Having analyzed the evidence brought to light by the Strasbourg papyrus, the previous chapter has shown that B 115 (= EMP D 10 Laks-Most) can be allocated within Empedocles’ physical poem with a good level of certainty and, following an indication by Plutarch, it can be placed within the proem to On Nature and, as I would argue, at its very start. The physical poem thus opens with Empedocles’ claim to be a god, banished from the community of blessed deities and sent to earth because of his trust in Strife. By following up on this conclusion, in this chapter I am going to propose a novel reconstruction of the verses and topics constituting the entire introductory section of Empedocles’ physical poem.Footnote ¹ My aim is to show that the proem to On Nature is composed, for the most part, of several topics and verses traditionally attributed to the Purifications. In this way, I will draw attention to the fact that the need, emphasized since the second half of the last century, to rethink the interrelation between myth, religion and physics in Empedocles’ thought is prompted in the first place by the textual data offered by his fragments. Starting precisely from its prologue, it will be shown that On Nature is composed by verses and themes related to Empedocles’ belief in rebirth in synergy with more strictly physical theories.

The chapter begins with a brief introduction to my method of allocating the fragments covered here and is thereafter divided into two key sections. In the first part, I will focus on the location within the proem of verses and topics that are closely related to B 115 (= EMP D 10 Laks-Most): the so-called demonological fragments. My argument is that, by expanding on the theme of Empedocles’ exile introduced at B 115 (= EMP D 10 Laks-Most) and by depicting the first and most relevant leg of his exile journey as a katabasis into the realm of the dead, the demonological fragments add important details to Empedocles’ own portrait as an exceptional individual.Footnote ²

Furthermore, as katabaseis were recognized in antiquity as a privileged way to obtain extraordinary knowledge,Footnote ³ my claim here is that the narration of this exceptional journey serves Empedocles to validate his authority on matters beyond ordinary human ken. These coincide with the subjects he covers in his philosophical poem and concern, as I am going to show, not only topics on what we may now regard as natural philosophy, but also themes related to ethical and religious questions around the place and destiny of the individuals in this world and beyond.

Additionally, by representing himself on a journey to the underworld and assimilating thereby elements recognizable in the biographies of legendary or semi-legendary sages who were famous in the fifth century BCE for having contact with the realm of the dead through katabaseis of sorts, it will be argued that Empedocles assumes the role of a legendary seeker of truth. Moreover, in introducing his physical poem with the narration of such a mythical experience, he follows a traditional pattern that is well attested in epic-didactic poetry, as Hesiod’s Theogony (Hymn to the Muse) and, above all, Parmenides’s journey to the House of Night (DK 28 B 1 [= PARM D 4 Laks-Most]) show. Narrations of this sort at the outset of epic-didactic poems serve as authorial validation, by making the poet a ‘master of truth’Footnote ⁴ and retrospectively support the assumption made here that an analogous narration opened Empedocles’ physical poem to legitimize him as an author of extraordinary wisdom.

The rest of Chapter 2 will then be dedicated to the reconstruction of those verses and themes that, in the original layout of the opening to On Nature, might have followed the narration of Empedocles’ journey to Hades. First, the dedication of his poem to his beloved disciple Pausanias and the promise of divine reward he will gain at the end of his philosophical training. Related to this, second, is the promise offered to Pausanias to overcome human epistemic limitations, in contrast to the inanity of ordinary human beings, who are incapable of true knowledge and therefore prone to commit terrible deeds, as evidenced by the widespread practice of ritual sacrifice. There follow, third, traditionally introductory elements, such as the invocation to the Muse and the enunciation of the central tenets of Empedocles’ philosophical system: the four basic elements of fire, air, water and earth as well as the opposing forces of Love and Strife and the unconditional rejection of the ordinary notion of birth and death. Two major arguments are adduced for this claim, which show the interrelation of religion and physics in Empedocles’ philosophy: on the one hand, that every existing thing can be traced back to the basic elements involved in processes of mixing and separation; on the other hand, that individual existence (with positive and negative aspects) extends beyond mere embodied life.

As we will see, the proem so reconstructed presents a programmatic structure of a surprising internal coherence and makes sense of several of the most fundamental Empedoclean fragments, which have been the object of great debate among modern scholars. Such an outcome is significant for a number of reasons, but most importantly, it matters because we are dealing with verses that are essential for a comprehensive and impartial understanding of Empedocles’ thought. The result is an opening section in which religious themes are integrated into the rudiments and principles of Empedocles’ physical system, thus offering a novel textual basis for rethinking the interplay between myth, religion and natural philosophy in his physical system.

2.1 The Allocation of the Fragments

To begin, it is worthwhile to set out the method behind the allocation of fragments, which also provides the structure for this chapter. Specifically, following Wright,Footnote ⁵ the method put forward here is to set out fragments in groups graded according to the certainty of their place in the proem to On Nature. My reconstruction of the opening of the physical poem then includes six major groups of fragments, as follows:

1. (1) Fragments related to B 115 (= EMP D 10 Laks-Most) and dealing with themes such as Empedocles’ fault, exile and rebirth, which are often referred to as the demonological fragments. These will be covered in Sections 2.2.1 and 2.2.2 and include, in this order, fragments B 115 (= EMP D 10 Laks-Most), B 117 (= EMP D 13 Laks-Most), B 119 (= EMP D 15 Laks-Most), B 118 (= EMP D 14 Laks-Most), B 129 (= EMP D 38 Laks-Most), B 121 (= EMP D 24 Laks-Most), B 120 (= EMP D 16 Laks-Most), B 122–3 (= EMP D 21 and D 22 Laks-Most), B 126 (= EMP D 19 Laks-Most), B 127 (= EMP D 36 Laks-Most) and B 146–7 (= EMP D 39 and D 40 Laks-Most). Sections 2.3 and 2.4 address models for the journey recounted through these fragments.

2. (2) Fragments related to Empedocles’ dedication of his poem to his disciple Pausanias, the promise of what he can expect to achieve as a result of his philosophical training and the inanity of ordinary people who, in contrast, are not going to learn from Empedocles’ philosophy. These topics are covered in Section 2.5 and consist of fragments B 1 (= EMP D 41 Laks-Most), B 111 (= EMP D 43 Laks-Most) and B 2 (= EMP D 42 Laks-Most).

3. (3) Fragments dealing with ritual sacrifice as the main outcome of human madness. These are covered in Section 2.6 and include fragments B 136 (= EMP D 28 Laks-Most) and B 137 (= EMP D 29 Laks-Most).

4. (4) Verses focusing on the invocation to the gods and the Muse, such as fragment B 3 (= EMP D 44 Laks-Most), analyzed in Section 2.7.

5. (5) Fragments introducing the principles of Empedocles’ physics, which I cover in Section 2.8 and include fragments B 6 (= EMP D 57 Laks-Most) and B 16 (= EMP D 63 Laks-Most).

6. (6) Verses dealing with one of the central tenets of Empedocles’ physical system, namely his rejection of the ordinary notions of birth and death. This theme is covered in Section 2.9 and includes fragments B 8 (= EMP D 53 Laks-Most), B 12 (= EMP D 48 Laks-Most), B 9 (= EMP D 54 Laks-Most), B 11 (= EMP D 51 Laks-Most) and B 15 (= EMP D 52 Laks-Most).

My aim in this chapter is thus to reconstruct all these fragments within an introductory and programmatic narrative which, I argue, makes best sense of each.

The level of certainty for the allocation of fragments to the proem is established by following either the indication of our sources – for instance, B 1 (= EMP D 41 Laks-Most) is explicitly placed in On Nature by Diogenes Laertius – or other external criteria, such as contextual reasons, as for instance in the case of B 115 (= EMP D 10 Laks-Most, examined in the previous chapter). Moreover, thematic criteria are also taken into consideration for a safer attribution of a certain fragment to the proemial section, as for instance in the case of B 3 (= EMP D 44 Laks-Most), which is cited without any indication of its location but, as it includes the traditionally introductory topic of the poet’s appeal to the Muse for inspiration, can well be considered as a fragment of the proem to On Nature.Footnote ⁶

Other fragments that do not present similar elements for a secure attribution are assigned to each of the groups according to the criterion of content or contextual proximity with the fragments already assigned. By content proximity I mean the possibility of associating Empedoclean fragments by virtue of their similar subjects, either in conjunction with the indications of the authors who quote them or even independently from their sources. This is the case for most of the fragments of the first group, which relate to B 115 (= EMP D 10 Laks-Most) and also to one another because they all refer, either directly or indirectly, to elements present in the story narrated in B 115 (= EMP D 10 Laks-Most), such as Empedocles’ fault, punishment, exile and rebirths. By contextual proximity I mean the context of the fragments’ quotation by our sources, who may cite a few or several sets of Empedoclean verses in sequence. According to this criterion, for instance, I put together most fragments of what I consider to be the last section of the physical proem, which are quoted in sequence by the same source.Footnote ⁷

Having argued in the last chapter that, thanks to the new evidence of the Strasbourg papyrus, the issue of the allocation of B 115 (= EMP D 10 Laks-Most) to Empedocles’ physical poem is settled, I take Plutarch’s remark that it belongs to the beginning of Empedocles’ philosophyFootnote ⁸ as an indication that it represents the very overture of On Nature, which then opens with Empedocles presenting himself as a guilty god sent to exile. The notion in B 115 (= EMP D 10 Laks-Most) of guilty gods being punished through rebirths brings with it the reference to the diverse lives Empedocles had to live before being reborn as the person he is now. This is the topic of B 117 (= EMP D 13 Laks-Most), which I take as closely following Empedocles’ self-presentation in B 115 (= EMP D 10 Laks-Most). The collocation of fragments B 119 (= EMP D 15 Laks-Most) and B 121 (= EMP D 24 Laks-Most) in the same context of B 115 (= EMP D 10 Laks-Most) is due to our sources, who explicitly connected them with the story of Empedocles’ exile. B 118 (= EMP D 14 Laks-Most), which I speculatively collocate between them can in any case be considered as part of the same context because it elaborates on the notions of Empedocles’ sorrows as a consequence of his loss of a merrier state for a much lesser condition. Additionally, there we find the mention of an ‘unwonted’ place that coincides, as we will see in Section 2.2.2, with the underworld. Moreover, because they elaborate on elements associated with the traditional topography of the underworld, such as the cave and the meadow of Ate, B 120 (= EMP D 16 Laks-Most) and B 122–3 (= EMP D 21 and D 22 Laks-Most) may well belong to the same context too. Lastly, the sequence of fragments B 126 (= EMP D 19 Laks-Most), B 127 (= EMP D 36 Laks-Most) and B 146–7 (= EMP D 39 and D 40 Laks-Most), because they expand on the notion of rebirth and different lives, is also very likely related to the verses of B 115 (= EMP D 10 Laks-Most) and should be added to the same section and context.

