Empĕdŏcles

, a philosopher, poet, and historian of Agrigentum in Sicily, who flourished 444 B.C. He was the disciple of Telauges the Pythagorean, and warmly adopted the doctrine of transmigration. He wrote a poem upon the opinions of Pythagoras, very much commended, in which he spoke of the various bodies which nature had given him. He was first a girl, afterwards a boy, a shrub, a bird, a fish, and lastly Empedocles. His poetry was bold and animated, and his verses were so universally esteemed, that they were publicly recited at the Olympic games with those of Homer and Hesiod. Empedocles was no le remarkable for his humanity and social virtues than for his learning. He showed himself an inveterate enemy to tyranny, and refused to become the sovereign of his country. He taught rhetoric in Sicily, and often alleviated the anxieties of his mind as well as the pains of his body with music. It is reported that his curiosity to visit the flames of the crater of Ætna proved fatal to him. Some maintain that he wished it to be believed that he was a god, and, that his death might be unknown, he threw himself into the crater and perished in the flames. His expectations, however, were frustrated, and the volcano, by throwing up one of his sandals, discovered to the world that Empedocles had perished by fire. Others report that he lived to an extreme old age, and that he was drowned in the sea. Horace , bk. 1 , ltr. 12 , li. 20 .— Cicero , On Oratory , bk. 1 , ch. 50 , . — Diogenes Laërtius , Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers .