Cite

ix. 2; 1053 b 11. Whether the one itself is a sort of essence, as first the Pythagoreans and later Plato affirmed....

xi. 7; 1072 b 31 Cite

xi. 7; 1072 b 31. And they are wrong who assume, as do the Pythagoreans and Speusippos, that the most beautiful and the best is not in the first principle, because the first principles of plants and animals are indeed causes; for that which is beautiful and perfect is in what comes from these first principles.

xii. 4; 1078 b 21 Cite

xii. 4; 1078 b 21. The Pythagoreans (before Demokritos) only defined a few things, the concepts of which they reduced to numbers, as for instance opportunity or justice or marriage....

xii. 6; 1080 b 16 Cite

xii. 6; 1080 b 16. The Pythagoreans say that there is but one number, the mathematical, but things of sense are not separated from this, for they are composed of it; indeed, they construct the whole heaven out of numbers, but not out of unit numbers, for they assume that the unities have quantity; but how the first unity was so constituted as to have quantity, they seem at a loss to say. b 31. All, as many as regard the one as the element and first principle of things, except the Pythagoreans, assert that numbers are based on the unit; but the Pythagoreans assert, as has been remarked, that numbers have quantity.

xii. 8; 1083 b 9 Cite

xii. 8; 1083 b 9. The Pythagorean standpoint has on the one hand fewer difficulties than those that have been discussed, but it has new difficulties of its own. The fact that they do not regard number as separate, removes many of the contradictions; but it is impossible that bodies should consist of numbers, and that this number should be mathematical. Nor is it true that indivisible elements have quantity; but, granted that they have this quality of indivisibility, the units have no quantity; for how can quantity be composed of indivisible elements? but arithmetical number consists of units. But these say that things are number; at least, they adapt their speculations to such bodies as consist of elements which are numbers.

xiii. 3; 1090 a 20 Cite

xiii. 3; 1090 a 20. On the other hand the Pythagoreans, because they see many qualities of numbers in bodies perceived by sense, regard objects as numbers, not as separate numbers, but as derived from numbers. And why? Because the qualities of numbers exist in harmony both in the heaven and in many other things. But for those who hold that number is mathematical only, it is impossible on the basis of their hypothesis to say any such thing; and it has already been remarked that there can be no science of these numbers. But we say, as above, that there is a science of numbers. Evidently the mathematical does not exist apart by itself, for in that case its qualities could not exist in bodies. In such a matter the Pythagoreans are restrained by nothing; when, however, they construct out of numbers physical bodies—out of numbers that have neither weight nor lightness, bodies that have weight and lightness—they seem to be speaking about another heaven and other bodies than those perceived by sense.

Eth. i. 4; 1096 b 5 Cite

Eth. i. 4; 1096 b 5. And the Pythagoreans seem to speak more persuasively about it, putting the unity in the co-ordination of good things.

ii. 5; 1106 b 29 Cite

ii. 5; 1106 b 29. The evil partakes of the nature of the infinite, the good of the finite, as the Pythagoreans conjectured.

v. 8; 1132 b 21 Cite

v. 8; 1132 b 21. Reciprocity seems to some to be absolutely just, as the Pythagoreans say; for these defined the just as that which is reciprocal to another.

Mor. i. 1; 1118 a 11 Cite

Mor. i. 1; 1118 a 11. First Pythagoras attempted to speak concerning virtue, but he did not speak correctly; for bringing virtues into correspondence with numbers, he did not make any distinct.

PYTHAGORAS AND THE PYTHAGOREANS: PASSAGES IN THE DOXOGRAPHISTS. Cite

PYTHAGORAS AND THE PYTHAGOREANS: PASSAGES IN THE DOXOGRAPHISTS.

Aet Cite

Aet. Plac. i. 3; Dox. 280. And again from another starting-point, Pythagoras, son of Mnesarchos, a Samian, who was the first to call this matter by the name of philosophy, assumed as first principles the numbers and the symmetries existing in them, which he calls harmonies, and the elements compounded of both, that are called geometrical. And again he includes the monad and the undefined dyad among the first principles; and for him one of the first principles tends toward the creative and form-giving cause, which is intelligence, that is god, and the other tends toward the passive and material cause, which is the visible universe. And he says that the starting-point of number is the decad; for all Greeks and all barbarians count as far as ten, and when they get as far as this they return to the monad. And again, he says, the power of the ten is in the four and the tetrad. And the reason is this: if any one †returning† from the monad adds the numbers in a series as far as the four, he will fill out the number ten (i.e. 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 = 10); but if he goes beyond the number of the tetrad, he will exceed the ten. Just as if one should add one and two and should add to these three and four, he will fill out the number ten; so that according to the monad number is in the ten, but potentially in the four. Wherefore the Pythagoreans were wont to speak as though the greatest oath were the tetrad: ‘By him that transmitted to our soul the tetraktys, which has the spring and root of ever-flowing nature.’ And our soul, he says, is composed of the tetrad; for it is intelligence, understanding, opinion, sense, from which things come every art and science, and we ourselves become reasoning beings. The monad, however, is intelligence, for intelligence sees according to the monad. As for example, men are made up of many parts, and part by part they are devoid of sense and comprehension and experience, yet we perceive that man as one alone, whom no being resembles, possesses these qualities; and we perceive that a horse is one, but part by part it is without experience. For these are all forms and classes according to monads. Wherefore, assigning this limit with reference to each one of these, they speak of a reasoning being and a neighing being. On this account then the monad is intelligence by which we perceive these things. And the undefined dyad is science; fittingly, for all proof and all persuasion is part of science, and farther every syllogism brings together what is questioned out of some things that are agreed upon, and easily proves something else; and science is the comprehension of these things, wherefore it would be the dyad. And opinion as the result of comprehending them is the triad; fittingly, for opinion has to do with many things; and the triad is quantity, as ‘The thrice-blessed Danaoi.’ On this account then he includes the triad.... And their sect is called Italic because Pythagoras taught in Italy, for he removed from Samos, his fatherland, because of dissatisfaction with the tyranny of Polykrates.

Aet. i. 7; Dox. 302 Cite

Aet. i. 7; Dox. 302. Pythagoras held that one of the first principles, the monad, is god and the good, which is the origin of the One, and is itself intelligence; but the undefined dyad is a divinity and the bad, surrounding which is the mass of matter. i. 8; 307. Divine spirits [δαίμονες] are psychical beings; and heroes are souls separated from bodies, good heroes are good souls, bad heroes are bad souls. i. 9; 307. The followers of Thales and Pythagoras and the Stoics held that matter is variable and changeable and transformable and in a state of flux, the whole through the whole. i. 10; 309. Pythagoras asserted that the so-called forms and ideas exist in numbers and their harmonies, and in what are called geometrical objects, apart from bodies. i. 11; 310. Pythagoras and Aristotle asserted that the first causes are immaterial, but that other causes involve a union or contact with material substance [so that the world is material]. i. 14; 312. The followers of Pythagoras held that the universe is a sphere according to the form of the four elements; but the highest fire alone is conical. i. 15; 314. The Pythagoreans call colour the manifestation of matter. i. 16; 314. Bodies are subject to change of condition, and are divisible to infinity. i. 18; 316. (After quotation from Arist. Phys. iv. 4; 212 a 20) And in his first book on the philosophy of Pythagoras he writes that the heaven is one, and that time and wind and the void which always defines the places of each thing, are introduced from the infinite. And among other things he says that place is the immovable limit of what surrounds the world, or that in which bodies abide and are moved; and that it is full when it surrounds body on every side, and empty when it has absolutely nothing in itself. Accordingly it is necessary for place to exist, and body; and it is never empty except only from the standpoint of thought, for the nature of it in perpetuity is destructive of the interrelation of things and of the combination of bodies; and motions arise according to place of bodies that surround and oppose each other; and no infiniteness is lacking, either of quantity or of extent. i. 20; 318. Pythagoras said that time is the sphere of what surrounds the world. i. 21; 318. Pythagoras, Plato: Motion is a certain otherness or difference in matter. [This is the common limit of all motion.] i. 24; 320. Pythagoras and all that assume that matter is subject to change assert that genesis and destruction in an absolute sense take place; for from change of the elements and modification and separation of them there take place juxtaposition and mixture, and intermingling and melting together.