While we have just seen that there are contextual and content elements that allow us to place most of these fragments together and in the same context as B 115 (= EMP D 10 Laks-Most), for other lines, notably those of B 129 (= EMP D 38 Laks-Most), we do not have any hint as to where they originally belonged. I acknowledge that, in this case, my placing them within a certain section of the physical proem, and above all within a specific narrative, is speculative. However, it is worth noting that the grouping of all fragments listed above as Group 1, including the lines of B 129 (= EMP D 38 Laks-Most), is generally accepted by modern editors of Empedocles,Footnote ⁹ who at most have proposed minor variations on this scheme consisting in the addition or omission of just some lines. It is the bulk of these verses that scholars frequently refer to as the demonological fragments; that is, all those lines that directly or indirectly deal with elements related to the story of the δαίμων narrated in B 115 (= EMP D 10 Laks-Most). With this given, the novelty of my reconstruction concerning these fragments really consists in placing them in the opening section of the proem to On Nature, whereas the majority of scholars, as we have seen in the Introduction and in Chapter 1 with reference to B 115 (= EMP D 10 Laks-Most) in particular, still advocate a conventional apportionment within the Purifications.Footnote ¹⁰

Before moving on to a close analysis of each of the demonological fragments as well as to their reconstruction in a coherently proemial narration, a brief introduction to the method and criteria I used in putting together and organizing the remaining groups within the proemial section is in order. In this respect, fragments B 1 (= EMP D 41 Laks-Most) and B 2 (= EMP D 42 Laks-Most), which constitute Group 2, are generally accepted as proemial fragments in modern editions, partly by virtue of their content, which well fits an introduction – this is mainly true for B 1 (= EMP D 41 Laks-Most), which represents the dedication to the disciple, but B 2 (= EMP D 42 Laks-Most) also focuses on a subject (the inanity of ordinary humans) that can be found, for instance, in the proem to Hesiod’s Theogony or in the opening of Heraclitus’ bookFootnote ¹¹ – partly because our source cites B 2 (= EMP D 42 Laks-Most) as preceding Empedocles’ invocation to the gods and the Muse, which is a traditionally proemial topic. In the case of B 111 (= EMP D 43 Laks-Most), which I take as belonging to this group, it will be shown that some formal elements of its text point to its location in an introductory section. For this reason, the most recent editions of Empedoclean fragments run counter to Diels-Kranz’s edition, in which B 111 (= EMP D 43 Laks-Most) is placed at the end of the physical poem, and are in contrast inclined to locate it earlier in the poem, before the physical exposition beginning with B 17 (= EMP D 73.233–66 Laks-Most).Footnote ¹²

Group 4 includes B 3 (= EMP D 44 Laks-Most), which, as we have seen above, is Empedocles’ prayer for divine inspiration and, for this reason, is usually considered, correctly in my view, as part of the proem to On Nature. The novel element introduced by my proemial reconstruction is Group 3 formed out of B 136 (= EMP D 28 Laks-Most) and B 137 (= EMP D 29 Laks–Most), which are generally located in the Purifications. The different collocation I advocate, whereby they precede B 3 (= EMP D 44 Laks-Most), is prompted by the mention of human madness in B 3.1 (= EMP D 44.1 Laks-Most), which raises the question of defining more specifically what it refers to. B 136 (= EMP D 28 Laks-Most) and, above all, B 137 (= EMP D 29 Laks-Most), with their thematic focus on the rejection of ritual sacrifice as a case of murder and cannibalism that humans commit unwittingly, could therefore shed some new light on this point, as is also validated by the method of placing the proemial fragments of Empedocles developed by Sedley.

Specifically, Sedley’s method consists of comparing the topics treated in Lucretius’ prologue to his De Rerum Natura with similar contents thematized in Empedocles’ fragments. Since, as Sedley demonstrated, Lucretius’ prologue imitates the proem to Empedocles’ On Nature, by detecting in Empedocles’ fragments topics that Lucretius has in his proem, we are able to isolate Empedocles’ proemial verses.Footnote ¹³ There is a particular topic in Lucretius’ proem that is chiefly connected to human madness: the madness of traditional religio, exemplified by the ritual sacrifice of Iphigeneia (DRN 1.80–101). As Sedley points out, Lucretius’ lines are reminiscent of Empedocles’ B 137 (= EMP D 29 Laks-Most) and suggests it is Empedocles’ own exemplification of human madness, which will later be imitated by the Roman poet. Following this line of argument, I contend that B 137 (= EMP D 29 Laks-Most) presents ritual sacrifice as a paradigmatic instance of human madness and is to be placed before the reference to that madness we find in B 3.1 (= EMP D 44 Laks-Most). Lastly, the placement of B 136 (= EMP D 28 Laks-Most) in the same context follows both the source citing it as immediately preceding B 137 (= EMP D 29 Laks-Most) and criteria of thematic consistency. Indeed, B 136 (= EMP D 28 Laks-Most) refers to people devouring each other because of their ignorance, which can be compared to the notion of unconscious cannibalism of which those who participate in animal sacrifices are guilty, as stated in B 137 (= EMP D 29 Laks-Most).

As for the fragments forming the remaining groups, we are on safer ground as regards their placement in the proem to On Nature, since their content can be considered introductory and their function programmatic. Specifically, fragments B 6 (= EMP D 57 Laks-Most) and B 16 (= EMP D 63 Laks-Most) of Group 5 zoom in on Empedocles’ introduction of the principles of his physical system – the four elements and the two forces of Love and Strife. Lastly, fragments B 8 (= EMP D 53 Laks-Most), B 12 (= EMP D 48 Laks-Most), B 9 (= EMP D 54 Laks-Most), B 11 (= EMP D 51 Laks-Most) and B 15 (= EMP D 52 Laks-Most), constituting Group 6, focus on one of the main tenets of Empedocles’ physics – the rejection of the ordinary notions of birth and death – which underlies his physical system and needs therefore to be introduced before its exposition. For these reasons, scholars generally agree on placing these fragments before the very beginning of Empedocles’ physical account; that is, before B 17 (= EMP D 73.233–66 Laks-Most). In reconstructing them within the proemial section, therefore, I am not introducing any substantial novelty with respect to modern editions of Empedocles’ fragments.

2.2 The Demonological Fragments

Having explained the methodology that guides my reconstruction of the whole proemial section, I will now consider the demonological fragments. Because this group consists of a considerable number of fragments, my explanation of each will be undertaken, for reasons of clarity, in different subsections: B 115 (= EMP D 10 Laks-Most) and B 117 (= EMP D 13 Laks-Most) are examined in Section 2.2.1; B 119 (= EMP D 15 Laks-Most), B 118 (= EMP D 14 Laks-Most), B 129 (= EMP D 38 Laks-Most) and B 121 (= EMP D 24 Laks-Most) are considered in Section 2.2.2; Section 2.2.3 then explores B 120 (= EMP D 16 Laks-Most) and B 122–3 (= EMP D 21 and D 22 Laks-Most); while Section 2.2.4 is dedicated to the analysis of B 126 (= EMP D 19 Laks-Most), B 127 (= EMP D 36 Laks-Most) and B 146–7 (= EMP D 39 and D 40 Laks-Most). While this structuring principle basically follows the order in which I want each fragment to be allocated, I am going to make clear in each subsection which specific criterion I take into consideration for the location of each of the fragments analyzed.

The main reason for grouping these fragments together is that they all refer, directly or indirectly, to elements related to the story of the daimon narrated in B 115 (= EMP D 10 Laks-Most), such as fault, punishment, rebirth, expulsion from the divine community, exile and the ensuing sorrows connected to the new mortal condition. Moreover, as has been pointed out above, the grouping of these fragments also follows the indications of our sources, who quoted many of them as part of the same narrative section. For all these reasons, modern editors have generally regarded them as a group and reconstructed them as the main body of the narration concerning the story of the daimon. However, whereas most scholars maintain they are part of the Purifications, the innovative element introduced by my reconstruction is that they constitute the first section of Empedocles’ proem to On Nature.Footnote ¹⁴ They contribute to the portrait of Empedocles as a guilty and exiled god, thematizing, as I will argue below, the events that occurred during the first stage of his journey of exile, which coincides with a katabasis into the realm of the dead.

