Acknowledgements

The conception and realization of this book owe a great deal to the rich corpus of published works on Empedocles and, more generally, on early Greek philosophy, as well as to the stimulating questions, inspiring ideas and insightful suggestions of a large number of colleagues, fellow researchers, conference participants, friends and acquaintances, Classics enthusiasts or any person interested in my work. To all of them I am deeply and sincerely grateful. Special thanks go to Franco Ferrari, Riccardo Di Donato, Alberto Bernabé, David Sedley, Jean-Claude Picot, the two anonymous readers of this book and Melinda Johnston for their invaluable support in reading, discussing, commenting on and editing some or all of the chapters of this book during the various drafting stages. I am also very grateful to Michael Sharp and Cambridge University Press for their valuable assistance and advice during the publication process.

The completion of this project has been made possible thanks to the funds made available by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) as part of the project Early Concepts of Humans and Nature: Universal, Specific, Interchanged (RTG 1876) as well as thanks to the digital resources of Harvard’s Center for Hellenic Studies in Washington, DC, from which I could benefit first as a Fellow in 2017–2018 and then as an Associate in early Greek philosophy in 2018–2020.

This book is dedicated to my husband, Moritz, for his constant support, encouragement and love throughout every stage of this project.