Even these indications are enough to show that he must have been a boy in the reign of Theron, the tyrant who co-operated with Gelon of Syracuse in the repulse of the Carthaginians from Himera. His son and successor, Thrasydaios, was a man of another stamp. Before his accession to the throne of Akragas, he had ruled in his father’s name at Himera, and completely estranged the affections of its inhabitants. Theron died in 472 B.C., and Thrasydaios at once displayed all the vices and follies usual in the second holder of a usurped dominion. After a disastrous war with Hieron of Syracuse, he was driven out; and Akragas enjoyed a free government till it fell before the Carthaginians more than half a century later.[[505]]
Empedokles as a politician.
99. In the political events of the next few years, Empedokles certainly played an important part; but our information on the subject is of a very curious kind. The Sicilian historian Timaios told one or two stories about him, which are obviously genuine traditions picked up about a hundred and fifty years afterwards; but, like all popular traditions, they are a little confused. The picturesque incidents are remembered, but the essential parts of the story are dropped. Still, we may be thankful that the “collector of old wives’ tales,”[[506]] as sneering critics called him, has enabled us to measure the historical importance of Empedokles for ourselves by showing us how he was pictured by the great-grandchildren of his contemporaries.
We read, then,[[507]] that once he was invited to sup with one of the “rulers.” Tradition delights in such vague titles. “Supper was well advanced, but no wine was brought in. The rest of the company said nothing, but Empedokles was righteously indignant, and insisted on wine being served. The host, however, said he was waiting for the serjeant of the Council. When that official arrived, he was appointed ruler of the feast. The host, of course, appointed him. Thereupon he began to give hints of an incipient tyranny. He ordered the company either to drink or have the wine poured over their heads. At the time, Empedokles said nothing; but next day he led both of them before the court, and had them condemned and put to death—both the man who asked him to supper, and the ruler of the feast.[[508]] This was the beginning of his political career.” The next tale is that Empedokles prevented the Council from granting his friend Akron a piece of land for a family sepulchre on the ground of his eminence in medicine, and supported his objection by a punning epigram.[[509]] Lastly, he broke up the assembly of the Thousand—perhaps some oligarchical association or club.[[510]] It may have been for this that he was offered the kingship, which Aristotle tells us he refused.[[511]] At any rate, we see that Empedokles was the great democratic leader at Akragas in those days, though we have no clear knowledge of what he did.
Empedokles as a religious teacher.
100. But there is another side to his public character which Timaios found it hard to reconcile with his political views. He claimed to be a god, and to receive the homage of his fellow-citizens in that capacity. The truth is, Empedokles was not a mere statesman; he had a good deal of the “medicine-man” about him. According to Satyros,[[512]] Gorgias affirmed that he had been present when his master was performing sorceries. We can see what this means from the fragments of the Purifications. Empedokles was a preacher of the new religion which sought to secure release from the “wheel of birth” by purity and abstinence; but it is not quite certain to which form of it he adhered. On the one hand, Orphicism seems to have been strong at Akragas in the days of Theron, and there are even some verbal coincidences between the poems of Empedokles and the Orphicising Odes which Pindar addressed to that prince.[[513]] There are also some points of similarity between the Rhapsodic Theogony, as we know it from Damaskios, and certain fragments of Empedokles, though the importance of these has been exaggerated.[[514]] On the other hand, there is no reason to doubt the statement of Ammonios that fr. [134] refers to Apollo;[[515]] and, if that is so, it would point to his having been an adherent of the Ionic form of the mystic doctrine, as we have seen ([§ 39]) that Pythagoras was. Further, Timaios already knew the story that he had been expelled from the Pythagorean Order for “stealing discourses,”[[516]] and it is probable on the whole that fr. [129] refers to Pythagoras.[[517]] It would be very hazardous to dogmatise on this subject; but it seems most likely that Empedokles had been influenced by Orphic ideas in his youth, and that, in later life, he preached a form of Pythagoreanism which was not considered orthodox by the heads of the Society. In any case, it seems far more probable that his political and scientific activity belong to the same period of his life, and that he only became a wandering prophet after his banishment, than that his scientific work belonged to his later days when he was a solitary exile.[[518]]
We hear of a number of marvels performed by Empedokles, which are for the most part nothing but inferences from his writings. Timaios told how he weakened the force of the etesian winds by hanging bags of asses’ skins on the trees to catch them. He had certainly said, in his exaggerated way, that the knowledge of science as taught by him would enable his disciples to control the winds (fr. [111]); and this, along with the fabled windbags of Aiolos, is enough to account for the tale.[[519]] We are also told how he brought back to life a woman who had been breathless and pulseless for thirty days. The verse where he asserts that his teaching will enable Pausanias to bring the dead back from Hades (fr. [111]) shows how this story may have arisen.[[520]] Again, we hear that he sweetened the pestilent marsh between Selinous and the sea by diverting the rivers Hypsas and Selinos into it. We know from coins that this purification of the marshes actually took place, but we may doubt whether it was attributed to Empedokles till a later time.[[521]]
Rhetoric and medicine.
101. Aristotle said that Empedokles was the inventor of Rhetoric;[[522]] and Galen made him the founder of the Italian school of Medicine, which he puts on a level with those of Kos and Knidos.[[523]] Both these statements must be considered in connexion with his political and scientific activity. It seems to be certain that Gorgias was his disciple in physics and medicine, and some of the peculiarities which marked his style are to be found in the poems of Empedokles.[[524]] It is not to be supposed, of course, that Empedokles wrote a formal treatise on Rhetoric; but it is in every way probable, and in accordance with his character, that the speeches, of which he must have made many, were marked by that euphuism which Gorgias introduced to Athens at a later date, and which gave rise to the idea of an artistic prose. The influence of Empedokles on the development of medicine was, however, far more important, as it affected not only medicine itself, but through it, the whole tendency of scientific and philosophical thinking. It has been said that Empedokles had no successors,[[525]] and the remark is true if we confine ourselves strictly to philosophy. On the other hand, the medical school which he founded was still living in the days of Plato, and it had considerable influence on him, and still more on Aristotle.[[526]] Its fundamental doctrine was the identification of the four elements with the hot and the cold, the moist and the dry. It also held that we breathe through all the pores of the body, and that the act of respiration is closely connected with the motion of the blood. The heart, not the brain, was regarded as the organ of consciousness.[[527]] A more external characteristic of the medicine taught by the followers of Empedokles is that they still clung to ideas of a magical nature. A protest against this by a member of the Koan school has been preserved. He refers to them as “magicians and purifiers and charlatans and quacks, who profess to be very religious.”[[528]] Though there is some truth in this, it hardly does justice to the great advances in physiology that were due to the Sicilian school.
Relation to predecessors.