In what follows, I will not only analyze each of the demonological fragments, but also reconstruct a narrative that could make best sense of them, while justifying why a poem on natural philosophy opens with a section that is prominently religious, indeed decidedly mythical in tone. My argument is that the narration at the outset of a physical poem of such an exceptional experience is intended to legitimize Empedocles as the one who knows and can therefore reveal the nature of things and the fate of human beings. In this way, Empedocles establishes that what he is going to say in the rest of the poem can be believed as true. Furthermore, the narrative of his mythical journey to the underworld sets the stage for how Empedocles became an expert in such out-of-the-ordinary matters of knowledge as the fate of the dead, their judgement in Hades and their eventual rebirth in the form of another mortal. My thesis is that it is precisely because Empedocles saw the fate of the dead in Hades that he was able to come to our world as a prophet of a true doctrine of rebirth.

2.3 A Legendary Master of Wisdom

Having posited a new reconstruction of topics and verses dealing with Empedocles’ journey to the underworld within the first section of the proem to his physical poem, I will now argue that, in the narration of his katabasis, Empedocles assimilates elements that are recognizable in the biographies of legendary or semi-legendary ‘wisdom-heroes’, such as Orpheus, Epimenides and Pythagoras. They were all credited in antiquity with an exceptional, extra-ordinary life experience, a katabasis, which, by putting them in contact with the underworld, expanded their range of knowledge. In fact, as katabaseis ‘were a recognised method of obtaining a revelation of truth’,Footnote ⁸² those almost mythical wisdom-figures were known and acclaimed for their superhuman wisdom and were considered, and often even revered, as gods.

If we look at specific instances, then we see that the mythical poet Orpheus, born from the Muse Calliope and a Thracian king or, as in several accounts, from the god Apollo himself,Footnote ⁸³ was credited with verses possessing a power beyond that of beautiful songs: they not only captivated and charmed the souls of listeners, even trees and rocks gathered around.Footnote ⁸⁴ This aspect is associated with another element of archaic song-culture, including the practice of goēteia, the song that connects the living with the dead.Footnote ⁸⁵ Diodorus of Sicily reports that Orpheus was trained by Phrygian goētes and then brought initiations and mystery cults to the Greeks.Footnote ⁸⁶ Moreover, Orpheus’ legend gives prominence to the story of his descent into Hades to fetch his dead wife Eurydice and bring her back to the world of the living.Footnote ⁸⁷ Notoriously, Orpheus’ quest failed and he was not able to bring his beloved wife back to life. Nonetheless, the story is paradigmatic of the relationship between divine wisdom, connection to the realm of the dead and the power to bring the dead back to life – all elements that we also find in Empedocles’ fragments.Footnote ⁸⁸

The narration of Orpheus’ quest is premised upon the fact that Orpheus came back from Hades and recounted his experience, a detail that prompted the creation of hexametrical katabasis poems, attributed to Orpheus and narrated in the first person singular as if they were autobiographical.Footnote ⁸⁹ This is comparable with Empedocles who, through the demonological fragments, tells his own story in the first person. In this respect, it is worth noting that more than one poem was known in the fifth and fourth century BCE that addressed Orpheus’ descent into Hades.Footnote ⁹⁰ It is very likely then that Empedocles knew such hexametrical, fictionally autobiographical poems, to which not only his own katabasis but also his entire activity as a miracle worker and prophet of rebirth relates.

Katabasis, wonderworks and rebirths are also associated with other semi-legendary wisdom-heroes, including Epimenides and Pythagoras. Epimenides’ fame in antiquity was especially connected with his activity as a purifierFootnote ⁹¹ and with the authorship of several poems, among them a Theogony and Purifications,Footnote ⁹² a striking parallel with Empedocles’ works. Moreover, sources attributed many miracles and legends to Epimenides,Footnote ⁹³ the most relevant of which is his mythical sleep in a Cretan cave for over fifty years when he was a young man.Footnote ⁹⁴ Since we have seen above that caves are traditionally associated with the underworld and sleep is conceptually related to death, Epimenides’ long sleep can thus be compared to a katabasis to the realm of the dead. Moreover, Diogenes Laertius (1.114) reports that Epimenides claimed that he has often died and has come back to life – a clear hint at rebirths.Footnote ⁹⁵ For all these reasons, Epimenides was worshipped as a godFootnote ⁹⁶ – a further parallel with Empedocles’ claim to divine nature.

As for Pythagoras, the sources attributed him with a divine nature and a series of rebirths, as we have seen above. Moreover, he was also credited with a journey to Hades.Footnote ⁹⁷ For instance, Hermippus narrates that Pythagoras hid himself in an underground chamber for many years until he rose, thin as a skeleton, went to the assembly and claimed that he had just came back from Hades. Taken in by his word, people believed that Pythagoras was possessed of some kind of divinity.Footnote ⁹⁸ Hermippus’ mention of Pythagoras’ underground chamber is reminiscent of ἄντρα leading to the underworld and also comparable to Epimenides’ cave. Given caves’ association with the underworld,Footnote ⁹⁹ W. Burkert has cogently argued that Hermippus purposely misunderstood or ridiculed a katabasis story belonging to the archaic core of Pythagoras’ legend.Footnote ¹⁰⁰ In this regard, it is worth noting that underground chambers and secret grottos, such as the Idaean cave of Crete,Footnote ¹⁰¹ are a reiterated motif of his legend.Footnote ¹⁰²

As Y. Ustinova convincingly argues, the persistent attribution of katabasis stories to Pythagoras belongs to a traditional motif accounting for his divine nature and wisdom:

Put differently, true sages’ routes to wisdom include, indeed give prominence to, their descent to the underworld, as ancient thought straightforwardly connected their association to grottos, caves and chambers to the realm of Hades. Clearly, Empedocles is recalling a well-attested tradition when he depicts himself as an exceptional individual who went in and out of Hades. This, together with his claim that he is a god who was born many times, demonstrates Empedocles’ intention to emulate semi-legendary wisdom heroes and, above all, his master Pythagoras.Footnote ¹⁰⁴ Furthermore, as access to the underworld means introduction to a knowledge well beyond ordinary human ken, by the narration of his own katabasis and the imitation of legendary examples of the past, Empedocles aimed to prove he is entitled to teach the things he will illustrate in his poem. In parallel, his claim to divine wisdom is also a declaration that his philosophy coincides with truth.

2.4 Authorial Legitimation

As well as recalling the stories associated with wisdom-heroes and thereby claiming the same authority that tradition bestowed to them, in opening his poem on natural philosophy with the depiction of an extraordinary, mythical experience, Empedocles also follows a well-attested tradition in epic-didactic poetry. As I will now show, both Hesiod and Parmenides open their poems with the narration of their exceptional stories that coincide with two different, yet equally mythical journeys and encounters. As will be argued, for both poets the accounts of their pivotal life experience are meant to validate them as authorities on matters beyond ordinary knowledge. The placement of these stories at the beginning of their poem, then, serves the purpose of constructing the background against which the extraordinary wisdom that Hesiod and Parmenides are about to recount can be staged and thus be trusted. Following these precedents of self-validation, we can appreciate a valid reason for opening a physical-didactic poem with the account of an out-of-the-ordinary experience. In parallel Hesiod’s and Parmenides’ openings support, in retrospect, the reconstruction of the proem I am here proposing, with a mythical incipit thematizing Empedocles’ claim to be a god who went in and out of Hades.

2.5 Dedication to Pausanias and Promise of Divine Power

Thus far, the reconstruction of the incipit of the proem to On Nature in terms of a divine law sanctioning the punishment of guilty gods and, above all, as Empedocles’ claim he is one of those, banished from the divine community and journeying through the realm of the dead, has been built upon an accumulation of evidence. First, as we have seen in Chapter 1, the Strasbourg papyrus establishes with a good degree of certainty the attribution to the physical poem of B 115 (= EMP D 10 Laks-Most) which, by following what Plutarch tells us, is to be placed at the beginning of On Nature. Second, the allocation of other demonological fragments after B 115 (= EMP D 10 Laks-Most) follows both contextual and content criteria, which indicate that they build a topic-based group of verses belonging to the same thematic and narrative context. Third, the investigation of comparable stories of legendary or semi-legendary wisdom-heroes, who established themselves as divine authorities after a katabasis to the underworld, and the analysis of Hesiod’s and Parmenides’ exceptional experiences and divine encounters at the opening of their poems as a means to authorial legitimation concerning extra-ordinary topics have retrospectively provided further evidence for my reconstruction. Thus, having argued that On Nature begins with Empedocles’ katabasis to the underworld, in the second half of this chapter, I will reconstruct the rest of the proem to the physical poem, putting together different themes and verses following distinct methods and approaches.

To begin, the present section will deal with those fragments that in Section 2.1 I put together as Group 2; that is, with verses and themes dealing with the dedication of the poem to the disciple Pausanias and the result he should expect to gain in terms of wisdom acquisition at the end of his philosophical training, in contrast to all other people who are not going to receive the doctrine. In comparison to the first half of this chapter, the collocation of this group of fragments to the proem of the physical poem is less controversial than the allocation of the demonological fragments; first because two fragments of this group, namely B 1 (= EMP D 41 Laks-Most) and B 2 (= EMP D 42 Laks-Most), thematizes topics that fit well an introduction and for this reason, they are made proemial fragments in all modern editions. Second, our sources cite B 2 (= EMP D 42 Laks-Most) as preceding Empedocles’ invocation to the gods and the Muse, which is a traditionally proemial topic. For these reasons it is generally agreed that B 1 (= EMP D 41 Laks-Most) and B 2 (= EMP D 42 Laks-Most) belong to the proem to On Nature.

