Notes

Empedocles

Empedocles lived from 490 to 430 BC in and around Agrigentum, Sicily where he was born. He excelled magically in the fields of divination and herbology. In fact, he was quite will known for both curing and stopping the spread of diseases in the area he lived. In today’s terms, we would also most likely consider Empedocles to be an auror of some skill as he was well known for his intolerance and destruction of evil - whether a magical or Muggle threat to the way he believed justice should be served.

You may know a bit about Empedocles’ work in the area of divination, for it was he who developed the Theory of the Four Classical Elements, also known as the Cosmic Circle. That is, fire, earth, water, and air, and how everything in creation was made from these four elements. Further, the theory also demonstrated how life revolves around the struggle between love and strife.

By the end of his life, Empedocles seemed to be going a bit mad by magical standards as he began to believe that his theory of love and strife and its connection to the elements would allow him to control the weather. Let’s just say that this didn’t go well. His repeated failures drove Empedocles more and more insane, until he decided that his work could not be completed in his current lifetime.

As his theories strongly supported the concept of reincarnation, Empedocles decided to end his own life in the hopes that a future reincarnation of his soul would continue and complete his work. We will never know exactly why he chose the manner of his death. Perhaps it was the element of fire that most frustrated him in his work, or fire that would help ensure his reincarnation. Perhaps it was just a fit of rage. Whatever the motivation, however, Empedocles climbed to the summit of Mount Etna and cast himself into the fiery volcano below.