Empedocles
(c.490-430 BC)
Philosopher,
poet and statesman from Agrigentum on Sicily. His teachers were Pythagoras
and Parmenides.
Just like Pythagoras, Empedocles said to remember previous lives, not only
as various humans, but also as a fish and a bush for example.
Empedocles instituted democracy after owerthrowing the oligarchy.
As a philosopher, he believed reality is cyclical and consists of the four
elements earth, air, fire and water. These elements contract and separate
according to the two opposing forces love and hate.
He also formed a primitive thery on evolution, declating that humans and animals
evolve from antecedent forms.
Empedocles is said to have comitted suicide by jumbing into the volcano Etna.
The volcano threw back one of his sandals, though.
