100. But there is another side to his public character which Timaios found it hard to reconcile with his political views. He claimed to be a god, and to receive the homage of his fellow-citizens in that capacity. The truth is, Empedokles was not a mere statesman; he had a good deal of the “medicine-man” about him. According to Satyros,[512] Gorgias affirmed that he had been present when his master was performing sorceries. We can see what this means from the fragments of the _Purifications_. Empedokles was a preacher of the new religion which sought to secure release from the “wheel of birth” by purity and abstinence; but it is not quite certain to which form of it he adhered. On the one hand, Orphicism seems to have been strong at Akragas in the days of Theron, and there are even some verbal coincidences between the poems of Empedokles and the Orphicising Odes which Pindar addressed to that prince.[513] There are also some points of similarity between the _Rhapsodic Theogony_, as we know it from Damaskios, and certain fragments of Empedokles, though the importance of these has been exaggerated.[514] On the other hand, there is no reason to doubt the statement of Ammonios that fr. 134 refers to Apollo;[515] and, if that is so, it would point to his having been an adherent of the Ionic form of the mystic doctrine, as we have seen (§ 39) that Pythagoras was. Further, Timaios already knew the story that he had been expelled from the Pythagorean Order for “stealing discourses,”[516] and it is probable on the whole that fr. 129 refers to Pythagoras.[517] It would be very hazardous to dogmatise on this subject; but it seems most likely that Empedokles had been influenced by Orphic ideas in his youth, and that, in later life, he preached a form of Pythagoreanism which was not considered orthodox by the heads of the Society. In any case, it seems far more probable that his political and scientific activity belong to the same period of his life, and that he only became a wandering prophet after his banishment, than that his scientific work belonged to his later days when he was a solitary exile.[518] Footnote 512: Diog. viii. 59 (R. P. 162). Satyros probably followed Alkidamas. Diels suggests (_Emp. u. Gorg._ p. 358) that the φυσικός of Alkidamas was a dialogue in which Gorgias was the chief speaker. In that case, the statement would have little historical value. Footnote 513: See Bidez, p. 115, n. 1. Footnote 514: O. Kern, “Empedokles und die Orphiker” (_Arch._ i. pp. 489 sqq.). For the _Rhapsodic Theogony_, see Introd. p. 9, _n._ 10. Footnote 515: See below, note _in loc._ Footnote 516: Diog. viii. 54 (R. P. 162). Footnote 517: See below, note _in loc._ Footnote 518: The latter view is that of Bidez (pp. 161 sqq.); but Diels has shown (_Berl. Sitzb._, 1898, pp. 406 sqq.) that the former is psychologically more probable.