Aet Cite

Aet. Plac. ii. 1; 327. Pythagoras first named the circumference of all things the universe by reason of the order in it. ii. 4; 330. Pythagoras, Plato, and the Stoics held that the universe is brought into being by god. And it is perishable so far as its nature is concerned, for it is perceived by sense, and therefore material; it will not however be destroyed in accordance with the foreknowledge and plan of god. ii. 6; 334. Pythagoras: The universe is made from five solid figures, which are called also mathematical; of these he says that earth has arisen from the cube, fire from the pyramid, air from the octahedron, and water from the icosahedron, and the sphere of the all from the dodecahedron. ii. 9; 338. The followers of Pythagoras hold that there is a void outside the universe into which the universe breathes forth, and from which it breathes in. ii. 10; 339. Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle: The right hand side of the universe is the eastern part from which comes the beginning of motion, and the left hand side is the west. They say the universe has neither height nor depth, in which statement height means distance from below upwards, and depth from above downwards. For none of the distances thus described exist for the universe, inasmuch as it is disposed around the middle of itself, from which it extends toward the all, and with reference to which it is the same on every side. ii. 12; 340. Thales, Pythagoras, and their followers: The sphere of the whole heaven is divided into five circles, which they call zones; the first of these is called the arctic zone and is ever visible; the second the summer solstice, the third the equinoctial, the fourth the winter solstice, and fifth the antarctic zone, which is invisible. And the ecliptic called the zodiac in the three middle ones is projected to touch the three middle ones. And the meridian crosses all these from the north to the opposite quarter at right angles. It is said that Pythagoras was the first to recognise the slant of the zodiacal circle which Oenopides of Chios appropriated as his own discovery. ii. 13; 343. Herakleides and the Pythagoreans asserted that each world [κόσμος] of the stars is air and aether surrounding earth in the infinite aether. And these doctrines are brought out in the Orphic writings, for they construct each world of the stars. ii. 22; 352. The Pythagoreans: The sun is spherical. ii. 23; 353. Plato, Pythagoras, Aristotle: The solstices lie along the slant of the zodiacal circle, through which the sun goes along the zodiac, and with the accompaniment of the tropic circles; and all these things also the globe shows. ii. 24; 354. An eclipse takes place when the moon comes past. ii. 25; 357. Pythagoras: The moon is a mirror-like body. i. 29; 360. Some of the Pythagoreans (according to the Aristotelian account and the statement of Philip the Opuntian) said that an eclipse of the moon takes place, sometimes by the interposition of the earth, sometimes by the interposition of the counter-earth [ἀντίχθων]. But it seems to some more recent thinkers that it takes place by a spreading of the flame little by little as it is gradually kindled, until it gives the complete full moon, and again, in like manner, it grows less until the conjunction, when it is completely extinguished. ii. 30; 361. Some of the Pythagoreans, among them Philolaos, said that the earthy appearance of the moon is due to its being inhabited by animals and by plants, like those on our earth, only greater and more beautiful; for the animals on it are fifteen times as powerful, not having any sort of excrement, and their day is fifteen times as long as ours. But others said that the outward appearance in the moon is a reflection on the other side of the inflamed circle of the sea that is on our earth. ii. 32; 364. Some regard the greater year ... as the sixty year period, among whom are Oenopides and Pythagoras.

Aet Cite

Aet. Plac. iii. 1; Dox. 364. Some of the Pythagoreans said that the milky way is the burning of a star that fell from its own foundation, setting on fire the region through which it passed in a circle, as Phaethon was burned. And others say that the course of the sun arose in this manner at the first. And certain ones say that the appearance of the sun is like a mirror reflecting its rays toward the heaven, and therefore it happens at times to reflect its rays on the rainbow in the clouds.

Aet. iii. 2; 366 Cite

Aet. iii. 2; 366. Some of the followers of Pythagoras say that the comet is one of the stars that are not always shining, but emit their light periodically through a certain definite time; but others say that it is the reflection of our vision into the sun, like reflected images. iii. 14; 378. Pythagoras: The earth, after the analogy of the sphere of the all, is divided into five zones, arctic, antarctic, summer, winter, and equinoctial; of these the middle one he defines to be the middle of the earth, called for this very reason the torrid zone; but the inhabited one [the one between the arctic and the torrid zones] being well-tempered....

Aet. iv. 2; Dox. 386 Cite

Aet. iv. 2; Dox. 386. Pythagoras holds that number moves itself, and he takes number as an equivalent for intelligence. iv. 4; 389. Pythagoras, Plato: According to a superficial account the soul is of two parts, the one possessing, the other lacking, reason; but according to close and exact examination, of three parts; for the unreasoning part they divide into the emotions and the desires. (Theodor. v. 20); Dox. 390. The successors of Pythagoras saying that body is a mixture of five elements (for they ranked the aether as a fifth along with the four) held that the powers of the soul are of the same number as these. And these they name intelligence and wisdom and understanding and opinion and sense-perception. iv. 5; 391. Pythagoras: The principle of life is about the heart, but the principle of reason and intelligence is about the head. iv. 5; 392. Pythagoras et al.: The intelligence enters from without. iv. 7; 392. Pythagoras, Plato: The soul is imperishable. iv. 9; 396. Pythagoras et al.: The sense-perceptions are deceptive. iv. 9; 397. Pythagoras, Plato: Each of the sensations is pure, proceeding from each single element. With reference to vision, it was of the nature of aether; hearing, of the nature of wind; smell, of the nature of fire; taste, of the nature of moisture; touch, of the nature of earth. iv. 14; 405. The followers of Pythagoras and of the mathematicians on reflections of vision: For vision moves directly as it were against the bronze [of a mirror], and meeting with a firm smooth surface it is turned and bent back on itself, meeting some such experience as when the arm is extended and then bent back to the shoulder. iv. 20; 409. Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle: Sound is immaterial. For it is not air, but it is the form about the air and the appearance [ἐπιφανεία] after some sort of percussion which becomes sound; and every appearance is immaterial; for it moves with bodies, but is itself absolutely immaterial; as in the case of a bent rod the surface-appearance suffers no change, but the matter is what is bent.

Aet Cite

Aet. Plac. v. 1; 415. Pythagoras did not admit the sacrificial part alone (of augury). v. 3; 417. Pythagoras: The seed is foam of the best part of the blood, a secretion from the nourishment, like blood and marrow. v. 4; 417. Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle: The power of seed is immaterial, like intelligence, the moving power; but the matter that is poured forth is material. v. 20; 432. Pythagoras, Plato: The souls of animals called unreasoning are reasonable, not however with active reasoning powers, because of an imperfect mixture of the bodies and because they do not have the power of speech, as in the case of apes and dogs; for these have intelligence but not the power of speech.

Ar. Did. Ep. Fr. 32; Dox. 467. Apollodoros in the second book Concerning the Cite

Ar. Did. Ep. Fr. 32; Dox. 467. Apollodoros in the second book Concerning the gods: It is the Pythagorean opinion that the morning and the evening star are the same.

Theophr Cite

Theophr. Phys. Op. Fr. 17; Dox. 492. Favorinus says that he (Pythagoras) was the first to call the heavens a universe and the earth round [στρογγύλην].

Cic. de Deor Cite

Cic. de Deor. Nat. i. 11; Philod. piet. Fr. c 4 b; Dox. 533. For Pythagoras, who held that soul is extended through all the nature of things and mingled with them, and that from this our souls are taken, did not see that god would be separated and torn apart by the separation of human souls; and when souls are wretched, as might happen to many, then part of god would be wretched; a thing which could not happen.

Hippol Cite

Hippol. Phil. 2; Dox. 555. There is a second philosophy not far distant from the same time, of which Pythagoras, whom some call a Samian, was the first representative. And this they call the Italian philosophy because Pythagoras fled the rule of Polykrates over the Samians and settled in a city of Italy where he spent his life. The successive leaders of this sect shared the same spirit. And he in his studies of nature mingled astronomy and geometry and music <and arithmetic>. And thus he asserted that god is a monad, and examining the nature of number with especial care, he said that the universe produces melody and is put together with harmony, and he first proved the motion of the seven stars to be rhythm and melody. And in wonder at the structure of the universe, he decreed that at first his disciples should be silent, as it were mystae who were coming into the order of the all; then when he thought they had sufficient education in the principles of truth, and had sought wisdom sufficiently in regard to stars and in regard to nature, he pronounced them pure and then bade them speak. He separated his disciples into two groups, and called one esoteric, and the other exoteric. To the former he entrusted the more perfect sciences, to the latter the more moderate. And he dealt with magic, as they say, and himself discovered the art of physiognomy. Postulating both numbers and measures he was wont to say that the first principle of arithmetic embraced philosophy by combination, after the following manner:

Number is the first principle, a thing which is undefined, incomprehensible, Cite

Number is the first principle, a thing which is undefined, incomprehensible, having in itself all numbers which could reach infinity in amount. And the first principle of numbers is in substance the first monad, which is a male monad, begetting as a father all other numbers. Secondly the dyad is female number, and the same is called by the arithmeticians even. Thirdly the triad is male number; this the arithmeticians have been wont to call odd. Finally the tetrad is a female number, and the same is called even because it is female.

