Empedocles has also been mentioned as a disciple of Pythagoras. But he
probably lived too late for that to have been the case. His principles
were in a great degree similar to those of that illustrious personage;
and he might have studied under one of the immediate successors of
Pythagoras. He was a citizen of Agrigentum in Sicily; and, having
inherited considerable wealth, exercised great authority in his native
place. [82] He was a distinguished orator and poet. He was greatly
conversant in the study of nature, and was eminent for his skill in
medicine. [83] In addition to these accomplishments, he appears to
have been a devoted adherent to the principles of liberty. He effected
the dissolution of the ruling council of Agrigentum, and substituted
in their room a triennial magistracy, by means of which the public
authority became not solely in the hands of the rich as before, but
was shared by them with expert and intelligent men of an inferior
class. [84] He opposed all arbitrary exercises of rule. He gave
dowries from his own stores to many young maidens of impoverished
families, and settled them in eligible marriages. [85] He performed
many cures upon his fellow-citizens; and is especially celebrated for
having restored a woman to life, who had been apparently dead,
according to one account for seven days, but according to others for
thirty. [86]
But the most memorable things known of Empedocles, are contained in
the fragments of his verses that have been preserved to us. In one of
them he says of himself, "I well remember the time before I was
Empedocles, that I once was a boy, then a girl, a plant, a glittering
fish, a bird that cut the air." [87] Addressing those who resorted to
him for improvement and wisdom, he says, "By my instructions you shall
learn medicines that are powerful to cure disease, and re-animate old
age; you shall be able to calm the savage winds which lay waste the
labours of the husbandman, and, when you will, shall send forth the
tempest again; you shall cause the skies to be fair and serene, or
once more shall draw down refreshing showers, re-animating the fruits
of the earth; nay, you shall recal the strength of the dead man, when
he has already become the victim of Pluto." [88] Further, speaking of
himself, Empedocles exclaims: "Friends, who inhabit the great city
laved by the yellow Acragas, all hail! I mix with you a God, no longer
a mortal, and am every where honoured by you, as is just; crowned with
fillets, and fragrant garlands, adorned with which when I visit
populous cities, I am revered by both men and women, who follow me by
ten thousands, enquiring the road to boundless wealth, seeking the
gift of prophecy, and who would learn the marvellous skill to cure all
kinds of diseases." [89]
The best known account of the death of Empedocles may reasonably be
considered as fabulous. From what has been said it sufficiently
appears, that he was a man of extraordinary intellectual endowments,
and the most philanthropical dispositions; at the same time that he
was immoderately vain, aspiring by every means in his power to acquire
to himself a deathless remembrance. Working on these hints, a story
has been invented that he aspired to a miraculous way of disappearing
from among men; and for this purpose repaired, when alone, to the top
of Mount Aetna, then in a state of eruption, and threw himself down the
burning crater: but it is added, that in the result of this perverse
ambition he was baffled, the volcano having thrown up one of his
brazen sandals, by means of which the mode of his death became known.
[90]