Kitap 8
2.69
Hermippus tells us that Empedocles cured Panthea, a woman of Agrigentum, who had been given up by the physicians, and this was why he was offering sacrifice, and that those invited were about eighty in number. Hippobotus, again, asserts that, when he got up, he set out on his way to Etna; then, when he had reached it, he plunged into the fiery craters and disappeared, his intention being to confirm the report that he had become a god. Afterwards the truth was known, because one of his slippers was thrown up in the flames; it had been his custom to wear slippers of bronze. To this story Pausanias is made (by Heraclides) to take exception.ἀντέλεγε. The imperfect tense is convincing proof that D. L. (or his source) is drawing upon the dialogue, and not narrating facts as a historian; D. L. must be giving a large extract from the dialogue Περὶ τῆς ἄπνου, beginning in the second paragraph of § 67. Only D. L. has inserted, in § 69, (1) a note from Hermippus and (2) a résumé from Hippobotus of the very passage in the dialogue Περὶ τῆς ἄπνου with which D. L. has been dealing in §§ 67-69.
2.70
Diodorus of Ephesus, when writing of Anaximander, declares that Empedocles emulated him, displaying theatrical arrogance and wearing stately robes. We are told that the people of Selinus suffered from pestilence owing to the noisome smells from the river hard by, so that the citizens themselves perished and their women died in childbirth, that Empedocles conceived the plan of bringing two neighbouring rivers to the place at his own expense, and that by this admixture he sweetened the waters. When in this way the pestilence had been stayed and the Selinuntines were feasting on the river bank, Empedocles appeared; and the company rose up and worshipped and prayed to him as to a god. It was then to confirm this belief of theirs that he leapt into the fire.