All numbers, then, taken by classes are fours (for number is undefined in Cite

All numbers, then, taken by classes are fours (for number is undefined in reference to class), of which is composed the perfect number, the decad. For the series, one two three and four, becomes ten, if its own name is kept in its essence by each of the numbers. Pythagoras said that this sacred tetraktys is ‘the spring having the roots of ever-flowing nature’ in itself, and from this numbers have their first principle. For the eleven and the twelve and the rest derive from the ten the first principle of their being. The four parts of the decad, this perfect number, are called number, monad, power, and cube. And the interweavings and minglings of these in the origin of growth are what naturally completes nascent number; for when a power is multiplied upon itself, it is the power of a power; and when a power is multiplied on a cube, it is the power of a cube; and when a cube is multiplied on a cube, the cube of a cube; thus all numbers, from which arises the genesis of what arises, are seven:—number, monad, power, cube, power of a power, power of a cube, cube of a cube.

He said that the soul is immortal, and that it changes from one body to Cite

He said that the soul is immortal, and that it changes from one body to another; so he was wont to say that he himself had been born before the Trojan war as Aethalides, and at the time of the Trojan war as Euphorbos, and after that as Hermotimos of Samos, then as Pyrrhos of Delos, fifth as Pythagoras. And Diodoros of Eretria and Aristoxenos the musician say that Pythagoras had come into Zaratas of Chaldaea; and he set forth that in his view there were from the beginning two causes of things, father and mother; and the father is light and the mother darkness; and the parts of light are warm, dry, light, swift; and of darkness are cold, moist, heavy, slow; and of these all the universe is composed, of male and female. And he says that the universe exists in accordance with musical harmony, so the sun also makes an harmonious period. And concerning the things that arise from the earth and the universe they say that Zaratas spoke as follows: There are two divinities, one of the heavens and the other of the earth; the one of the earth produces things from the earth, and it is water; and the divinity of the heavens is fire with a portion of air, warm, and cold; wherefore he says that none of these things will destroy or even pollute the soul, for these are the essence of all things. And it is said that Zaratas forbade men 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 Cite

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 the doctrine of the monad and of Cite

Epiph. Pro. i.; Dox. 587. Pythagoras laid down 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.

Epiph. Haer. iii. 8; Dox. 390. Pythagoras the Samian, son of Mnesarchos, said Cite

Epiph. Haer. iii. 8; Dox. 390. Pythagoras the 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 Cite

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 ipse-dixit: 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.

Contents — 127 sections

1. Fragment 1 (I)
2. Fragment 2–10 (I)
3. Fragment 11–18 (I)
4. Fragment 19–23 (I)
5. Fragment 24–32 (I) (DK B111)
6. Fragment 33–35 (I)
7. Fragment 36–39 (I)
8. Fragment 40–44 (I)
9. Fragment 45–47 (I)
10. Fragment 48–50 (I)
11. Fragment 51–54 (I)
12. Fragment 55–57 (I)
13. Fragment 58–59 (I)
14. Fragment 60–73 (I)
15. Fragment 74–86 (I)
16. Fragment 87–95 (I)
17. Fragment 96–109 (I)
18. Fragment 110–120 (I)
19. Fragment 121–129 (I)
20. Fragment 130–134 (I)
21. Fragment 135–138 (I) (DK B26)
22. Fragment 139–141 (I)
23. Fragment 142 (I)
24. Fragment 143 (I) (DK B31)
25. Fragment 144 (I)
26. Fragment 145 (I)
27. Fragment 146–148 (I)
28. Fragment 149 (I)
29. Fragment 150 (I)
30. Fragment 151 (I) (DK B40)
31. Fragment 152 (I) (DK B42)
32. Fragment 153 (I) (DK B85)
33. Fragment 154–155 (I) (DK B45)
34. Fragment 156 (I)
35. Fragment 157–159 (I) (DK B47)
36. Fragment 160 (I) (DK B48)
37. Fragment 161 (I)
38. Fragment 162 (I) (DK B49)
39. Fragment 163 (I)
40. Fragment 164 (I) (DK B74)
41. Fragment 165 (I) (DK B55)
42. Fragment 166–167 (I) (DK B56)
43. Fragment 168 (I) (DK B54)
44. Fragment 169–185 (I) (DK B35)
45. Fragment 186–194 (I)
46. Fragment 195 (I)
47. Fragment 196 (I) (DK B104)
48. Fragment 197–198 (I) (DK B51)
49. Fragment 199–202 (I) (DK B95)
50. Fragment 203–207 (I)
51. Fragment 208 (I) (DK B109)
52. Fragment 209 (I) (DK B34)
53. Fragment 210–213 (II)
54. Fragment 214 (II) (DK B72)
55. Fragment 215–216 (II) (DK B73)
56. Fragment 217–218 (II)
57. Fragment 219 (II) (DK B79)
58. Fragment 220 (II)
59. Fragment 221 (II) (DK B81)
60. Fragment 222–231 (II) (DK B110)
61. Fragment 232 (II) (DK B116)
62. Fragment 233–235 (II)
63. Fragment 236–237 (II) (DK B82)
64. Fragment 238–239 (II)
65. Fragment 240 (II) (DK B80)
66. Fragment 241 (II) (DK B87)
67. Fragment 242 (II) (DK B94)
68. Fragment 243 (II) (DK B148)
69. Fragment 244–246 (II) (DK B57)
70. Fragment 247–253 (II)
71. Fragment 254–256 (II) (DK B59)
72. Fragment 257–260 (II)
73. Fragment 261 (II) (DK B60)
74. Fragment 262–269 (II)
75. Fragment 270 (II) (DK B63)
76. Fragment 271–272 (II)
77. Fragment 273–274 (II)
78. Fragment 275 (II) (DK B66)
79. Fragment 276–278 (II) (DK B65)
80. Fragment 279 (II) (DK B67)
81. Fragment 280 (II)
82. Fragment 281 (II) (DK B32)
83. Fragment 282–283 (II) (DK B90)
84. Fragment 284–285 (II)
85. Fragment 286 (II)
86. Fragment 287–312 (II) (DK B100)
87. Fragment 313 (II) (DK B102)
88. Fragment 314 (II)
89. Fragment 315 (II)
90. Fragment 316–325 (II) (DK B83)
91. Fragment 326 (II) (DK B88)
92. Fragment 327–329 (II) (DK B105)
93. Fragment 330 (II) (DK B106)
94. Fragment 331–332 (II) (DK B107)
95. Fragment 333–337 (II)
96. Fragment 338–341 (III) (DK B131)
97. Fragment 342–343 (III) (DK B132)
98. Fragment 344–351 (III)
99. Fragment 352–363 (Purifications)
100. Fragment 364–365 (Purifications) (DK B113)
101. Fragment 366–368 (Purifications)
102. Fragment 369–382 (Purifications) (DK B114)
103. Fragment 383–387 (Purifications)
104. Fragment 388 (Purifications) (DK B121)
105. Fragment 389 (Purifications)
106. Fragment 390–391 (Purifications)
107. Fragment 392 (Purifications) (DK B120)
108. Fragment 393–399 (Purifications)
109. Fragment 400–401 (Purifications) (DK B123)
110. Fragment 402 (Purifications)
111. Fragment 403 (Purifications)
112. Fragment 404 (Purifications)
113. Fragment 405–414 (Purifications) (DK B128)
114. Fragment 415–420 (Purifications)
115. Fragment 421–424 (Purifications)
116. Fragment 425–426 (Purifications)
117. Fragment 427–429 (Purifications) (DK B134)
118. Fragment 430–435 (Purifications) (DK B137)
119. Fragment 436–437 (Purifications) (DK B139)
120. Fragment 438–439 (Purifications) (DK B127)
121. Fragment 440 (Purifications)
122. Fragment 441 (Purifications)
123. Fragment 442–443 (Purifications) (DK B143)
124. Fragment 444 (Purifications) (DK B144)
125. Fragment 445–446 (Purifications) (DK B145)
126. Fragment 447–451 (Purifications) (DK B146)
127. Additional fragment 1 (Greek only)

Fragment 1 (I) Cite

And do thou hear me, Pausanias, son of wise Anchites.

Diog. Laer. viii. 60. 2-10. Sext. Emp. Math. vii. 123-124. 3. Prokl. on Tim. p. 175. 5. Plut. Mor. 360 C. 6. Diog. Laer. ix. 73; 8-9 a. Plut. Mor. 17 E.

Fragment 2–10 (I) Cite

For scant means of acquiring knowledge are scattered among the members of the body; and many are the evils that break in to blunt the edge of studious thought. And gazing on a little portion of life that is not life, swift to meet their fate, they rise and are borne away like smoke, persuaded only of that on which each one chances as he is driven this way and that, but the whole he vainly boasts he has found. Thus these things are neither seen nor heard distinctly by men, nor comprehended by the mind. And thou, now that thou hast withdrawn hither, shalt learn no more than what mortal mind has seen.

Fragment 11–18 (I) Cite

But, ye gods, avert the madness of those men from my tongue, and from lips that are holy cause a pure stream to flow. And thee I pray, much-wooed white-armed maiden Muse, in what things it is right for beings of a day to hear, do thou, and Piety, driving obedient car, conduct me on. Nor yet shall the flowers of honour well esteemed compel me to pluck them from mortal hands, on condition that I speak boldly more than is holy and only then sit on the heights of wisdom.

