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Empedocles

Pre-Socratic
1/3

Empedocles was a poet, healer, and self-proclaimed miracle worker from Acragas in Sicily. He proposed that all matter is composed of four eternal elements mixed and separated by two cosmic forces. Love unites, Strife divides, and the universe cycles between their dominance. He wrote in verse, performed public healings, and according to legend threw himself into Mount Etna. His sandal was found at the rim.

c. 494 BCE·Syracuse

Born in Acragas, Sicily

Born into a wealthy family in Acragas (modern Agrigento), a Greek colony on Sicily's southern coast.

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