a celebrated philosopher and poet, was born at Agrigentum, a city in Sicily. He followed the Pythagorean philosophy, and admitted the metempsychosis. He constantly appeared with a crown of gold on his head; to maintain, by this outward pomp, the reputation he had acquired of being a very extraordinary man. Yet Aristotle says, that he was a great lover of liberty, extremely averse to flatter and command, and that he even refused a kingdom that was offered him. His principal work was a Treatise in verse on the Nature and Principles of Things. Aristotle, Lucretius, and all the ancients, make the most magnificent eulogiums on his poetry and eloquence.

He taught rhetoric; and often alleviated the anxieties of his mind, as well as the pains of his body, with music. It is reported, that his curiosity to visit the flames of the crater of Etna proved fatal to him. Some maintain that he wished it to be believed that he was a god; and that his death might be unknown, he threw himself into the crater and perished in the flames. His expectations, however, were frustrated; and the volcano, by throwing up one of his sandals, discovered to the world that Empedocles had perished by fire. Others report that he lived to an extreme old age; and that he was drowned in the sea about 440 years before the Christian era.