Empedocles was a Greek philosopher who was born about twenty years before Socrates. He lived and taught on the Island of Sicily. He was the first philosopher to develop the idea of the universe being made up of the four classical elements: earth, water, air, and fire.
As an old man, he went a little mad, believing he had become a god because of his great wisdom. He is said to have died when he threw himself into Mount Etna, a live volcano, to prove his deity.
The “God of Earth”?
In “The Lost Wizard of Oz,” Glinda discovers Empedocles living in isolation beneath the poisonous desert which surrounds the Land of Oz. He has apparently been granted his wish and has become immortal. He fashions himself to be a god, specifically the “God of Earth,” one of the four elements. He is extremely powerful, possibly even more powerful than Glinda herself.
Worse yet, he is still quite mad, unpredictable, and smitten with Glinda, seeing her as a likely candidate for romance. We can understand this when we consider the fact that he has not seen a woman in some twenty-five hundred years.
Glinda’s bodyguard, a bounty hunter named Strigand, is having none of this and plants himself firmly between the two. For her part, Glinda sees the advantage of recruiting Empedocles in her quest to find the little lost wizard who disappeared from the Land of Oz when he sailed away in his balloon.
Might not a little flirtation serve her purposes? She will certainly not be the first woman in authority to have used her charms to manipulate powerful but unstable men to her advantage.
Is there help for Empedocles?
Empedocles is a complex and conflicted character. He is narcissistic and arrogant, yet also desperately lonely after centuries of isolation. Haunted by the possibility that his immortality is a punishment for his pride, Empedocles struggles to find a way to repent and redeem himself.
Glinda may be the only one who can help guide the ancient philosopher toward the redemption he so deeply craves. Her intervention could be Empedocles’ last chance to find peace after millennia of solitary torment.
