EMPEDOCLES, was the son of Meto, a wealthy citizen of Agrigentum in Sicily, and flourished about the 84th Olympiad, or 440 years before Christ. It is not probable that he was born at so early a period, as to have been a hearer of Pythagoras; but he adopted "the doctrines of that philosopher, and appears evident ly, from his own tenets, to have belonged to the Italic school. Ile was remarkable for the variety and extent of his attainments ; and his name became so celebrat ed, that when he went to the Olympic games, the eyes of all the people were fixed upon him as one of the wonders of the age. He excelled in oratory, upon which he was the first who gave lessons in Sicily ; and the celebrated Gorgias Leontinus was one of his pupils. He was possessed of considerable poetical talents, and has been supposed to be the author of that ancient frag ment, which bears the name of " The Golden Verses of Pythagoras." The fragments of his verses, dispersed through various ancient writers, have been collected by Henry Stephens in his " Poetry of the Philosophers ;" but, if credit may be given to the high commendations bestowed by Aristotle, Lucretius, and others, upon his poetry and eloquence, the greater part of his productions in both these departments must have perished at an early date. lie was not less distinguished by his skill in me dicine, and seems to have owed much of his i,,fluence and reputation to the wonderful cures which he was un derstood to have performed. These he did not hesitate to pass upon the multitude as the effects of magic, or of some miraculous power ; and pretended not only to cure all diseases, but to drive away old age, and to restore the dead to life, to raise or moderate the winds, to produce rain or heat, and to check the progress of epidemical diseases. He may be supposed, indeed, by his medical and physical knowledge, to have rendered several actual services to his country ; as when he is said to have re moved one pestilence by fumigation, another by closing a chasm in a neighbouring mountain, from which he ob served pestilential effluvia to proceed, and another by correcting the corrupted waters of the river Selinus, by directing two small streams into its channel ; but he ap pears to have taken advantage of the ignorant admiration which he received, and is reported to have been highly gratified with the divine honours which were paid him on some of these occasions. He made a liberal use of
his large paternal estate, especially in giving dowries to young women, and procuring them suitable marriages. He took an active interest in the political state of his na tive city, and was a determined enemy to tyrannical mea sures, and a zealous advocate for the popular form of government. He at length became an object of so great veneration to his fellow citizens, that they were ready to acknowledge him as exalted above the nature of man, and finally offered to invest him with the sovereign pow er. Preferring the tranquillity of a private station, to the splendour and embarrassments of public life, he de clined to accept the office and title, while, at the same time, he evinced a strong disposition to assume all the distinctions and appearance of royalty. Clothed in a pur ple robe, crowned with laurel, with brazen sandals on his feet, with long flowing hair, with a grave and com manding aspect, habited, in short, like the gods, and accompanied by a number of attendants, lie was fond of parading the public ways, and receiving the plaudits of the people. He is said by Aristotle to have died at sixty years of age ; but very various accounts are given of the manner of his death. Some authors relate, that he broke his leg by falling from a chariot, which brought on a mortal distemper. Others say, that he terminated his own existence by throwing himself into the sea, or by strangulation with a rope. Another account affirms, that, in his anxiety to examine the crater of Mount Et na, lie advanced too far, and accidentally fell into the burning gulf. While another report bears, that, after a sacred festival, lie ascended Mount Etna during the night, and threw himself into the volcano, in the hope that, the manner of his death being unknown, he might afterwards be accounted a divine person; but that one of his brazen sandals having been thrown out in a sub sequent irruption, his mortality was sufficiently con firmed.