175. Stob. Ecl. i. 286. Cf. Arist. Met. ii. 4; 1000 b 2. 178-181. Simpl. de caelo, Peyr. p. 37. 182-183. Theophr. Athen. x. 423; Arist. Poet. c. 25; 1461 a 24. Eust. ad Iliad. i. p. 746, 57.

Fragment 19–23 (I) Cite

But come, examine by every means each thing how it is clear, neither putting greater faith in anything seen than in what is heard, nor in a thundering sound more than in the clear assertions of the tongue, nor keep from trusting any of the other members in which there lies means of knowledge, but know each thing in the way in which it is clear.

Fragment 24–32 (I) (DK B111) Cite

Cures for evils whatever there are, and protection against old age shalt thou learn, since for thee alone will I accomplish all these things. Thou shalt break the power of untiring gales which rising against the earth blow down the crops and destroy them; and, again, whenever thou wilt, thou shalt bring their blasts back; and thou shalt bring seasonable drought out of dark storm for men, and out of summer drought thou shalt bring streams pouring down from heaven to nurture the trees; and thou shalt lead out of Hades the spirit of a man that is dead.

Fragment 33–35 (I) Cite

Hear first the four roots of all things: bright Zeus, life-giving Hera (air), and Aidoneus (earth), and Nestis who moistens the springs of men with her tears.[76]

Fragment 36–39 (I) Cite

And a second thing I will tell thee: There is no origination of anything that is mortal, nor yet any end in baneful death; but only mixture and separation of what is mixed, but men call this ‘origination.’

Fragment 40–44 (I) Cite

But when light is mingled with air in human form, or in form like the race of wild beasts or of plants or of birds, then men say that these things have come into being; and when they are separated, they call them evil fate; this is the established practice, and I myself also call it so in accordance with the custom.

Fragment 45–47 (I) Cite

Fools! for they have no far-reaching studious thoughts who think that what was not before comes into being or that anything dies and perishes utterly.

Fragment 48–50 (I) Cite

For from what does not exist at all it is impossible that anything come into being, and it is neither possible nor perceivable that being should perish completely; for things will always stand wherever one in each case shall put them.

Fragment 51–54 (I) Cite

A man of wise mind could not divine such things as these, that so long as men live what indeed they call life, so long they exist and share what is evil and what is excellent, but before they are formed and after they are dissolved, they are really nothing at all.

Fragment 55–57 (I) Cite

But for base men it is indeed possible to withhold belief from strong proofs; but do thou learn as the pledges of our Muse bid thee, and lay open her word to the very core.

Fragment 58–59 (I) Cite

Joining one heading to another in discussion, not completing one path (of discourse) ... for it is right to say what is excellent twice and even thrice.

Fragment 60–73 (I) Cite

Twofold is the truth I shall speak; for at one time there grew to be one alone out of many, and at another time, however, it separated so that there were many out of the one. Twofold is the coming into being, twofold the passing away, of perishable things; for the latter (_i.e._ passing away) the combining of all things both begets and destroys, and the former (_i.e._ coming into being), which was nurtured again out of parts that were being separated, is itself scattered. 66. And these (elements) never cease changing place continually, now being all united by Love into one, now each borne apart by the hatred engendered of Strife, until they are brought together in the unity of the all, and become subject to it. Thus inasmuch as one has been wont to arise out of many and again with the separation of the one the many arise, so things are continually coming into being and there is no fixed age for them; and farther inasmuch as they [the elements] never cease changing place continually, so they always exist within an immovable circle.

Plut. non pos. suav. viv. 1103 F δὶς γὰρ ὃ δεῖ καλόν ἐστιν ἀκοῦσαι, Schol. Plat. Gorg. 124 Ruhnk. δὶς καὶ τρὶς τὸ καλὸν ... Ἐμπεδ. τὸ ἔπος “καὶ δὶς γὰρ ὃ δεῖ καλόν ἐστιν ἐνίσπειν.” Text from Sturz.

Fragment 74–86 (I) Cite

But come, hear my words, for truly learning causes the mind to grow. For as I said before in declaring the ends of my words: Twofold is the truth I shall speak; for at one time there grew to be the one alone out of many, and at another time it separated so that there were many out of the one; fire and water and earth and boundless height of air, and baneful Strife apart from these, balancing each of them, and Love among them, their equal in length and breadth. 81. Upon her do thou gaze with thy mind, nor yet sit dazed in thine eyes; for she is wont to be implanted in men’s members, and through her they have thoughts of love and accomplish deeds of union, and call her by the names of Delight, and Aphrodite; no mortal man has discerned her with them (the elements) as she moves on her way. But do thou listen to the undeceiving course of my words.[77]...

Fragment 87–95 (I) Cite

For these (elements) are equal, all of them, and of like ancient race; and one holds one office, another another, and each has his own nature.... For nothing is added to them, nor yet does anything pass away from them; for if they were continually perishing they would no longer exist.... Neither is any part of this all empty, nor over full. For how should anything cause this all to increase, and whence should it come? And whither should they (the elements) perish, since no place is empty of them? And in their turn they prevail as the cycle comes round, and they disappear before each other, and they increase each in its allotted turn. But these (elements) are the same; and penetrating through each other they become one thing in one place and another in another, while ever they remain alike (_i.e._ the same).

Fragment 96–109 (I) Cite

But come, gaze on the things that bear farther witness to my former words, if in what was said before there be anything defective in form. Behold the sun, warm and bright on all sides, and whatever is immortal and is bathed in its bright ray, and behold the rain-cloud, dark and cold on all sides; from the earth there proceed the foundations of things and solid bodies. In Strife all things are, endued with form and separate from each other, but they come together in Love and are desired by each other. 104. For from these (elements) come all things that are or have been or shall be; from these there grew up trees and men and women, wild beasts and birds and water-nourished fishes, and the very gods, long-lived, highest in honour.

Fragment 110–120 (I) Cite

For they two (Love and Strife) were before and shall be, nor yet, I think, will there ever be an unutterably long time without them both.

Fragment 121–129 (I) Cite

And as when painters are preparing elaborate votive offerings—men well taught by wisdom in their art—they take many-coloured pigments to work with, and blend together harmoniously more of one and less of another till they produce likenesses of all things; so let not error overcome thy mind to make thee think there is any other source of mortal things that have likewise come into distinct existence in unspeakable numbers; but know these (elements), for thou didst hear from a god the account of them.

Fragment 130–134 (I) Cite

But come, I will tell thee now the first principle of the sun, even the sources of all things now visible, earth and billowy sea and damp mist and Titan aether (_i.e._ air) binding all things in its embrace.

Fragment 135–138 (I) (DK B26) Cite

Then neither is the bright orb of the sun greeted, nor yet either the shaggy might of earth or sea; thus, then, in the firm vessel of harmony is fixed God, a sphere, round, rejoicing in complete solitude.

Fragment 139–141 (I) Cite

But when mighty Strife was nurtured in its members and leaped up to honour at the completion of the time, which has been driven on by them both in turn under a mighty oath....

Fragment 142 (I) Cite

For the limbs of the god were made to tremble, all of them in turn.

Simpl. Phys. 272 v. associated with v. 135.

Fragment 143 (I) (DK B31) Cite

For all the heavy (he put) by itself, the light by itself.

Fragment 144 (I) Cite

Without affection and not mixed together.

Fragment 145 (I) Cite

Heaped together in greatness.

Arist. Gen. et Corr. i. 8; 325 b 22.

Fragment 146–148 (I) Cite

If there were no limit to the depths of the earth and the abundant air, as is poured out in foolish words from the mouths of many mortals who see but little of the all.

Fragment 149 (I) Cite

Swift-darting sun and kindly moon.

Plut. de fac. lun. 920 C.

Fragment 150 (I) Cite

But gathered together it advances around the great heavens.

Macrob. Saturn. i. 17; Etym. Mag., Orion Etym., Suidas, under ἥλιος; Cramer, Anec. ii. 444.

Fragment 151 (I) (DK B40) Cite

It shines back to Olympos with untroubled face.

Plut. Pyth. or. 400 B; Galen, de us. part. iii. 3.

Fragment 152 (I) (DK B42) Cite

The kindly light has a brief period of shining.

Simpl. Phys. 74 v; 331, 7.

Fragment 153 (I) (DK B85) Cite

As sunlight striking the broad circle of the moon.

Plut. de fac. lun. 929 E.

Fragment 154–155 (I) (DK B45) Cite

A borrowed light, circular in form, it revolves about the earth, as if following the track of a chariot.

Achill. Tat. Introd. in Arat. c. 16 p. 77 Pet. 155. Plut. de fac. orb. lun. 925.

Fragment 156 (I) Cite

For she beholds opposite to her the sacred circle of her lord.

Bekk. Anecd. i. 337.

Fragment 157–159 (I) (DK B47) Cite

And she scatters his rays into the sky above, and spreads darkness over as much of the earth as the breadth of the gleaming-eyed moon.

