Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers

​In general [Aristotle] says that he also wrote tragedies and political works; but Heraclides, the son of Sarapion, says that the tragedies are by someone else. Hieronymus says that he had met with forty-three of them, while Neanthes says that he wrote the tragedies when he was young, and that he had met with seven of them. Satyrus says in his Lives that he was both a physician and an excellent orator. At any rate Gorgias of Leontini became his pupil, a man outstanding in rhetoric who left behind a Hand-book of Rhetoric; Apollodorus says of him in the Chronica that he lived to be one hundred and nine years old.

​Satyrus says that this Gorgias stated that he was himself present when Empedocles was performing sorcery. Moreover, Empedocles himself makes promises of this and of even more through his poetry, in which he says: "All the remedies that exist as a cure for ills and a defense against old age you shall learn, since for you alone I will accomplish all these things. And you shall quell the force of untiring winds, which rising up against the earth waste the plowed lands with their blasts; and again, if you wish, you shall bring back retaliatory breezes; and after dark rain you shall bring opportune drought for men, and after summer drought you shall bring tree-nourishing streams that dwell in the upper air; and you shall bring back from Hades the vigor of a dead man."

​Timaeus also says in his eighteenth book that the man was marvelled at in many ways. For when the Etesian winds once blew vehemently so as to damage the crops, he ordered asses to be flayed and made into skins, which he stretched out around the hills and ridges in order to catch the wind; and when it ceased, he was called 'Wind-stayer'. Heraclides in On Diseases says that he also gave instructions to Pausanias concerning the breathless woman. Now Pausanias, as Aristippus and Satyrus say, was his beloved, to whom indeed he addressed On Nature in this manner:

"And do you listen, Pausanias, son of wise-minded Anchitus." Moreover, he also composed an epigram for him: "Pausanias, a physician named fittingly, son of Anchitus, a mortal descendant of Asclepius, his fatherland Gela reared; who turned back many mortals wasting away with painful distress from the adyta of Persephone." At any rate, Heraclides says that the breathless woman was such a case as to preserve her body without breath and without pulse for thirty days; whence he also declared himself to be both a physician and a prophet, taking this claim at the same time from these verses:

"O friends, who dwell along the yellow Acragas in the great city, up on the heights of the citadel, caring for noble deeds, hail; I go about among you as an immortal god, no longer mortal, honored by all, as is fitting, wreathed with ribbons and flourishing garlands; with these, whenever I enter flourishing cities, by men and women alike I am revered; and they follow me in myriad numbers, inquiring where lies the path to gain; some in need of prophecies, while others for all kinds of diseases have sought to hear a curative word."

​He says that he called Acragas 'great' because eighty tens of thousands inhabited it; whence Empedocles, when they lived luxuriously, said: "The Acragantines live luxuriously as if they were to die tomorrow, but construct their houses as if they were to live for all time." It is said that Cleomenes the rhapsode recited these very Purifications at Olympia, as Favorinus also says in his Memorabilia. Aristotle also says that he was free-spirited and alien to all rule, if indeed he declined the kingship offered to him, just as Xanthus says in his account of him, evidently because he was more pleased with simplicity.

​Timaeus has also stated the same things, at the same time setting forth the reason why the man was of democratic sentiment. For he says that when he was invited by one of the magistrates, as the dinner proceeded and the wine was not brought in while the others remained silent, being of an indignation-filled disposition he ordered it to be brought in; but the host said he was waiting for the attendant of the council. And when he arrived, he was made symposiarch, obviously appointed by the host, and he foreshadowed the beginning of a tyranny; for he ordered either to drink or to have it poured over one's head. At the time, then, Empedocles kept quiet; but on the following day he brought them into court, secured their condemnation, and put them both to death, both the host and the symposiarch. This, then, was the beginning of his political career.