A different case must be made for B 111 (= EMP D 43 Laks-Most), which is generally taken as a physical fragment,Footnote ¹⁴¹ but is allocated differently within On Nature. Thus, whereas Diels-Kranz reconstructed it as the last fragment of the physical poem, the allocation of this fragment in the proemial context is prompted by certain elements in its verses which give it a remarkably programmatic tone. Because of this, some among the most recent editions of the Empedoclean fragments take B 111 (= EMP D 43 Laks-Most) as part of the prologue to the physical exposition beginning with B 17 (= EMP D 73.233–66 Laks-Most).Footnote ¹⁴²

If we look more closely into the fragments of this group, then we see that with B 1 (= EMP D 41 Laks-Most), Empedocles’ dedication to PausaniasFootnote ¹⁴³ recalls Hesiod, who dedicated his Erga to his brother Perses.Footnote ¹⁴⁴ Indeed, like Perses, Pausanias is not only the addressee, but also the first recipient of Empedocles’ teaching. Although the dedicatory allocution is absent in Parmenides’ poem, his rhetorical strategy to let the goddess address him and reveal her philosophical discourse is meant to achieve analogous didactic purposes: Parmenides is the recipient of the goddess’s revelation. As we shall see in Chapter 6.2.1, the ways in which Empedocles often interrupts the narrative flow to address Pausanias directly in the second-person singular are imitations of the ways in which the goddess addresses Parmenides in the second-person singular.

Moving beyond the agreed location of the dedication to the disciple, it is reasonable to think that Empedocles might have then wanted to mention what Pausanias could expect to learn from his earnest acceptance of Empedocles’ doctrines. Accordingly, I would argue that the lines of B 111 (= EMP D 43 Laks-Most) closely follow B 1 (= EMP D 41 Laks-Most).

These verses define, in the form of a promise, what Pausanias shall expect as a result of Empedocles’ teachings.

The content of the promise is striking: Pausanias will learn remedies for ills and old age, the faculty to calm or shake the winds and to regulate rainfall, as well as the ability to retrieve the dead from Hades. In short, Pausanias will learn to control the forces of nature. As has already been argued in the previous chapter, this kind of knowledge is traditionally a prerogative of the gods: control over the winds and rain is Zeus’s traditional privilege, whereas only gods have the power to postpone, or take away, old age and death. With his claim that Pausanias will have this kind of power, Empedocles, as Kingsley has emphasized, was challenging the standard Greek view of humanity as helpless against death and old age and, at the same time, he was also indicating a way to become divine.Footnote ¹⁴⁵ In this respect, the phrase ἢν ἐθέληισθα, ‘if you so wish’ (l. 5) is a remark on the fact that Pausanias will gain divine powers, as in epic poetry this phrase constantly refers to the exercise of power by gods and goddesses, when and if they so wish.Footnote ¹⁴⁶

As mentioned above, several modern interpreters have already pointed out that the introductory character of these lines is displayed by their formal construction. Empedocles’ promise is formulated in the second-person singular and with verbs in the future tense: πεύσηι, παύσεις, ἐπάξεις, θήσεις and ἄξεις. These betray a programmatic intent, which well suits an introductory context. In fact, an analogous use of the future tense in the second-person singular is displayed by Parmenides’ goddess in the introductory lines to his poem (μαθήσεαι at B 1.31 [= PARM D 4.3 Laks-Most]).Footnote ¹⁴⁷ Notably, Empedocles’ lines resemble Parmenides’ fragment B 10 (= PARM D 12 Laks-Most) : εἴσηι δ’ αἰθερίαν τε φύσιν … ἔργα τε κύκλωπος πεύσηι περίφοιτα σελήνης / καὶ φύσιν, εἰδήσεις δὲ καὶ οὐρανὸν ἀμφὶς ἔχοντα. The programmatic intent of the Parmenidean lines is undeniable and for this reason some interpreters suggested they may be part of the proem of the Doxa.Footnote ¹⁴⁸ Furthermore, the wording πεύσηι ἐπεί at Empedocles’ B 111.2 (= EMP D 43.2 Laks-Most), ‘you will apprehend, because’, closely parallels ἐπεί … πεύσεαι in B 2.8–9 (= EMP D 42 Laks-Most), which, as we will see below, can be located in the proem to On Nature with a greater level of certainty.

Besides the issue of their allocation within the physical poem, the verses of B 111 (= EMP D 43 Laks-Most) have prompted discussion among scholars, above all because, despite all possible interpretations, Empedocles’ promise to Pausanias that he will control the forces of nature seems to be more appropriate to the context of magic, rather than to that of natural philosophy.Footnote ¹⁴⁹ Yet, as Kingsley emphasized, the collocation of B 111(= EMP D 43 Laks-Most) in the proem to On Nature invites a reconsideration of Empedocles’ philosophical project in its entirety and, consequently, of what the concept of ‘natural philosophy’ may have meant in fifth-century thought.

The promise that Pausanias will not only know but also control the forces of nature goes hand in hand with the notion of the disciple’s complete devotion to Empedocles’ philosophy. Clearly Empedocles feels the need to reiterate that the attainment of godlike powers is only achieved through his teachings and the learning of his philosophy. In this respect, it is worth noting that the phrase at line 2, μούνωι σοὶ ἐγὼ κρανέω τάδε πάντα, ‘for you alone will I accomplish all these things’, conveys a promise that is meant to be understood as esoteric and thus hints at a context of initiation.Footnote ¹⁵¹ Similarly in B 5 (= EMP D 258 Laks-Most), Empedocles recommends Pausanias keep secret his master’s revelation and Plutarch, who quotes these words, relates them to a (Pythagorean) initiatory context.Footnote ¹⁵²

This impression gains force when considering another proemial fragment, B 2.8–9 (= EMP D 42.8–9 Laks-Most), which will be examined below, in which it is demanded that Pausanias, in order to gain divine wisdom, must turn to Empedocles and follow his philosophy. Thus, we can appreciate that Empedocles’ philosophy is not presented as a mere exposition of the natural world, but is seen as a way to divine knowlegde and powers. On this basis, it can fairly be assumed that Empedocles’ project is to indicate the pathway by which, through knowledge of the physical world, Pausanias – and all who, like Pausanias, adhere and initiate themselves to his philosophy – can ultimately transcend mortal nature and become gods.Footnote ¹⁵³

The divine knowledge and powers guaranteed to Pausanias at the end of his philosophical training play on the contrast with the depiction of ordinary human ineptitude to genuinely know, described in B 2 (= EMP D 42 Laks-Most). Sextus Empiricus, who quoted these lines,Footnote ¹⁵⁴ reported that, in the layout of Empedocles’ poem, they closely precede the verses of B 3 (= EMP D 44 Laks-Most), which include the distinctively introductory motif of Empedocles’ invocation to the gods and the Muse. This comment by our source is therefore an indication that B 2 (= EMP D 42 Laks-Most) belongs to the proem.Footnote ¹⁵⁵ The fragment runs as follows:

Through these lines, ordinary people’s ineptitude to know the truth is related to their inadequate tools for understanding. On the one hand, sense organsFootnote ¹⁵⁸ are narrow, while wretched things may dull human solicitudes, causing their thoughts – so one can argue – to be turned to worthless things. On the other hand, too short a human lifespan may lead people, who are generally ‘convinced only of that which each has chanced to experience’ and are ‘driven in all directions’ by their sensations, to believe that their merely sensory impressions coincide with the true nature of things.Footnote ¹⁵⁹

At line 4, the adjective ὠκύμοροι, ‘destined to prompt death’ or ‘bearer of prompt death’, is Homeric. In epic poetry, it denotes the sudden destiny overcoming heroes who, still far from their natural age of death, hurl themselves upon the enemy and die. The notion of death coming too soon upon human beings remarks upon the distance between mortals who see only ‘a small portion of life in their lifetime’ and gods who are elsewhere depicted as δολιχαίωνες, ‘long-lived’.Footnote ¹⁶⁰ Related to this, it is worth noting that human beings are also characterized as many-times-dying (θνητῶν … πολυφθερέων ἀνθρώπων, B 113.2 [= EMP D 5.2 Laks-Most]).

While the small portion of life granted to humans leads them to an erroneous understanding of the physical world, as they can only count on their partial sensory impressions, it can be inferred that, due to their long lives, gods have a potentially more complete perspective on reality, based on a larger number of evaluative data. The inference is, in other words, that cognitive abilities that do not meet the limitation of too short a lifespan are not harnessed to necessarily fragmentary and partial sensory impressions, but are able to know things more comprehensively. However, since by their very nature humans are hindered from knowing things as they really are, even when these are revealed to them (ll. 7–8), it follows that in order to know the truth about the physical world, Pausanias must overcome human limitations.