Fragment 160 (I) (DK B48) Cite

And night the earth makes by coming in front of the lights.

Plut. Quaest. Plat. 1006 F.

Fragment 161 (I) Cite

Of night, solitary, blind-eyed.

Plut. Quaest. conv. 720 E.

Fragment 162 (I) (DK B49) Cite

And many fires burn beneath the earth.

Prokl. on Tim. iii. 141.

Fragment 163 (I) Cite

(The sea) with its stupid race of fertile fishes.

Plut. Quaes. conv. 685 F.

Fragment 164 (I) (DK B74) Cite

Salt is made solid when struck by the rays of the sun.

Hephaest. Enchir. c. 1 p. 4 Gais.

Fragment 165 (I) (DK B55) Cite

The sea is the sweat of the earth.

Arist. Meteor. ii. 3; 357 a 26; Plut. Placit. phil. iii. 13, and de Is. 365 B. Clem. Al. Strom. 676. Porphyr. Vit. Pyth. c. 41.

Fragment 166–167 (I) (DK B56) Cite

But air[78] sinks down beneath the earth with its long roots.... For thus it happened to be running at that time, but oftentimes otherwise.

Fragment 168 (I) (DK B54) Cite

(Fire darting) swiftly upwards.

Eustath. on Od. α 320, p. 1 (from Herodian, περὶ σχημ. Ὁμηρ.). Cf. Arist. de gen. et corr. ii. 6; 334 a 1.

Fragment 169–185 (I) (DK B35) Cite

But now I shall go back over the course of my verses, which I set out in order before, drawing my present discourse from that discourse. When Strife reached the lowest depth of the eddy and Love comes to be in the midst of the whirl, then all these things come together at this point so as to be one alone, yet not immediately, but joining together at their pleasure, one from one place, another from another. And as they were joining together Strife departed to the utmost boundary. But many things remained unmixed, alternating with those that were mixed, even as many as Strife, remaining aloft, still retained; for not yet had it entirely departed to the utmost boundaries of the circle, but some of its members were remaining within, and others had gone outside. 180. But, just as far as it is constantly rushing forth, just so far there ever kept coming in a gentle immortal stream of perfect Love; and all at once what before I learned were immortal were coming into being as mortal things,[79] what before were unmixed as mixed, changing their courses. And as they (the elements) were mingled together there flowed forth the myriad species of mortal things, patterned in every sort of form, a wonder to behold.

Fragment 186–194 (I) Cite

For all things are united, themselves with parts of themselves—the beaming sun and earth and sky and sea—whatever things are friendly but have separated in mortal things. And so, in the same way, whatever things are the more adapted for mixing, these are loved by each other and made alike by Aphrodite. But whatever things are hostile are separated as far as possible from each other, both in their origin and in their mixing and in the forms impressed on them, absolutely unwonted to unite and very baneful, at the suggestion of Strife, since it has wrought their birth.

Fragment 195 (I) Cite

In this way, by the good favour of Tyche, all things have power of thought.

Fragment 196 (I) (DK B104) Cite

And in so far as what was least dense came together as they fell.

Fragment 197–198 (I) (DK B51) Cite

For water is increased by water, primeval fire by fire, and earth causes its own substance to increase, and air, air.

Fragment 199–202 (I) (DK B95) Cite

And the kindly earth in its broad hollows received two out of the eight parts of bright Nestis, and four of Hephaistos, and they became white bones, fitted together marvellously by the glues of Harmony.

Fragment 203–207 (I) Cite

And the earth met with these in almost equal amounts, with Hephaistos and Ombros and bright-shining Aether (_i.e._ air), being anchored in the perfect harbours of Kypris; either a little more earth, or a little less with more of the others. From these arose blood and various kinds of flesh.

Fragment 208 (I) (DK B109) Cite

... glueing barley-meal together with water.

Arist. Meteor. iv. 4; 382 a 1; Probl. 21, 22; 929 b 16; cf. Plut. de prim. frig. 952 B.

Fragment 209 (I) (DK B34) Cite

(Water) tenacious Love.

Plut. de prim. frig. 952 B.

Fragment 210–213 (II) Cite

And if your faith be at all lacking in regard to these (elements), how from water and earth and air and sun (fire) when they are mixed, arose such colours and forms of mortal things, as many as now have arisen under the uniting power of Aphrodite....

Fragment 214 (II) (DK B72) Cite

How both tall trees and fishes of the sea (arose).

Athen. viii. 334 B.

Fragment 215–216 (II) (DK B73) Cite

And thus then Kypris, when she had moistened the earth with water, breathed air on it and gave it to swift fire to be hardened.

Fragment 217–218 (II) Cite

And all these things which were within were made dense, while those without were made rare, meeting with such moisture in the hands of Kypris.

Fragment 219 (II) (DK B79) Cite

And thus tall trees bear fruit (_lit._ eggs), first of all olives.

Arist. de gen. anim. i. 23; 731 a 5; cf. Philop. on this passage and Theophr. de caus. plant. i. 7, 1.

Fragment 220 (II) Cite

Wherefore late-born pomegranates and luxuriant apples....

Plut. Quaest. conv. 683 D.

Fragment 221 (II) (DK B81) Cite

Wine is water that has fermented in the wood beneath the bark.

Plut. Quaest. nat. 912 C, 919 D; cf. Arist. Top. iv. 5; 127 a

Fragment 222–231 (II) (DK B110) Cite

For if thou shalt fix them in all thy close-knit mind and watch over them graciously with pure attention, all these things shall surely be thine for ever, and many others shalt thou possess from them. For these themselves shall cause each to grow into its own character, whatever is the nature[80] of each. But if thou shalt reach out for things of another sort, as is the manner of men, there exist countless evils to blunt your studious thoughts; †soon these latter shall cease to live as time goes on, desiring as they do to arrive at the longed-for generation of themselves.† For know that all things have understanding and their share of intelligence.

Fragment 232 (II) (DK B116) Cite

Favor hates Necessity, hard to endure.

Plut. Quaest. conv. 745 D.

Fragment 233–235 (II) Cite

This is in the heavy-backed shells found in the sea, of limpets and purple-fish and stone-covered tortoises ... there shalt thou see earth lying uppermost on the surface.

Fragment 236–237 (II) (DK B82) Cite

Hair and leaves and thick feathers of birds are the same thing in origin, and reptiles’ scales, too, on strong limbs.

Fragment 238–239 (II) Cite

But on hedgehogs, sharp-pointed hair bristles on their backs.

Fragment 240 (II) (DK B80) Cite

Out of which divine Aphrodite wrought eyes untiring.

Fragment 241 (II) (DK B87) Cite

Aphrodite fashioning them curiously with bonds of love.

Fragment 242 (II) (DK B94) Cite

When they first grew together in the hands of Aphrodite.

Fragment 243 (II) (DK B148) Cite

The liver well supplied with blood.

Plut. Quaest. conv. 683 E.

Fragment 244–246 (II) (DK B57) Cite

Where many heads grew up without necks, and arms were wandering about naked, bereft of shoulders, and eyes roamed about alone with no foreheads.

Ar. de anim. iii. 6; 430 a 29; de gen. an. i. 18; 722 b 20, and commentators.

Fragment 247–253 (II) Cite

This is indeed remarkable in the mass of human members; at one time all the limbs which form the body, united into one by Love, grow vigorously in the prime of life; but yet at another time, separated by evil Strife, they wander each in different directions along the breakers of the sea of life. Just so it is with plants[81] and with fishes dwelling in watery halls, and beasts whose lair is in the mountains, and birds borne on wings.

Fragment 254–256 (II) (DK B59) Cite

But as divinity was mingled yet more with divinity, these things kept coming together in whatever way each might chance, and many others also in addition to these continually came into being.

386, 388. Synesius de prov. i. 89 D. 386-387. Prokl. on Kratyl. 103; 386. Philo vol. ii. 638 Mang. 388. Synes. epist. 147; Julian. Imp. orat. &c.

Fragment 257–260 (II) Cite

Many creatures arose with double faces and double breasts, offspring of oxen with human faces, and again there sprang up children of men with oxen’s heads; creatures, too, in which were mixed some parts from men and some of the nature of women, furnished with sterile members.

Fragment 261 (II) (DK B60) Cite

Cattle of trailing gait, with undivided hoofs.

Plut. Colot. 1123 B.

Fragment 262–269 (II) Cite

But come now, hear of these things; how fire separating caused the hidden offspring of men and weeping women to arise, for it is no tale apart from our subject, or witless. In the first place there sprang up out of the earth forms grown into one whole,[82] having a share of both, of water and of fire. These in truth fire caused to grow-up, desiring to reach its like; but they showed as yet no lovely body formed out of the members, nor voice nor limb such as is natural to men.

Fragment 270 (II) (DK B63) Cite

But the nature of the members (of the child?) is divided, part in the man’s, part in the woman’s (body).

Arist. de gen. anim. i. 18; 722 b 12; ibid. i. 1; 764 b 17; and 270-271 in Philop. on this passage.

