Empedocles

Empedocles was a Greek philosopher and poet of the fifth century BC, a native citizen of Akragas, a Greek city in Sicily. He is generally considered the last Greek philosopher to have recorded his ideas in verse, and more of his work survives than for any other pre-Socratic philosopher. According to Diogenes Laertius he wrote two poems, On Nature and On Purifications, which together ran to about 5000 lines; only some 550 lines survive, quoted in fragments by later ancient writers, and a papyrus found at Strasbourg has restored a large section of On Nature. His verse sets out the theory of four classical elements, fire, air, water and earth, which he called roots, mixed and separated by the opposing forces Love and Strife, and it also carries a doctrine of reincarnation and a challenge to animal sacrifice. Ancient accounts of his life conflict, and his death, often told as a leap into Mount Etna, was mythologized by ancient writers and has been the subject of literary treatments including Friedrich Holderlin's play The Death of Empedocles and Matthew Arnold's poem Empedocles on Etna.