While we will explore Empedocles’ way of transcending human nature and becoming god in Chapter 6.4, it is worth noting that derogatory remarks about human cognitive capacities, such as those we find in B 2 (= EMP D 42 Laks-Most), serve at least two purposes. On the one hand, the emphasis on people’s insufficient cognitive tools focuses, by contrast, on the extra-ordinary character of the subject matters examined. On the other hand, by highlighting in a proemial context that under normal circumstances humans are unable to know such matters, the author can contrastingly emphasize the promise of the unexplored potential his words will open up. For this reason, the notion of insufficient human cognitive tools is traditional in early Greek poetry and philosophy. As we have seen, in the proem to his Theogony, Footnote ¹⁶¹ Hesiod makes the Muses address him with pejorative words, defining his kin as the race of field-dwelling shepherds, ignoble disgraces and mere bellies. Such dismissive words are meant to mark the cognitive distance between the divine Muses, who are the source of knowledge, and ordinary people who, knowing just what they hear, cannot even distinguish true from false tales. However, the Muses’ words also serve to place Hesiod – the poet chosen by the gods – on a higher cognitive ground than ordinary people and thus to emphasize that he can be trusted as the poet of a reliable Theogony.Footnote ¹⁶²

Analogously and by using the same metaphor domain employed by Empedocles – that is, journey metaphors to illustrate aspects of the conceptual domain of knowledge (see e.g., πάντοσ᾽ ἐλαυνόμενοι, ‘being driven in all directions’, at B 2.6 [= EMP D 42.6 Laks-Most]Footnote ¹⁶³) – Parmenides describes ordinary mortals as people who, because they know nothing, wander around, ‘for helplessness in their breasts directs their wandering mind’. Moreover, they are depicted as ‘undiscriminating hordes’, who are borne along, ‘deaf and blind at once, bedazzled’ (DK 28 B 6.4–7 [= PARM D 7.4–7 Laks-Most]). In contrast, Parmenides is nothing like that. Though being human, he presents himself in the proem as a ‘man who knows’ (B 1.3 [= PARM D 4.3 Laks-Most]), carried by divine guides (B 1.5 [= PARM D 4.5 Laks-Most]) along a precise pathway with a clear destination, while the ordinary human path ‘turns back on itself’ (B 6.9 [= PARM D 7.9 Laks-Most]). Thus, by focusing on human insufficient understanding, Parmenides introduces a way through which he acquires knowledge: ‘the path of many songs of the god’ (B 1.2–3 [= PARM D 4.2–3 Laks-Most]).

Analogously, after having declared that humans are by nature impeded to know, Empedocles adds his promise to Pausanias that he among all other people will know:

As we can appreciate, the knowledge promised to Pausanias can only be gained by turning aside from the straight path – that is, by renouncing traditional beliefs and worldviews – and following Empedocles.

B 2.9 (= EMP D 42.9 Laks-Most) presents some textual uncertainties that need to be addressed. Specifically, in Diels-Kranz the line is printed as follows: πεύσεαι οὐ πλέον ἠὲ βροτείη μῆτις ὄρωρεν. Their text accepts the emendation by Stein (following Karsten), οὐ πλέον ἠὲ, of the reading transmitted by Sextus’ manuscripts: οὐ πλεῖον γε. The line reconstructed in this way emphasizes the antithesis between human means and divine knowledge. According to this reconstruction, in other words, Empedocles is saying that Pausanias will know nothing more than human intelligence can know.Footnote ¹⁶⁴ Wright was of the same opinion:

In contrast, I believe that Empedocles’ attitude is bold here: in closing these verses, he intends to reiterate his promise that the disciple, unlike ordinary people, will attain divine knowledge. For this reason, I reject Karsten’s emendation and Diels-Kranz’s reconstruction of line 9 and, instead, accept the transmitted version οὐ πλεῖόν γε, putting a comma after πεύσεαι. In this way, my text renders Empedocles’ claim that his ‘philosophical path’ will convey to Pausanias, who chose to follow him, an extraordinary wisdom beyond human epistemic potential.Footnote ¹⁶⁶

My textual reconstruction is supported by Empedocles’ equally audacious promise to his disciple of control of the forces of nature given at B 111 (= EMP D 43 Laks-Most), as already examined above. In line with this fragment, Empedocles restates the idea that his philosophy is more than just knowledge of the physical world; it is the way to obtain godlike understanding of, and powers over, the forces of nature. Moreover, Empedocles’ poetic strategy of presenting his philosophy as an initiation, as we have seen above, establishes a dichotomy between ordinary people and the wisdom reserved for the initiates. This also supports my reconstruction of B 2.9 as a line intended to emphasize that Pausanias will gain knowledge beyond mere human potential. According to my interpretation, in other words, while no human being can boast of finding the whole (B 2.6 [= EMP D 42.6]), as the human cognitive tools are ineffective without divine disclosure, Pausanias, who will be initiated into true philosophy, will not only reach the apex of mortal understanding, but with the assistance of Empedocles will be able to go even further.Footnote ¹⁶⁷

In conclusion, what B 111 (= EMP D 43 Laks-Most) and B 2 (= EMP D 42 Laks-Most) emphasize is that Empedocles’ natural philosophy is the way to bridge the gap between humans and gods, as it will enable Pausanias not only to understand the nature of things, but more importantly to transcend his mortal nature, overcoming the limits of human cognition and faculties. In short, Empedocles’ teaching on the physical world carries with it the promise that the disciple will become a god. Whereas I shall return to a thorough analysis of this concluding statement in Chapter 6.3 and 6.4, for now I shall continue with the reconstruction of the proem to On Nature, turning to the analysis of those fragments I have assembled as Group 3.

2.6 Human Madness and Ritual Sacrifice

The next section of the proem is the one referred to above as Group 3 and includes fragments B 136 (= EMP D 28 Laks-Most) and B 137 (= EMP D 29 Laks-Most), which deal with the rejection of ritual sacrifice as it is considered a form of crime. In order to argue for the allocation of these two fragments in the proem to On Nature, in contrast to their standard apportionment in the Purifications, we need first to introduce fragment B 3 (= EMP D 44 Laks-Most) and Empedocles’ prayer to the gods and the Muse for divine inspiration (Group 4). Because of this content, it is indeed rather safe to consider this fragment as part of the proem of On Nature.

In contrast, the different collocation I advocate for B 136 (= EMP D 28 Laks-Most) and B 137 (= EMP D 29 Laks-Most) is prompted by B 3.1 (= EMP D 44.1 Laks-Most), which opens with Empedocles’ prayer to the gods in order that they turn from his tongue τῶν μὲν μανίην, ‘the madness of those (or of those things)’.Footnote ¹⁶⁸ Whose madness is Empedocles talking about? Sextus Empiricus, author of the citation, reads the line as Empedocles’ criticism of ‘those who announce that they know more’, very likely referring to those who boast they found the whole in B 2.6 (= EMP D 42.6 Laks-Most).Footnote ¹⁶⁹ Although Sextus’ interpretation cannot be discarded in principle, other elements can be gathered from the fragments of Empedocles that might more precisely define μανίη in B 3.1 (= EMP D 44.1 Laks-Most).

In this respect, by following a suggestion made by Sedley, we can look at the proem to Lucretius’ De Rerum Natura to identify, in Empedocles’ extant fragments, topics that were presumably part of the proem to his physical poem. Specifically, having demonstrated that the proem to Lucretius’ De Rerum Natura ‘is, and is meant to be recognised as, an imitation of the proem to Empedocles’ Περὶ φύσεως’,Footnote ¹⁷⁰ Sedley argued that, for that reason, we can reconstruct Empedocles’ proemial themes by following the topics touched upon in Lucretius’ prologue. These cover a number of themes also found in those Empedoclean fragments that are usually considered as introductory in modern editions: for instance, the programmatic address to the dedicatee, the uncritical belief in common concepts and tales and the magnitude of the philosophical task. Additionally, Sedley identified a further topic in the proem to Lucretius’ De Rerum Natura that is covered in Empedocles’ verses too: the theme of the evils of ritual sacrifice. Compared to the other themes mentioned earlier, however, Empedocles’ verses dealing with ritual sacrifice are not usually considered in editions of Empedocles’ fragments either as introductory verses or as part of the physical poem.

It is worth noting, moreover, that in the proem of De Rerum Natura the theme of ritual sacrifice is linked to the crimes that people commit in the name of their adherence to traditional religio.Footnote ¹⁷¹ As an example of this, Lucretius narrates the mythical story of the infanticide of Iphigeneia, sacrificed by her own father Agamemnon on the eve of the Trojan war (DRN 1.80–101). Similarly, there are some Empedocles’ lines (B 137 [= EMP D 29 Laks-Most]) that describe ritual sacrifice as a series of crimes: infanticides, patricides and matricides. Lucretius’ lines are reminiscent of Empedocles’ verses; indeed, as Sedley emphasizes, ‘the close functional parallelism of the two pathetic scenes of sacrifice should leave little doubt that the one passage is written with the other in mind’.Footnote ¹⁷²

Following Sedley’s standard for reconstructing Empedocles’ proem, it can be concluded that the striking similarities between Lucretius’ verses on the sacrifice of Iphigenia and Empedocles’ lines on the crimes resulting from ritual sacrifices indicate that Lucretius read B 137 within the proem of Empedocles’ poem. In this way, placed within the introductory themes of On Nature, B 137 (= EMP D 29 Laks-Most) can be taken as exemplifying a prominent aspect of that human madness mentioned in B 3.1 (= EMP D 44.1 Laks-Most). Finally, as for the placement of B 136 (= EMP D 28 Laks-Most) before B 137 (= EMP D 29 Laks-Most), it is assured by our source, Sextus Empiricus, who quotes the former immediately before citing the latter.Footnote ¹⁷³

Looking into these two fragments in more detail, B 136 (= EMP D 28 Laks-Most) and B 137 (= EMP D 29 Laks-Most) read as follows:

Reading these two fragments in sequence allows us to understand the accusation Empedocles makes in B 136 (= EMP D 28 Laks-Most) of people being guilty of slaughter (φόνος) and cannibalism without even realizing it. It is by pervasively practising ritual sacrifice that individuals kill and devour each other, constantly but unconsciously, as B 137 (= EMP D 29 Laks-Most) brings into focus. The reason why ritual sacrifice is compared to criminal actions resides in the fact that, as Empedocles explains, the sacrificial victim is a person who has changed form (μορφὴν δ᾽ ἀλλάξαντα at B 137.1 [=EMP D 29.1 Laks-Most]) and is reborn as an animal. Indeed, it may even happen that the animal victim is the son, father or mother of the priest officiating the sacrifice.