Fragment 271–272 (II) Cite

But desire also came upon him, having been united with ... by sight.

Fragment 273–274 (II) Cite

It was poured out in the pure parts, and some meeting with cold became females.

Fragment 275 (II) (DK B66) Cite

The separated harbours of Aphrodite.

Schol. Eur. Phoen. p. 600 Valck. Stein transposes first two words.

Fragment 276–278 (II) (DK B65) Cite

In its warmer parts the womb is productive of the male, and on this account men are dark and more muscular and more hairy.

Fragment 279 (II) (DK B67) Cite

As when fig-juice curdles and binds white milk.

Plut. de amic. mult. 95 A; cf. Arist. de gen. anim. iv. 4; 771 b 23.

Fragment 280 (II) Cite

On the tenth day of the eighth month came the white discharge.

Arist. de gen. anim. iv. 8; 777 a 10; and Philop. on this passage.

Fragment 281 (II) (DK B32) Cite

Knowing that there are exhalations from all things which came into existence.

Plut. Quaest. Nat. 916 D.

Fragment 282–283 (II) (DK B90) Cite

Thus sweet was snatching sweet, and bitter darted to bitter, and sharp went to sharp, and hot coupled with hot.

Fragment 284–285 (II) Cite

Water combines better with wine, but it is unwilling to combine with oil.

Fragment 286 (II) Cite

The bloom of the scarlet dye mingles with shining linen.

Plut. de def. orac. 433 B.

Fragment 287–312 (II) (DK B100) Cite

So all beings breathe in and out; all have bloodless tubes of flesh spread over the outside of the body, and at the openings of these the outer layers of skin are pierced all over with close-set ducts, so that the blood remains within, while a facile opening is cut for the air to pass through. Then whenever the soft blood speeds away from these, the air speeds bubbling in with impetuous wave, and whenever the blood leaps back the air is breathed out; as when a girl, playing with a klepsydra of shining brass, takes in her fair hand the narrow opening of the tube and dips it in the soft mass of silvery water, the water does not at once flow into the vessel, but the body of air within pressing on the close-set holes checks it till she uncovers the compressed stream; but then when the air gives way the determined amount of water enters. (302.) And so in the same way when the water occupies the depths of the bronze vessel, as long as the narrow opening and passage is blocked up by human flesh, the air outside striving eagerly to enter holds back the water inside behind the gates of the resounding tube, keeping control of its end, until she lets go with her hand. (306.) Then, on the other hand, the very opposite takes place to what happened before; the determined amount of water runs off as the air enters. Thus in the same way when the soft blood, surging violently through the members, rushes back into the interior, a swift stream of air comes in with hurrying wave, and whenever it (the blood) leaps back, the air is breathed out again in equal quantity.

Fragment 313 (II) (DK B102) Cite

With its nostrils seeking out the fragments of animals’ limbs, <as many as the delicate exhalation from their feet was leaving behind in the wood.>

Fragment 314 (II) Cite

So, then, all things have obtained their share of breathing and of smelling.

Theophrast. de sens. § 22.

Fragment 315 (II) Cite

(The ear) an offshoot of flesh.

Theophr. ibid. § 9. Diels Dox. 501 suggests ὀστοῦν.

Fragment 316–325 (II) (DK B83) Cite

And as when one with a journey through a stormy night in prospect provides himself with a lamp and lights it at the bright-shining fire—with lanterns that drive back every sort of wind, for they scatter the breath of the winds as they blow—and the light darting out, inasmuch as it is finer (than the winds), shines across the threshold with untiring rays; so then elemental fire, shut up in membranes, it entraps in fine coverings to be the round pupil, and the coverings protect it against the deep water which flows about it, but the fire darting forth, inasmuch as it is finer....

Fragment 326 (II) (DK B88) Cite

There is one vision coming from both (eyes).

Arist. Poet. c. 21; 1458 a 5. Strabo, viii. 364.

Fragment 327–329 (II) (DK B105) Cite

(The heart) lies in seas of blood which darts in opposite directions, and there most of all intelligence centres for men; for blood about the heart is intelligence in the case of men.

Fragment 330 (II) (DK B106) Cite

For men’s wisdom increases with reference to what lies before them.

Fragment 331–332 (II) (DK B107) Cite

In so far as they change and become different, to this extent other sorts of things are ever present for them to think about.

9.

Fragment 333–337 (II) Cite

For it is by earth that we see earth, and by water water, and by air glorious air; so, too, by fire we see destroying fire, and love by love, and strife by baneful strife. For out of these (elements) all things are fitted together and their form is fixed, and by these men think and feel both pleasure and pain.

Fragment 338–341 (III) (DK B131) Cite

Would that in behalf of perishable beings thou, immortal Muse, mightest take thought at all for our thought to come by reason of our cares! Hear me now and be present again by my side, Kalliopeia, as I utter noble discourse about the blessed gods.

Fragment 342–343 (III) (DK B132) Cite

Blessed is he who has acquired a wealth of divine wisdom, but miserable he in whom there rests a dim opinion concerning the gods.

Fragment 344–351 (III) Cite

It is not possible to draw near (to god) even with the eyes, or to take hold of him with our hands, which in truth is the best highway of persuasion into the mind of man; for he has no human head fitted to a body, nor do two shoots branch out from the trunk, nor has he feet, nor swift legs, nor hairy parts, but he is sacred and ineffable mind alone, darting through the whole world with swift thoughts.

Fragment 352–363 (Purifications) Cite

O friends, ye who inhabit the great city of sacred Akragas up to the acropolis, whose care is good deeds, who harbour strangers deserving of respect, who know not how to do baseness, hail! I go about among you an immortal god, no longer a mortal, honoured by all, as is fitting, crowned with fillets and luxuriant garlands. With these on my head, so soon as I come to flourishing cities I am reverenced by men and by women; and they follow after me in countless numbers, inquiring of me what is the way to gain, some in want of oracles, others of help in diseases, long time in truth pierced with grievous pains, they seek to hear from me keen-edged account of all sorts of things.

Fragment 364–365 (Purifications) (DK B113) Cite

But why do I lay weight on these things, as though I were doing some great thing, if I be superior to mortal, perishing men?

Fragment 366–368 (Purifications) Cite

Friends, I know indeed when truth lies in the discourses that I utter; but truly the entrance of assurance into the mind of man is difficult and hindered by jealousy.

Fragment 369–382 (Purifications) (DK B114) Cite

There is an utterance of Necessity, an ancient decree of the gods, eternal, sealed fast with broad oaths: whenever any one defiles his body sinfully with bloody gore or perjures himself in regard to wrong-doing, one of those spirits who are heir to long life, thrice ten thousand seasons shall he wander apart from the blessed, being born meantime in all sorts of mortal forms, changing one bitter path of life for another. For mighty Air pursues him Seaward, and Sea spews him forth on the threshold of Earth, and Earth casts him into the rays of the unwearying Sun, and Sun into the eddies of Air; one receives him from the other, and all hate him. One of these now am I too, a fugitive from the gods and a wanderer, at the mercy of raging Strife.

Fragment 383–387 (Purifications) Cite

For before this I was born once a boy, and a maiden, and a plant, and a bird, and a darting fish in the sea. 385. And I wept and shrieked on beholding the unwonted land where are Murder and Wrath, and other species of Fates, and wasting diseases, and putrefaction and fluxes.

Fragment 388 (Purifications) (DK B121) Cite

In darkness they roam over the meadow of Ate.

Fragment 389 (Purifications) Cite

Deprived of life.

Hierocl., as just cited; λειμῶνα ὃν ἀπολιπὼν ... εἰς γήινον ἔρχεται σῶμα ὀλβίου αἰῶνος ἀμερθείς.

Fragment 390–391 (Purifications) Cite

From what honour and how great a degree of blessedness have I fallen here on the earth to consort with mortal beings!

Fragment 392 (Purifications) (DK B120) Cite

We enter beneath this over-roofed cave.

Porphyr. de ant. nymph. c. viii.

Fragment 393–399 (Purifications) Cite

Where were Chthonie and far-seeing Heliope (_i.e._ Earth and Sun?), bloody Contention and Harmony of sedate face, Beauty and Ugliness, Speed and Loitering, lovely Truth and dark-eyed Obscurity, Birth and Death, and Sleep and Waking, Motion and Stability, many-crowned Greatness and Lowness, and Silence and Voice.

Fragment 400–401 (Purifications) (DK B123) Cite

Alas, ye wretched, ye unblessed race of mortal beings, of what strifes and of what groans were ye born!

Fragment 402 (Purifications) Cite

She wraps about them a strange garment of flesh.

Stob. Ecl. i. 1050; Plut. de esu car. 998 C.

Fragment 403 (Purifications) Cite

Man-surrounding earth.

Plut. Quaest. conv. 683 E.

Fragment 404 (Purifications) Cite

For from being living he made them assume the form of death by a change....

Clem. Al. Strom. 516.

