[58] Satyros ap. D.L. viii, 59; Vors. 195, 26.—Especially famous was his feat of driving away adverse winds from Akragas (cf. fr. 111, 3); see also Welcker, Kl. Schr. iii, 60–1.—The asses’ skins with which Emped. kept the north winds away from Akragas were at any rate intended as apotropaic materials—magic means of driving away spirits. In the same way protection against hail and lightning is obtained by hanging up the skin of a hyena, a seal, etc. (see Geop. i, 14, 3–5; i, 16, and Niclas’ notes there). These skins ἔχουσι δύναμιν ἀντιπαθῆ: Plu., Smp. 4, 2, 1, p. 664 C.—Other magic charms against hail—the χαλαζοφύλακες, Plu., Smp. 7, 2, 2, p. 700 F; Sen., NQ. 4b, 6.
[59] . . . ἐγὼ δ’ ὑμῖν θεὸς ἄμβροτος, οὐκέτι θνητός, πωλεῦμαι μετὰ πᾶσι τετιμένος κτλ. 400 f. (fr. 112, 4 f.).
[60] A late echo is to be found in the inspired lines of Lucretius in praise of Empedokles, i, 717 ff.
[61] The well-known story of Empedokles’ leap into the crater of Mt. Aetna—intended by his complete disappearance to call forth the belief that he had not died (Luc., DM. xx, 4), but had been translated [402] alive—is a parody of a serious translation legend and presupposes the existence of one. The parodists’ version was contradicted early by Empedokles’ follower, the physician Pausanias: D.L. viii, 69 (this does not come from the fabulously conceived narrative of Herakleides Pont. It does not follow, from the epigram quoted by D.L. viii, 61, fr. 156; AP. vii, 508, that Paus. died before Emped.; the authorship of that ep. is uncertain and in any case it is not very worthy of credit). The seriously intended legend must then have arisen soon after the disappearance of Empedokles: it was founded upon the fact that no one did know where Emp. had died (θάνατος ἄδηλος, Timaeus ap. D.L. viii, 71), or could point to the grave which covered his remains. (This is expressly stated by Timaeus, who, in other respects, contradicts the translation-fable as well as the story of the leap into Mt. Aetna: D.L. viii, 72. In the face of this no importance need be attached to what some one—Neanthes apparently—states ap. D.L. viii, 73; that there was a grave of Emped. at Megara.) Free elaboration was given to the translation story by Herakleides Pont. π. νόσων: D.L. viii, 67–8 (in return, his philosophic rivals contemptuously applied a malicious story of feigned translation to Herakleides himself, who in this way wished to legitimize his own claim to be god or Hero: D.L. v, 89 ff. From other sources comes Suid. Ἡρακλ. Εὐθύφρονος; cf. Marx, Griech. Märchen v. dankb. Thieren, p. 97 ff.). All kinds of stupid variations of the story of Empedokles’ end ap. D.L. viii, 74.
[62] See above, [chap. ii], and [p. 129].
[63] Cf. 113 ff.; fr. 9.
[64] σαρκῶν χιτών, 414, fr. 126.
[65] His treatment of the woman who seemed to be dead (ἄπνους, D.L. viii, 60) has quite the appearance of a psychophysical experiment; one, however, that was intended to prove the correctness of precisely the irrational side of his doctrine of the soul.
[66] γυίων πίστις is distinguished from νοεῖν in v, 57 (fr. 4, 13), and νόῳ δέρκεσθαι from δέρκεσθαι ὄμμασιν in 82 (fr. 17, 21); cf. οὔτ’ ἐπίδερκτα τάδ’ ἄνδρασιν οὔτ’ ἐπακουστά, οὔτε νόῳ περίληπτα, 42 f. (fr. 2, 7).—Elsewhere it is true that Emped. (who throughout avoids prosaic exactitude in the use of technical terms) uses νοῆσαι as simply = sense-perception following epic idiom: e.g. 56 (fr. 4, 12; but it is not quite correct to say that Emped. τὸ φρονεῖν καὶ τὸ αἰσθάνεσθαι ταὐτό φησι, as Arist. declares: An. 427a, 22).
[67] 378 ff.; fr. 109: γαίῃ μὲν γὰρ γαῖαν ὀπώπαμεν, etc. (ὁρᾶν is here used in its widest sense, εἶδος ἀντὶ γένους, and = αἰσθάνεσθαι. Thus, νόῳ δέρκεσθαι in 82 [17, 21] = αἰσθάνεσθαι, and very commonly words denoting one of the modes of perception are used instead of those of another εἶδος, or for the whole γένος of αἴσθησις. Lob., Rhemat. 334 ff.).