Greece & Rome · c. 494–434 BCE
Empedocles
Sicilian poet, healer and statesman of the four roots
Held that earth, water, air and fire are eternal “roots” that Love unites and Strife separates in an endless cosmic cycle. He also taught the transmigration of souls and abstention from killing animals.
Life and thought
Empedocles came from Acragas (Agrigento) in Sicily and lived in the 5th century BCE. Ancient stories make him a democratic politician who refused a crown, a healer and wonder-worker, and, in legend, a man who leapt into the crater of Etna to prove himself a god. He wrote in verse; the Strasbourg papyrus, published in 1999, added new lines to those quoted by later authors.
To satisfy Parmenides without denying change, he proposed four eternal “roots”, earth, water, air and fire, and two forces: Love, which unites them, and Strife, which separates them. Nothing comes from nothing; what we call birth and death is mixing and unmixing, and the cosmos swings in a cycle between total union and total separation. His religious poem adds that souls, too, wander through many bodies, so killing animals is a kind of murder. The four elements then dominated European and Islamic science for two thousand years.
Works
Shaped by
c. 515 – after 450 BCEParmenidesFounder of the Eleatic school and of deductive argumentStudents
c. 483–375 BCEGorgiasDiogenes Laertius, citing the biographer Satyrus, says Gorgias was Empedocles’ pupil; the report is late and unconfirmed.Meanwhile, in other traditions
traditionally 6th c. BCELaoziLegendary sage credited with the Daodejingfl. 6th–5th c. BCEAjita KesakambalīMaterialist teacher of the Buddha’s time, named for his hair blanket551–479 BCE (traditional)ConfuciusTeacher from Lu who sought to revive the Zhou wayc. 480–400 BCE (debated; an older dating is c. 563–483 BCE)The Buddha (Siddhārtha Gautama)Founder of Buddhism, who taught a middle way out of sufferingc. 470–391 BCEMoziFounder of Mohism and critic of Confucian partialityOn the record
According to ancient report, Gorgias studied with Empedocles.
The report goes back to the Hellenistic biographer Satyrus, quoted by Diogenes Laertius (8.58), and is repeated by later writers. The two were near contemporaries, and modern reference works range from accepting it to calling it a biographer’s tale; the atlas keeps the tie but marks it as a report.
Sources: Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Eminent Philosophers 8.58 (trans. R. D. Hicks, LacusCurtius) · Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, “Gorgias”