ne. His death
was hedged about with mystery. According to one story he gave a great
feast to his friends and offered a {59} sacrifice; then when his
friends went to rest he disappeared, and was no more seen. According
to a story less dignified and better known--

Deus immortalis haberi
Dum cupit Empedocles, ardentem frigidus Aetnam
Insiluit. HOR. _Ad Pisones_, 464 _sqq_.

"Eager to be deemed a god, Empedocles coldly threw himself in burning
Etna." The fraud, it was said, was detected by one of his shoes being
cast up from the crater. Whatever the manner of his end, the Etna
story may probably be taken as an ill-natured joke of some sceptic wit;
and it is certain that no such story was believed by his
fellow-citizens, who rendered in after years divine honours to his name.

Like Xenophanes, Parmenides, and other Graeco-Italian philosophers, he
expounded his views in verse; but he reached a poetic excellence
unattained by any predecessor. Aristotle characterises his gift as
Homeric, and himself as a master of style, employing freely metaphors
and other poetic forms. Lucretius also speaks of him in terms of high
admiration (_De Nat. Rer. i. 716 sqq._): "Foremost among them is
Empedocles of Agrigentum, child of the island with the triple capes, a
land wondrous deemed in many wise, and worthy to be viewed of all men.
Rich it is in all manner of good things, and strong {60} in the might
of its men, yet naught within its borders men deem more divine or more
wondrous or more dear than her illustrious son. Nay, the songs which
issued from his godlike breast are eloquent yet, and expound his
findings wondrous well, so that hardly is he thought to have been of
mortal clay."

[180]

Like the Eleatics he denies that the senses are an absolute test of
truth. "For straitened are the powers that have been shed upon our
frames, and many the frets that cross us and defeat our care, and short
the span of unsatisfying existence wherein 'tis given us to see.
Shortlived as a wreath of smoke men rise and fleet away, persuaded but
of that alone which each has chanced to light upon, driven hither and
thither, and vainly do they pray to find _the whole_. For this men may
not see or hear or grasp with the hand of thought." Yet that there is
a kind or degree of knowledge possible for man his next words suggest
when he continues: "Thou therefore since hither thou hast been borne,
hear, and thou shalt learn