Citing B 136 (= EMP D 28 Laks-Most), Sextus Empiricus explained Empedocles’ notion of ritual sacrifice as a form of φόνος by referring to the concept of a common cosmic spirit shared by both humans and animals which, in virtue of that, shared the same kinship.Footnote ¹⁷⁴ According to Sextus, Empedocles drew on this concept when in B 137 (= EMP D 29 Laks-Most) he described executioners and victims as blood relatives: father and son; son and father; and children and mother. More plausibly, however, the cases presented in B 137 (= EMP D 29 Laks-Most) are intended to describe borderline examples of rebirths, with the aim of representing the evil nature of sacrifice as vividly as possible. In particular, the verses of B 137 (= EMP D 29 Laks-Most) are meant to illustrate the extreme consequences of ritual sacrifice in order to clarify that the respect owed to the sacrificial victims is because animals are truly human beings that have changed their form. Accordingly, the diverse kinship relations between the victim and its executioner are not instantiations of the belief in the communion of all living beings (animals included), which share the same cosmic spirit, but are introduced for dramatic effect, in order to present the extreme, quite exceptional yet possible, case of rebirth. In other words, Empedocles’ rejection of ritual sacrifice is firmly anchored in his doctrine of rebirth. Clearly, Empedocles’ aim is to provide a paradigm that amplifies, almost exaggerates, the impious nature of ritual sacrifice, which is de facto identified with crimes of infanticide, patricide and matricide.

In this respect it is worth noting that B 137 (= EMP D 29 Laks-Most) recalls famous mythological crimes. For instance, the priest/father officiating the sacrifice in the opening of the Empedoclean lines is reminiscent of Tantalus killing his son Pelops, with the sacrifice itself being depicted as a feast for the gods along the lines of Tantalus’ banquet serving the flesh of his own son.Footnote ¹⁷⁵ Alternatively, the reference to the father killing his son and eating his flesh recalls the famous sage of mythical crimes related to the House of Atreus, which notoriously begins with Atreus murdering the sons of his twin brother Thyestes and feeding him their flesh.Footnote ¹⁷⁶ Additionally, the unintentional patricideFootnote ¹⁷⁷ mentioned at line 5 parallels the myth of Oedipus, victim par excellence of his own unawareness when he unknowingly killed his father and then married his mother. Furthermore, Empedocles’ reference to children who slaughter their own mother is comparable to the story of Electra and Orestes killing their mother Clytemnestra.Footnote ¹⁷⁸ It is worth noting, moreover, that Orestes’ murder is a consequence of a chain of crimes started by Agamemnon’s sacrifice of his own daughter Iphigenia; a sacrifice that is also murder.Footnote ¹⁷⁹ In this respect, it could be argued that Lucretius’ above-mentioned narration of the sacrifice of Iphigeneia as the exemplification of the madness of traditional religio did not merely recall the notion of impious sacrifices depicted by Empedocles, but even spells out an episode related to them, which was already evoked by Empedocles’ own verses.

2.7 Invocation to the Gods and the Muse

Having argued for a very appropriate reference to the human madness mentioned in B 3.1, namely the madness of those who practise ritual sacrifice, we have thereby also established a link to our next fragment, B 3 (= EMP D 44 Laks-Most), which runs as follows:

Through these lines Empedocles now covers the topic of the invocation to the gods and the Muse. As invocations of this sort are customary in ancient Greek poetic compositions, Empedocles thereby abides by tradition but inserts several original elements. For instance, the Muse is invoked in a conventional way, through the personal pronoun σε at the outset of line 3, a series of epithets in asyndeton and the mention of her abode at line 4. However, one of her epithets corresponds to the adjective πολυμνήστη, which in Homer is never said of the Muse, but is the common epithet applied to Penelope,Footnote ¹⁸² a queen wooed by many suitors. As the adjective is an unusual epithet for the Muse, its use in Empedocles stands out and, in fact, has raised various interpretations, which range from ‘much-wooed’ (Burnet and Guthrie), recently accepted by Laks-Most, to the related ‘molto contesa’ (Bignone) and the less literal ‘vielgefeierte’ (Diels-Kranz). Moreover, the adjective has been related to the conceptual domain of μιμνήσκομαι, producing translations such as ‘memor’ (Karsten) and ‘much-remembering’ or ‘mindful’ (LSJ’s translation, putting forward the Empedoclean locus) – in this sense it is understood by Wright, who translates it as ‘of long memory’, and Inwood, who in his translation has ‘much-remembering’. On the contrary, I would contend that, although ‘memory belongs to the Muses’,Footnote ¹⁸³ the adjective should be understood as a plain Homeric reminiscence, which is able to evoke in the audience’s mind the whole scene of Penelope being desired by her suitors.Footnote ¹⁸⁴ This confers to the term the sense of ‘much-wooed’ or ‘much-desired’ and suggests that Empedocles is presenting himself as the lover, rather than the pupil, of the goddess.

Moreover, the content of the Empedoclean prayer presents novel elements too. For instance, the first part of his request does not involve inspiration. Rather, Empedocles wishes the gods could remove the madness of those who, as I have just reconstructed, kill and eat each other by participating in ritual sacrifice. Since human unawareness has made the most atrocious forms of crimes (murder and cannibalism) the most popular and pervasive form of ritual (sacrifice), Empedocles formulates his prayer to the gods with a language that wards off the risk of contamination. At line 1 the focus is on the word μανίη, which Empedocles asks the gods to remove from his tongue as if he were afraid that the sole mention of impious sacrifices could be a source of contamination. He then insists, at line 2, on the notion of purity with the gods being prayed to in order to ensure that a pure stream (καθαρὴν … πηγήν) could flow from his holy lips (ἐκ δ᾽ ὁσίων στομάτων).

Similarly, at lines 3–4, the Muse is asked to send what is right for ordinary humans to hear, by driving her chariot from Piety. It is worth noting that, although in traditional invocations it is conventional to refer to the Muse’s abode, the identification of this with Εὐσεβίη is very unusual. The notion of εὐσεβία or εὐσέβεια expresses the sentiment of reverence and respect that is owed to the gods. The fact that the chariot of the Muse, a famous metaphor indicating poetry,Footnote ¹⁸⁵ will proceed from Εὐσεβίη means that Empedocles’ philosophy aims at presenting itself as pious and respectful of the gods. In fact, it will just reveal what people have the right to know.Footnote ¹⁸⁶

This claim narrows the field of things that humans are allowed to know and may seem to be at odds with Empedocles’ promise made elsewhere to reveal to Pausanias even a type of knowledge that belongs only to the gods, namely how to control the forces of nature (B 111 [= EMP D 43 Laks-Most]). I would contend that Empedocles’ appeal to the gods, the focus, in his invocation, on the notions of contamination and, above all, his prayer to a holy and pure poetry can be read as his strategy to endear himself to the gods after a series of what could be considered severe acts of hubris, such as his declaration of divine nature, his ability to master (and to teach how to master) the forces of nature and, finally, his rejection of sacrifice, the core of Greek εὐσεβία. In this respect, Empedocles’ prayer to the gods is his way to express his respectful tribute to tradition.

However, his appeal to the Muse may seem to undermine his declaration of divine authority. Why should a god ask another god for assistance?Footnote ¹⁸⁷ I would argue that Empedocles’ invocation to the gods and the Muse abides by a literary convention and, as such, is traditional in character. However, the novel elements it presents, which have been analyzed above, aim at redefining the relationship between the poet and his Muse. These elements find significant analogies with the poetic strategy put forward by lyric poets of the sixth and fifth century BCE.

In fact, the traditional notion of the poet as an instrument of divine song had developed around the fifth century BCE into new images presenting the poet boasting of his own authority and expertise surpassing ordinary human knowledge. As A. Morrison suggests,Footnote ¹⁸⁸ this development can be observed alongside a chronological line from Homer to Hellenistic poetry. Whereas in epic poetry, both Homeric and Hesiodic, the narrator is explicitly subordinated to the Muse,Footnote ¹⁸⁹ the poems of later lyric poets, like Solon, Theognis and Anacreon, show that the narrator is rarely portrayed as dependent on the Muses when the subject matter is non-mythic.Footnote ¹⁹⁰

In parallel, lyric poets drew growing attention to the role of the narrator in composing the song. For instance, Simonides characterized his Muse as his ἐπίκουρος, and portrayed the poem he is composing as their joint enterprise.Footnote ¹⁹¹ This tendency is emphasized by Pindar’s general strategy of remarking upon the importance of the narrator over the Muse and focusing on the poet’s personal abilities over his reliance on divine aid. Indeed, Pindar often represents himself riding in the chariot of the Muse;Footnote ¹⁹² yet, in his poems we sometimes find a reformulation of this image according to which Pindar himself leads the chariot while the Muse stands beside his hetairos, merely encouraging him.Footnote ¹⁹³ To give one example, in the opening to the third Olympian Ode, the Muse is said to stand by the poet, but it is Pindar who ‘found a newly shining way to join to Dorian measure a voice of splendid celebration (l. 4)’. In this respect, it is noteworthy that Pindar constructs a further variation of the image of the chariot of poetry when depicting the Muse driving the chariot but following Pindar’s instructions on where to drive it.Footnote ¹⁹⁴

The comparison with the lyric poets and, especially, with Pindar shows that in the fifth century BCE the invocation to the Muse had developed from a traditional source of wisdom to a conventional homage to tradition. More specifically, a poet still recurs to the goddesses, who were traditionally taken as the source of poetry, but does not simultaneously renounce a claim on personal wisdom and authority in their poetic composition. In Pindar, the standard representation of a poet being subordinated to the divine aid is rare, while we more frequently find statements of his importance over the Muse. Even in those representations where the relationship between poet and gods is unequal, the Muse is portrayed in a way that in Greek ‘indicates impatience, familiarity or lack of reserve and demonstrates that the poet is treating the Muses as “his own familiar friends”’.Footnote ¹⁹⁵ This is an indication that the Muses have long lost their traditional role as the source of wisdom in favour of the poet’s own authority on the song.