Fragment 405–414 (Purifications) (DK B128) Cite

Nor had they any god Ares, nor Kydoimos (Uproar), nor king Zeus, nor Kronos, nor Poseidon, but queen Kypris. Her they worshipped with hallowed offerings, with painted figures, and perfumes of skilfully made odour, and sacrifices of unmixed myrrh and fragrant frankincense, casting on the ground libations from tawny bees. And her altar was not moistened with pure blood of bulls, but it was the greatest defilement among men, to deprive animals of life and to eat their goodly bodies.

Fragment 415–420 (Purifications) Cite

And there was among them a man of unusual knowledge, and master especially of all sorts of wise deeds, who in truth possessed greatest wealth of mind; for whenever he reached out with all his mind, easily he beheld each one of all the things that are, even for ten and twenty generations of men.

Fragment 421–424 (Purifications) Cite

For all were gentle and obedient toward men, both animals and birds, and they burned with kindly love; and trees grew with leaves and fruit ever on them, burdened with abundant fruit all the year.

Fragment 425–426 (Purifications) Cite

This is not lawful for some and unlawful for others, but what is lawful for all extends on continuously through the wide-ruling air and the boundless light.

Fragment 427–429 (Purifications) (DK B134) Cite

Will ye not cease from evil slaughter? See ye not that ye are devouring each other in heedlessness of mind?

Fragment 430–435 (Purifications) (DK B137) Cite

A father takes up his dear son who has changed his form and slays him with a prayer, so great is his folly! They are borne along beseeching the sacrificer; but he does not hear their cries of reproach, but slays them and makes ready the evil feast. Then in the same manner son takes father and daughters their mother, and devour the dear flesh when they have deprived them of life.

Fragment 436–437 (Purifications) (DK B139) Cite

Alas that no ruthless day destroyed me before I devised base deeds of devouring with the lips!

Fragment 438–439 (Purifications) (DK B127) Cite

Among beasts they become lions haunting the mountains, whose couch is the ground, and among fair-foliaged trees they become laurels.

Fragment 440 (Purifications) Cite

Refrain entirely from laurel leaves.

Plut. Quaest. conv. 646 D.

Fragment 441 (Purifications) Cite

Miserable men, wholly miserable, restrain your hands from beans.

Aul. Gell. N. A. iv. 11; Didym. Geopon. ii. 35, 8.

Fragment 442–443 (Purifications) (DK B143) Cite

Compounding the water from five springs in unyielding brass, cleanse the hands.

Fragment 444 (Purifications) (DK B144) Cite

Fast from evil.

Plut. de ira 464 B.

Fragment 445–446 (Purifications) (DK B145) Cite

Accordingly ye are frantic with evils hard to bear, nor ever shall ye ease your soul from bitter woes.

