Empedocles and the Muse of the Agathos Logos

Abstract

This article offers a new reading of the Muse in Empedocles’ Physica . I aim to show that she is integrated into the poet’s physiological conception of the cosmos and that she also plays a central role in the furtherance of his eschatological purposes. Empedocles, it will be suggested, first put the Muse at the service of the philosophical logos , and in taking that step, he embraced and transcended the conventions of Muse-invocation not only in epic-didactic poetry but in the lyric and elegiac traditions as well. On this reading, the “Muse of the agathos logos ” will emerge as a strikingly innovative creation, one that was to exercise a powerful and enduring influence on Greek and Roman conceptions of the goddess Muse in relation to the mind of the poet.