Close familiarity and lack of reticence are also particularly prominent in Empedocles’ own prayer to the Muse. Above all, the way in which Empedocles characterizes the Muse as πολυμνήστη, ‘much-desired’, indicates his intention to redefine the relationship between the poet and his Muse: Empedocles is no longer her pupil but rather her suitor.Footnote ¹⁹⁶ Moreover, by asking the Muse to send what is right for mortals to hear and to drive ‘the well-reined chariot from Piety’, Empedocles instructs the Muse where she is to drive the chariot of poetry from. Along with Pindar’s similar instructions to his Muse, this can be taken as a signal of the importance of the poet over the god when narrating the song.

An analogous strategy can also be observed in Empedocles’ second invocation to the Muse in B 131 (= EMP D 7 Laks-Most),Footnote ¹⁹⁷ which runs as follows:

Besides the construction of this invocation around traditional elements,Footnote ¹⁹⁸ it is worth noting that, similarly to Empedocles’ first appeal to the Muse in B 3 (= EMP D 44 Laks-Most), here Calliope is asked to stand by the poet, while he reveals a valid account of the gods. As for Pindar, also for Empedocles ‘we may say that it is the poet who issues the commands to the Muse and not vice versa’.Footnote ¹⁹⁹ Additionally, the mention of mortals at the outset of B 131 (= EMP D 7 Laks-Most) (ἐφημερίων at l. 1) and the indication in B 3 (= EMP D 44 Laks-Most) of the things that are right for them to hear (ὧν θέμις ἐστὶν ἐφημερίοισιν ἀκούειν at l. 4) invites the reading that Empedocles, like Pindar, asks the Muse for neither wisdom nor expertise, but rather requests the appropriate means ‘to make possible the full expression of his own expertise’.Footnote ²⁰⁰

Returning to the analysis of B 3 (= EMP D 44 Laks-Most), the reference of the pronoun σε at line 6 is debated. It can refer to the Muse in parallel with καὶ σέ … Μοῦσα at line 3, or it can refer to Pausanias, in line with Empedocles’ appeal to the disciple from line 9 onwards. On the one hand, a reference to the Muse avoids a sudden change of addressee.Footnote ²⁰¹ Moreover, Empedocles’ recommendations about what should or should not be said to avoid uttering more than is holy seems out of place with reference to Pausanias: the disciple is the recipient of the revelation, not its source. Additionally, Empedocles’ concerns about saying just what is holy parallels his previous request to the Muse that she should send words people are allowed to hear. On the other hand, Empedocles’ instructions in order not to pursue bold complacency or mere glory from human beings may seem inappropriate if referred to the Muse, the traditional source of poetic wisdom. Commonly, the Muses receive honour and glory from humans, and above all from poets, without striving to obtain them.

Yet, as we have just seen, Empedocles’ prayer to the gods and the Muse diverges from traditional, epic patterns to divine invocations. Therefore, as the comparison with Pindar suggests, we cannot exclude that, at lines 6–8, Empedocles is being intentionally un-traditional by issuing commands to the Muse as to what she should or should not say. In this respect, the reference to the Muse’s desire for human glory and honour as well as Empedocles’ recommendation not to say anything un-holy strongly emphasize his authority on the song and his superiority over any external aid. This is perfectly in line with his claim to divine nature and wisdom. In fact, being a god, Empedocles can portray himself as an equal, rather than a subordinate, of the Muse. Thus, as the divine leader of his own chariot of poetry, he may well indicate to the Muse, and not merely to Pausanias, how to reach ‘the peaks of wisdom’.

The promise to sit on the peaks of wisdom parallels the analogous promises in B 111 (= EMP D 43 Laks-Most) to gain superhuman powers over the forces of nature and in B 2.8–9 (= EMP D 42.8–9 Laks-Most) to obtain a knowledge that no human being can reach. Yet the metaphor of the peaks of wisdom suggests more than just this. By seeing the ‘enquirer of the truth’ as gradually ascending a mountain, this image suggests the notion that wisdom is achieved at the end of a hard, ascending path, while underlying this there is the conceptualization of knowledge as a (strenuous) journey.Footnote ²⁰² Moreover, it triggers a mental representation of philosophical wisdom not merely as the conquest of the mountain’s peak, but also as the ‘aesthetic, visual thrill of an overview, encompassing the whole area below, from horizon to horizon, and seeing at a glance the way the details of the landscape below fit together in one meaningful picture’.Footnote ²⁰³ Thus, being seated on the peaks of wisdom suggests the effort to comprehend, by ascending steps in the knowing process, the universe as a whole.Footnote ²⁰⁴

By building upon the notion of ‘peaks of wisdom’ – hence upon the implied notion of knowledge as a hard process through ascending steps – throughout lines 9–13 Empedocles turns to Pausanias in order that he approaches the revelation he is about to receive in the best possible way. Specifically, these lines focus on perception as a means to obtain knowledge, as every sense organ is said to be ‘a passage for understanding’ – a further metaphor that is related to the underlying notion of knowledge as a process and, as such, also a journey.Footnote ²⁰⁵ Empedocles expresses the need to sharpen any sensation Pausanias has at his disposal, without preferring any in particular, in order to comprehend the nature of the physical world.Footnote ²⁰⁶ Indeed, Pausanias is urged to improve the way in which he understands ‘each thing in the way in which it is evident’, before Empedocles can begin the exposition of his natural philosophy.

2.8 The Physical Principles

This conclusion brings us to the last section of Empedocles’ proem, which consists of the fragments I have reconstructed as Groups 5 and 6, programmatically introducing the rudiments and components of his physical system. These are, first of all, the fundamental principles of the physical world: the four elements of fire, air, water and earth, and the forces of Love and Strife. The presentation of the four elements can be read through B 6 (= EMP D 57 Laks-Most):

The four elements are called roots of all things and are personified as gods: Zeus, Hera, Aidoneus and Nestis. The plant metaphor could illustrate the fact that, as we will see in Chapter 4.1 and 5.1, the four elements are, like the roots of a plant, entities enabling and sustaining the existence of everything, since they are the ingredients forming all that there is in the world. In our fragment, the association of the names of traditional gods with each element is controversial. Apart from Nestis, who is clearly associated with water (as she moistens with tears the mortal fountain), ancient sources did not agree about which element each god personifies. In fact, according to two different interpretations, Zeus corresponds to fire, whereas either Hera corresponds to air and Aidoneus to earth (ps.-Plutarch) or, vice versa, Hera represents earth and Aidoneus air (Stobaeus). A further reading, additionally, first advanced in the nineteenth century, envisages Zeus representing the element of ether or air, Hera personifying the element of earth and Aidoneus that of fire.Footnote ²⁰⁷ It is difficult to side with one or the other interpretation, as good arguments are put forward in support of each of them. What can be observed, however, is that Empedocles presents the roots as two pairs of male and female gods, who are traditionally married couples. As such, Nestis has been identified with Persephone,Footnote ²⁰⁸ Aidoneus’ (or Hades’) wife. Given that Nestis personifies water, Aidoneus may well be the divine representation of fire and their being a couple could illustrate their physical contrast on a scale of opposites, with fire being bright and hot and water dark and cold, as Empedocles points out elsewhere.Footnote ²⁰⁹ On the same standard, the couple of Zeus and Hera may represent heaven and earthFootnote ²¹⁰ as a pair of cosmic opposites and, in Empedocles’ system, they stay for the opposing principles of air/ether and earth (taking heaven as the cosmic instantiation of the element of air/ether). This agrees with the traditional representation of ZeusFootnote ²¹¹ and also fits the adjective φερέσβιος, ‘life-bearing’ or ‘life-giving’, which in Empedocles characterizes Hera, but is traditionally attributed to γαῖα.Footnote ²¹²

After having introduced the four roots of everything, Empedocles also presented the other two major principles of his cosmic system: the opposite forces of Love and Strife (B 16 [= EMP D 63 Laks-Most]):

By saying that they are, as they were before and will be in the future, Empedocles makes Love and Strife eternal.Footnote ²¹³ As B. Inwood has pointed out, ‘Strife and Love seem to differ from the other elements in that at least part of each stays pure, totally unmixed, throughout the eternity of history. That alone would justify their special status.’Footnote ²¹⁴ Additionally, Inwood correctly indicates aspects in Empedocles’ depiction of Love and Strife that are meant to illustrate them as antipodal principles: on the one hand, Love is usually associated with mixture, whereas Strife is an agent of division; on the other hand, Love is always portrayed as feminine, whereas Strife is either masculine or neuter.Footnote ²¹⁵ Whereas Love and Strife and the characteristic antinomy between them will be investigated more thoroughly in Chapter 4.2, for now another element can be added; namely, the fact that Empedocles consistently associates Love with the positive principle and Strife with the negative force.

