New verses from Empedocles

Archeologists report the discovery, on an old papyrus manuscript, of verses they attribute to Empedocles, previously unavailable to us moderns.

The finding, days ago, didn't happen out in the field in Indiana Jones fashion. It appears to have happened in an office. Specifically, at the French Institute of Oriental Archeology in Cairo. It sounds as if somebody may have done the field work years ago, but the pertinent papyrus has been stored away, significance unrecognized, and only just now has been recognized as what it is.

What IS it? Let us start with who is the author. Empedocles is one of the pre-Socratics, generally associated (though not geographically) with the Ionians: Thales, Anaximander, etc. Like the others of that school he is -- or has until now been -- known entirely through the fragments of his work quoted by later authors. He expounded a theory of "Love" and "Strife" as two cosmic forces, the former always mixing the (four) elements, the latter separating them.

Diogenes Laertius tells us of a legend in which Empedocles killed himself by jumping into the volcanic opening on Mount Aetna. The idea was that his disciples would think he had magically/mystically disappeared. But, the story goes, the mountain spat back out one of his sandals, so his real non-mystical fate was obvious.

My understanding of the new material is that the verses seem to show Empedocles theorizing about atoms. This could require some important reworking of the story of pre-Socratic philosophy. We usually attribute aromism to Leucippus and Democritus.

Dates? We don't have very reliable days for Leucippus. He is said to have been active in the 430s BCE.

Empedocles seems to have been a contemporary of Leucippus, and so an elder to Democritus. We may now have to think of an Empedocles-to-Democritus link as a rival explanation of atomism, cutting Leucippus out of the loop.

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