A Reassessment of Empedocles’ “Roots”

 

The publication of the Strasbourg papyrus in 1998—by explicitly confirming that the so-called “daimonological” and “cosmological” materials in the Physics are interrelated—has given the final push to the already growing move to integrate the previously irreconcilable elements of Empedocles’ thought. The earlier tendency to compartmentalize his interests, to keep his “philosophical” and “mystical” doctrines separate, has shown itself to be anachronistic, revealing much about early twentieth-century positivist assumptions, but bearing little relation to the intellectual climate of Sicily in the fifth century B.C.E.  On the whole, the reevaluation of the apparent disparities within Empedocles’ thought has been fruitful and far-reaching.  One area of inquiry, however, which promises to repay further investigation has been overlooked: the significance of Empedocles’ designation of his four cosmic constituents as “roots” (ριζώματα or ρίζαι). My paper will suggest that Empedocles’ identification of the basic components of everything as roots is indispensable for understanding their actual nature and for realizing the power that arises from such an understanding.  He calls his elements roots because that is what they are.  Given the importance of roots for physicians and magicians, this identification has a greater significance when viewed against the biographical tradition wherein Empedocles is portrayed as both.  Finally, this new understanding of Empedocles’ roots will shed light on a long-standing interpretive problem: the meaning of φάρμακα in B111.