2.9 A Central Tenet of the Physical System

After having programmatically introduced the principles of the physical world – the four elements and the two forces of Love and Strife – Empedocles likely wanted to premise his cosmological exposition with one of the central tenets of his physical system; that is, his rejection of the common notions of birth and death on the basis that every existing thing in the world is formed by mixture of the four elements and is destroyed by their separation. Empedocles embarks on such a theme through fragments B 8 (= EMP D 53 Laks-Most), B 12 (= EMP D 48 Laks-Most), B 9 (= EMP D 54 Laks-Most), B 11 (= EMP D 51 Laks-Most) and B 15 (= EMP D 52 Laks-Most). Let us begin our analysis with B 8 (= EMP D 53 Laks-Most) and B 12 (= EMP D 48 Laks-Most), which run as follows:

B 8.1–2 (= EMP D 53.1–2 Laks-Most) clearly states that no mortal beings have ever experienced birth and death. What this apparently peculiar claim really means is clarified in the ensuing two lines: birth and death are rejected because the real nature of these phenomena lies in the fact that they are produced by ‘mixing and exchange of mixed things’. Thus, what people call ‘birth’ is in truth this constant process of mixing and exchange. B 12 (= EMP D 48 Laks-Most) elaborates on the concept of Empedocles’ rejection of birth and death. The initial claim, according to which it is impossible that something comes about from what is not at all, sheds some light on the fact the ordinary notions of birth and death are rejected because they imply generation ex nihilo.

In this respect, B 9 (= EMP D 54 Laks-Most) and B 11 (= EMP D 51 Laks-Most) are even clearer:

In these two sets of verses Empedocles clarifies that people call ‘birth’ the phenomenon of the coming into being of a human being, an animal or a plant, in the conviction that they formerly were not. In parallel, what they call ‘death’ is what appears to be an utter disappearance of these mortal forms. However, Empedocles explains that nothing arises from what was previously nothing or disappears completely. For this reason, the real nature of the phenomena of birth and death is connected, respectively, with the notion of ‘mixture’ (μιγέν at B 9.1 [= EMP D 54.1 Laks-Most]) and ‘separation’ (ἀποκρινθῶσι at B 9.4 [= EMP D 54.4 Laks-Most]) of pre-existing materials. In B 11 (= EMP D 51 Laks-Most) Empedocles reiterates the idea expressed in B 9 (= EMP D 54 Laks-Most) by calling ‘fools’, νήπιοι, those who, having thoughts that do not reach far (οὐ γάρ σφιν δολιχόφρονές εἰσι μέριμναι) ‘expected that what formerly did not exist comes into existence, or that something dies and is utterly destroyed’. It is worth noting that the idea of having thoughts that do not reach far links to fragment B 2 (= EMP D 42 Laks-Most), analyzed above, in which humans are depicted as short-lived and swift-dying and, for this reason, not able to know the whole.Footnote ²¹⁸

Thus, traditional notions of birth and death are misleading as they derive from human’s erroneous understanding of phenomena. To ordinary people, who do not have far-reaching thoughts and know just what they happen to encounter in a brief lifetime, birth and death coincide, as B 9 (= EMP D 54 Laks-Most) clarifies, with the phenomenal appearance of a certain being that previously was not and with its utter disappearance. This is just a superficial understanding of phenomena, however, while the coming into being of a new form of a living being is the result of complex processes involving mixtures, separations and exchanges of mixed things.Footnote ²¹⁹ It follows that an unambiguous comprehension of the concepts of ‘coming to be’ and ‘perishing’ implicate seeing them as material processes involving pre-existent elements – the four elements, as Empedocles will explain in the course of his poem – that persist once they are separated again.Footnote ²²⁰

It is worth noting that, whereas on a physical standard every existing thing in the world can be described as a compound of elements, including inorganic and inanimate things, B 8 (= EMP D 53 Laks-Most) and B 9 (= EMP D 54 Laks-Most) specifically focus on the impossibility of coming to be and perishing of living beings: θνητά in B 8.2 (= EMP D 53.2 Laks-Most) is clarified in B 9 (= EMP D 54 Laks-Most) as human beings, all kinds of animals and plants. This suggests Empedocles developed his physical tenet with his more religious belief in rebirth in mind, which professes that no living being utterly perishes but continues a disembodied existence before being reborn as another form of mortal. In parallel, rebirth also entails that every living being that comes to be already had a certain form of pre-existence.Footnote ²²¹

This reconstruction gains force if we consider that Plutarch adds to B 8 (= EMP D 53 Laks-Most) and B 9 (= EMP D 54 Laks-Most) the quotation of B 15 (= EMP D 52 Laks-Most),Footnote ²²² which runs as follows:

According to Plutarch, just like B 8 (= EMP D 53 Laks-Most) and B 9 (= EMP D 54 Laks-Most), this fragment represents Empedocles’ claim that there is something of the individual that pre-exists the birth and endures the death of the body. As Plutarch puts it, ‘those who are not born, and the already dead, are in some way’.Footnote ²²³ What these lines add to the information already collected from the previous fragments is that what pre-exists birth and endures beyond death is subjected, beyond the life of the body, to suffer and rejoice. Indeed, a wise person knows that there is individual existence and evil and good things that come with it, both before and after the life of the body. To put it another way, Empedocles connects the notion of individual existence before the birth and after the death of the body with his physical theory of mortals being formed by combinations of prior material, and for this reason Plutarch quotes B 15 (= EMP D 52 Laks-Most) together with B 8 (= EMP D 53 Laks-Most) and B 9 (= EMP D 54 Laks-Most). However, B 15 (= EMP D 52 Laks-Most) differs from the other two fragments in that it does not focus on the basic, elemental composition of any living form. Rather, the mention of the good and evil things that befall individuals before and after their life as mortals leaves no doubt that Empedocles is here referring to the more religious belief in disembodied existence. As we will see more extensively in Chapter 5.1, this conclusion invites the reading that the physical principle governing all areas of the universe (the four elements mixing and separating to form every existing entity) is presented precisely with the aim to explain that living beings and, above all, human beings do not ever come to be and perish altogether but join a form of individual existence beyond the body – a notion that is tightly linked to Empedocles’ belief in rebirth.

2.10 Conclusions

Empedocles’ On Nature opens with an oracle of Necessity and an ancient and eternal decree of the gods, sealed by broad oaths. This establishes that, whenever a god commits a crime of slaughter and/or perjury, it will be punished through exile on earth and rebirths as all kinds of mortal beings. We are told that Empedocles is one of these gods and, because of his trust in Strife, has been compelled to wander as an exile in our world and to work through rebirths. In fact, he was already a bush, bird, fish, girl and boy, before taking his current form. Then, in the footsteps of legendary and semi-legendary wisdom-heroes and sages, such as Orpheus, Epimenides and, above all, Pythagoras, Empedocles narrates the most extraordinary leg of his journey of exile: his katabasis to the underworld. Being guided into the realm of the dead by his δαίμων ψυχοπομπός Pythagoras, who had entered (and exited) Hades while alive, Empedocles acquired exceptional knowledge of the fate of the dead. In particular, he experienced their judgement, the punishment or reward that followed that judgement and their ‘dressing’ with a new body.

As has been shown, Empedocles’ narration of his katabasis in the opening to the physical poem has the purpose of authorial validation on matters beyond ordinary human knowledge. As the proems to Hesiod’s Theogony and Parmenides’ poem show, the practice of self-legitimation has a well-attested tradition in epic-didactic poems. Thereby, authors could claim that the source of their wisdom is divine and their poetry, consequently, true. Moreover, katabaseis were a recognized way to obtain the truth and belong to a traditional motif accounting for the sage’s divine wisdom. Indeed, journeys to the underworld are straightforwardly connected with access to an extraordinary knowledge. Clearly, Empedocles was recalling a well-attested wisdom tradition, while blatantly imitating his master Pythagoras, when he depicts himself as a sage who went in and out of Hades, indeed as a god who was born many times and has knowledge otherwise concealed from ordinary mortals.

After the narration of his katabasis, in the rest of his prologue to On Nature, Empedocles continues intertwining his religious concerns on rebirth with his physical theories. Thus, after his dedication to Pausanias and the promise of divine knowledge at the end of his training, Empedocles lingers on depicting the miserable inanity of ordinary human beings. In contrast to Pausanias, they are unable to genuinely know and, for this reason, they have only a partial understanding of the physical world and of their own destiny. Indeed, being unaware of the process of rebirth that befalls all living beings, they participate in ritual sacrifice, making themselves responsible for the most terrible crimes. In contrast, Empedocles proposes a new world order, which is intended to provide such an explanation of individual existence that, taking into account the notion of rebirth, goes beyond the conventional concepts of life and death.

The traditional concepts of life and death are in fact discredited through a twofold argument. In addition to (and in line with) the pre-Socratic axiom of nihil ex nihilo fit, according to which everything is to be traced back to more basic constituents, Empedocles also argues that there is something of the individual that precedes birth and endures after the death of the body; in other words, there is life beyond the body. From this perspective, we can appreciate the way in which Empedocles urges us to consider the physical principles governing the coming into being and ending of all things in light of his doctrine of rebirth.

Most significantly, we have seen the ways in which Empedocles’ religious concerns on rebirth programmatically inform the whole proemial section, from the ‘mythical’ narration of his katabasis and his rejection of ritual sacrifice to the rudiments of his physics with the refusal of birth and death and the notion of mixtures and separations of elements. The constant reference to the concept of rebirth in the introductory verses of On Nature suggests that this is not just one of the many themes touched upon in Empedocles’ philosophy; rather it is central to his physical system. This conclusion has crucial implications for the comprehension of Empedocles’ thought as a whole: knowledge of natural philosophy is not an end in itself; rather, a deep knowledge of the physical system will provide Pausanias with not merely understanding of, but also control over, the forces of nature. In other words, Empedocles’ On Nature teaches the way to escape mortal nature and become divine. Against this background, my main task in the following chapters will be to explore the interplay between religious concerns about rebirth and physical principles that the new proemial text established here has so manifestly introduced.