Fragment 447–451 (Purifications) (DK B146) Cite

But at last are they prophets and hymn-writers and physicians and chieftains among men dwelling on the earth; and from this they grow to be gods, receiving the greatest honours, sharing the same hearth with the other immortals, their table companions, free from human woes, beyond the power of death and harm. PASSAGES FROM PLATO RELATING TO EMPEDOKLES. _Phaed._ 96 B. Is blood that with which we think, or air, or fire...?[83] _Gorg._ 493 A. And perhaps we really are dead, as I once before heard one of the wise men say: that now we are dead, and the body our tomb, and that that part of the soul, it so happens, in which desires are, is open to persuasion and moves upward and downward. And indeed a clever man—perhaps some inhabitant of Sicily or Italy—speaking allegorically, and taking the word from ‘credible’ (πιθανός) and ‘persuadable’ (πιστικός), called it a jar (πίθος). And those without intelligence he called uninitiated, and that part of the soul of the uninitiated where the desires are, he called its intemperateness, and said it was not watertight, as a jar might be pierced with holes—using the simile because of its insatiate desires. _Meno_ 76 C. Do you say, with Empedokles, that there are certain effluences from things?—Certainly. And pores, into which and through which the effluences go?—Yes indeed. And that some of the effluences match certain of the pores, and others are smaller or larger?—It is true. And there is such a thing as vision?—Yes. And ... colour is the effluence of forms in agreement with vision and perceptible by that sense?—It is. _Sophist._ 242 D. And certain Ionian and Sicilian Muses agreed later that it is safest to weave together both opinions and to say that Being is many and one [πολλά τε καὶ ἕν], and that it is controlled by hate and love. Borne apart it is always borne together, say the more severe of the Muses. But the gentler concede that these things are always thus, and they say, in part, that sometimes all is one and rendered loving by Aphrodite, while at other times it is many and at enmity with itself by reason of a sort of strife. PASSAGES IN ARISTOTLE REFERRING TO EMPEDOKLES. _Phys._ i. 3; 187 a 20. And others say that the opposites existing in the unity are separated out of it, as Anaximandros says, and as those say who hold that things are both one and many, as Empedokles and Anaxagoras. i. 4; 188 a 18. But it is better to assume elements fewer in number and limited, as Empedokles does. ii. 4; 196 a 20. Empedokles says that the air is not always separated upwards, but as it happens. viii. 1; 250 b 27. Empedokles says that things are in motion part of the time and again they are at rest; they are in motion when Love tends to make one out of many, or Strife tends to make many out of one, and in the intervening time they are at rest (Vv. 69-73). viii. 1; 252 a 6. So it is necessary to consider this (motion) a first principle, which it seems Empedokles means in saying that of necessity Love and Strife control things and move them part of the time, and that they are at rest during the intervening time. _De Caelo_ 279 b 14. Some say that alternately at one time there is coming into being, at another time there is perishing, and that this always continues to be the case; so say Empedokles of Agrigentum and Herakleitos of Ephesus. ii. 1; 284 a 24. Neither can we assume that it is after this manner nor that, getting a slower motion than its own downward momentum on account of rotation, it still is preserved so long a time, as Empedokles says. ii. 13; 295 a 15. But they seek the cause why it remains, and some say after this manner, that its breadth or size is the cause; but others, as Empedokles, that the movement of the heavens revolving in a circle and moving more slowly, hinders the motion of the earth, like water in vessels.... iii. 2; 301 a 14. It is not right to make genesis take place out of what is separated and in motion. Wherefore Empedokles passes over genesis in the case of Love; for he could not put the heaven together preparing it out of parts that had been separated, and making the combination by means of Love; for the order of the elements has been established out of parts that had been separated, so that necessarily it arose out of what is one and compounded. iii. 2; 302 a 28. Empedokles says that fire and earth and associated elements are the elements of bodies, and that all things are composed of these. iii. 6; 305 a 1. But if separation shall in some way be stopped, either the body in which it is stopped will be indivisible, or being separable it is one that will never be divided, as Empedokles seems to mean. iv. 2; 309 a 19. Some who deny that a void exists, do not define carefully light and heavy, as Anaxagoras and Empedokles. _Gen. corr._ i. 1; 314 b 7. Wherefore Empedokles speaks after this manner, saying that nothing comes into being, but there is only mixture and separation of the mixed. i. 1; 315 a 3. Empedokles seemed both to contradict things as they appear, and to contradict himself. For at one time he says that no one of the elements arises from another, but that all other things arise from these; and at another time he brings all of nature together into one, except Strife, and says that each thing arises from the one. i. 8; 324 b 26. Some thought that each sense impression was received through certain pores from the last and strongest agent which entered, and they say that after this manner we see and hear and perceive by all the other senses, and further that we see through air and water and transparent substances because they have pores that are invisible by reason of their littleness, and are close together in series; and the more transparent substances have more pores. Many made definite statements after this manner in regard to certain things, as did Empedokles, not only in regard to active and passive bodies, but he also says that those bodies are mingled, the pores of which agree with each other.... i. 8; 325 a 34. From what is truly _one_ multiplicity could not arise, nor yet could unity arise from what is truly manifold, for this is impossible; but as Empedokles and some others say, beings are affected through pores, so all change and all happening arises after this manner, separation and destruction taking place through the void, and in like manner growth, solid bodies coming in gradually. For it is almost necessary for Empedokles to say as Leukippos does; for there are some solid and indivisible bodies, unless pores are absolutely contiguous. 325 b 19. But as for Empedokles, it is evident that he holds to genesis and destruction as far as the elements are concerned, but how the aggregate mass of these arises and perishes, it is not evident, nor is it possible for one to say who denies that there is an element of fire, and in like manner an element of each other thing—as Plato wrote in the Timaeos. ii. 3; 330 b 19. And some say at once that there are four elements, as Empedokles. But he combines them into two; for he sets all the rest over against fire. ii. 6; 333 b 20. Strife then does not separate the elements, but Love separates those which in their origin are before god; and these are gods. _Meteor._ 357 a 24. In like manner it would be absurd if any one, saying that the sea is the sweat of the earth, thought he was saying anything distinct and clear, as for instance Empedokles; for such a statement might perhaps be sufficient for the purposes of poetry (for the metaphor is poetical), but not at all for the knowledge of nature. 369 b 11. Some say that fire originates in the clouds; and Empedokles says that this is what is encompassed by the rays of the sun. _De anim._ i. 2; 404 b 7. As many as pay careful attention to the fact that what has soul is in motion, these assume that soul is the most important source of motion; and as many as consider that it knows and perceives beings, these say that the first principle is soul, some making more than one first principle and others making one, as Empedokles says the first principle is the product of all the elements, and each of these is soul, saying (Vv. 333-335). i. 4; 408 a 14. And in like manner it is strange that soul should be the cause of the mixture; for the mixture of the elements does not have the same cause as flesh and bone. The result then will be that there are many souls through the whole body, if all things arise out of the elements that have been mingled together; and the cause of the mixture is harmony and soul. i. 5; 410 a 28. For it involves many perplexities to say, as Empedokles does, that each thing is known by the material elements, and like by like.... And it turns out that Empedokles regards god as most lacking in the power of perception; for he alone does not know one of the elements, Strife, and (hence) all perishable things; for each of these is from all (the elements). ii. 4; 415 b 28. And Empedokles was incorrect when he went on to say that plants grew downwards with their roots together because the earth goes in this direction naturally, and that they grew upwards because fire goes in this direction. ii. 7; 418 b 20. So it is evident that light is the presence of this (fire). And Empedokles was wrong, and any one else who may have agreed with him, in saying that the light moves and arises between earth and what surrounds the earth, though it escapes our notice. _De sens._ 441 a 4. It is necessary that the water in it should have the form of a fluid that is invisible by reason of its smallness, as Empedokles says. 446 a 26. Empedokles says that the light from the sun first enters the intermediate space before it comes to vision or to the earth. _De respir._ 477 a 32. Empedokles was incorrect in saying that the warmest animals having the most fire were aquatic, avoiding the excess of warmth in their nature, in order that since there was a lack of cold and wet in them, they might be preserved by their position. _Pneumat._ 482 a 29. With reference to breathing some do not say what it is for, but only describe the manner in which it takes place, as Empedokles and Demokritos. 484 a 38. Empedokles says that fingernails arise from sinew by hardening. _Part. anim._ i. 1; 640 a 19. So Empedokles was wrong in saying that many characteristics appear in animals because it happened to be thus in their birth, as that they have such a spine because they happen to be descended from one that bent itself back.... i. 1; 642 a 18. And from time to time Empedokles chances on this, guided by the truth itself, and is compelled to say that _being_ and _nature_ are reason, just as when he is declaring what a bone is; for he does not say it is one of the elements, nor two or three, nor all of them, but it is the reason of the mixture of these. _De Plant._ i.; 815 a 16. Anaxagoras and Empedokles say that plants are moved by desire, and assert that they have perception and feel pleasure and pain.... Empedokles thought that sex had been mixed in them. (Note 817 a 1, 10, and 36.) i.; 815 b 12. Empedokles _et al._ said that plants have intelligence and knowledge. i.; 817 b 35. Empedokles said again that plants have their birth in an inferior world which is not perfect in its fulfilment, and that when it is fulfilled an animal is generated. i. 3; 984 a 8. Empedokles assumes four elements, adding earth as a fourth to those that have been mentioned; for these always abide and do not come into being, but in greatness and smallness they are compounded and separated out of one and into one. i. 3; 984 b 32. And since the opposite to the good appeared to exist in nature, and not only order and beauty but also disorder and ugliness, and the bad appeared to be more than the good and the ugly more than the beautiful, so some one else introduced Love and Strife, each the cause of one of these. For if one were to follow and make the assumption in accordance with reason and not in accordance with what Empedokles foolishly says, he will find Love to be the cause of what is good, and Strife of what is bad; so that if one were to say that Empedokles spoke after a certain manner and was the first to call the bad and the good first principles, perhaps he would speak rightly, if the good itself were the cause of all good things, and the bad of all bad things. _Met._ i. 4; 915 a 21. And Empedokles makes more use of causes than Anaxagoras, but not indeed sufficiently; nor does he find in them what has been agreed upon. At any rate love for him is often a separating cause and strife a uniting cause. For whenever the all is separated into the elements by strife, fire and each of the other elements are collected into one; and again, whenever they all are brought together into one by love, parts are necessarily separated again from each thing. Empedokles moreover differed from those who went before, in that he discriminated this cause and introduced it, not making the cause of motion one, but different and opposite. Further, he first described the four elements spoken of as in the form of matter; but he did not use them as four but only as two, fire by itself, and the rest opposed to fire as being one in nature, earth and air and water. i. 8; 989 a 20. And the same thing is true if one asserts that these are more numerous than one, as Empedokles says that matter is four substances. For it is necessary that the same peculiar results should hold good with reference to him. For we see the elements arising from each other inasmuch as fire and earth do not continue the same substance (for so it is said of them in the verses on nature); and with reference to the cause of their motion, whether it is necessary to assume one or two, we must think that he certainly did not speak either in a correct or praiseworthy manner. i. 9; 993 a 15. For the first philosophy seems to speak inarticulately in regard to all things, as though it were childish in its causes and first principle, when even Empedokles says that a bone exists by reason, that is, that it was what it was and what the essence of the matter was. _Meta._ ii. 4; 1000 a 25. And Empedokles who, one might think, spoke most consistently, even he had the same experience, for he asserts that a certain first principle, Strife, is the cause of destruction; but one might think none the less that even this causes generation out of the unity; for all other things are from this as their source, except god. _Meta._ ii. 4; 1000 a 32. And apart from these verses (vv. 104-107) it would be evident, for if strife were not existing in things, all would be one, as he says; for when they come together, strife comes to a stand last of all. Wherefore it results that for him the most blessed God has less intelligence than other beings; for he does not know all the elements; for he does not have strife, and knowledge of the like is by the like. _Meta._ ii. 4; 1000 b 16. He does not make clear any cause of necessity. But, nevertheless, he says thus much alone consistently, for he does not make some beings perishable and others imperishable, but he makes all perishable except the elements. And the problem now under discussion is why some things exist and others do not, if they are from the same (elements). _Meta._ xi. 10; 1075 b 2. And Empedokles speaks in a manner, for he makes friendship the good. And this is the first principle, both as the moving cause, for it brings things together; and as matter, for it is part of the mixture. _Ethic._ vii. 5; 1147 b 12. He has the power to speak but not to understand, as a drunken man repeating verses of Empedokles. _Ethic._ viii. 2; 1155 b 7. Others, including Empedokles, say the opposite, that the like seeks the like. _Moral._ ii. 11; 1208 b 11. And he says that when a dog was accustomed always to sleep on the same tile, Empedokles was asked why the dog always sleeps on the same tile, and he answered that the dog had some likeness to the tile, so that the likeness is the reason for its frequenting it. _Poet._ 1; 1447 b 16. Homer and Empedokles have nothing in common but the metre, so that the former should be called a poet, the latter should rather be called a student of nature. Fr. 65; Diog. Laer. viii. 57. Aristotle, in the _Sophist_, says that Empedokles first discovered rhetoric and Zeon dialectic. Fr. 66; Diog. Laer. viii. 63. Aristotle says that (Empedokles) became free and estranged from every form of rule, if indeed he refused the royal power that was granted to him, as Xanthos says in his account of him, evidently much preferring his simplicity. PASSAGES IN DIELS’ ‘DOXOGRAPHI GRAECI’ RELATING TO EMPEDOKLES. Aet. Plac. i. 3; _Dox._ 287. Empedokles of Akragas, son of Meton, says that there are four elements, fire, air, water, earth; and two dynamic first principles, love and strife; one of these tends to unite, the other to separate. And he speaks as follows:—Hear first the four roots of all things, bright Zeus and life-bearing Hera and Aidoneus, and Nestis, who moistens the springs of men with her tears. Now by Zeus he means the seething and the aether, by life-bearing Hera the moist air, and by Aidoneus the earth; and by Nestis, spring of men, he means as it were moist seed and water. i. 4; 291. Empedokles: The universe is one; not however that the universe is the all, but some little part of the all, and the rest is matter. i. 7; 303. And he holds that the one is necessity, and that its matter consists of the four elements, and its forms are strife and love. And he calls the elements gods, and the mixture of these the universe. And its uniformity will be resolved into them;[84] and he thinks souls are divine, and that pure men who in a pure way have a share of them (the elements) are divine. i. 13; 312. Empedokles: Back of the four elements there are smallest particles, as it were elements before elements, homoeomeries (that is, rounded bits). i. 15; 313. Empedokles declared that colour is the harmonious agreement of vision with the pores. And there are four equivalents of the elements—white, black, red, yellow. i. 16; 315. Empedokles (and Xenokrates): The elements are composed of very small masses which are the most minute possible, and as it were elements of elements. i. 24;

Additional fragment 1 (Greek only) Cite

[No English translation in Fairbanks.]

Fairbanks, _The First Philosophers of Greece_ (1898), Empedocles.