pelled them to hold fast the fixed courses of the stars, and that in fr. 12 we are told that she is the beginner of all pairing and birth. Lastly, in fr. 13 we hear that she created Eros first of all the gods. So we shall find that in Empedokles it is an ancient oracle or decree of Ananke that causes the gods to fall and become incarnate in a cycle of births.[1]
We should be more certain of the place this goddess occupies in the universe if we could be sure where Ananke is in the Myth of Er. Without, however, raising that vexed question, we may lay down with some confidence that, according to Theophrastos, she occupied a position midway between the earth and the heavens. Whether we believe in the "mixed bands" or not makes no difference in this respect; for the statement of Aetios that she was in the middle of the mixed bands undoubtedly implies that she was between earth and heaven. Now she is identified with one of the bands in a somewhat confused passage of Cicero,[2] and the whole theory of wheels or bands was probably suggested by the Milky Way. It seems to me, therefore, that we must think of the Milky Way as a band intermediate between those of the Sun and the Moon, and this agrees very well with the prominent way in which it is mentioned in fr. 11. It is better not to be too positive about the other details, though it is interesting to notice that according to some it was Pythagoras, and according to others Parmenides, who discovered the identity of the evening and morning star.[3]
- ↑ Empedokles, fr. 115.
- ↑ Cicero, De nat. d. i. II, 28: "Nam Parmenides quidem commenticium quiddam coronae simile efficit (στεφάνην appellat), continente ardore lucis orbem, qui cingat caelum, quem appellat deum." We may connect with this the statement of Aetios, ii. 20, 8, τὸν ἥλιον καὶ τὴν σελήνην ἐκ τοῦ γαλαξίου κύκλου ἀποκριθῆναι.
- ↑ Diog. ix. 23, καὶ δοκεῖ Παρμενίδης πρῶτος πεφωρακέναι τὸν αὐτὸν εἶναι Ἕσπερον καὶ Φωσφόρον, ὥς φησι Φαβωρῖνος ἐν πέμπτῳ Ἀπομνημονευμάτων· οἱ δὲ Πυθαγόραν. Cf. viii. 14 (of Pythagoras), πρῶτόν τε Ἕσπερον καὶ Φωσφόρον τὸν αὐτὸν εἰπεῖν, ὥς φησι Παρμενίδης. So Diels now reads with all the MSS. (the vulgate οἱ δέ φασι Παρμενίδην is due to Casaubon). It is not necessary to suppose that Parmenides made this statement explicitly in his poem; there may have been an unmistakable allusion, as in Empedokles, fr. 129. In that case, we should have a
