Hippocratic Lives and Legends 9004095748, 9789004095748

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HIPPOCRATIC LIVES AND LEGENDS

STUDIES IN ANCIENT MEDICINE EDITED BY

JOHN SCARBOROUGH

VOLUME 4

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Hippocrates curing 'the plague' from the 1588 Giunta edition of Hippocratis Coi opera quaeextant Graece et Latine, ed. Girolamo Mercuriale.

'

HIPPOCRATIC

LIVES

AND LEGENDS By

Jody Rubin Pinault

E.J. BRILL LEIDEN • NEW YORK • KOLN 1992

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication

Data

Pinault, Jody Rubin. Hippocratic lives and legends / by Jody Rubin Pinault. p. cm. - (Studies in ancient medicine, ISSN 0925-1421 ; v. 4) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 9004095748 1. Hippocrates. 2. Medicine, Greek and Roman. I. Title. II. Series. R126.H8P56 1992 610' .938-dc20 91-43634 CIP

ISSN ISBN

0925-1421 90 04 09574 8

© Copyright 1992 by E. j. Brill, Leiden, The Netherlands All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or translated in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, microfiche or any other means without written permission from the publisher Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by E. J. Brill provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to Copyright Clearance Center, 2 7 Congress Street, SALEM MA 01970, USA. Fees are subject to change. PRINTED

IN THE

NETHERLANDS

To my father, Leonard R. Rubin, M.D., F.A.C.S., a true son of Hippocrates

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments .................................................................. IX X Abbreviations ........................................................................ Introduction ........................................................................... 1 I. Hippocrates Among the Greeks and Romans 1. A Description of the Individual Lives and Their 5 Interrelationship ....................................................... 2. Hippocrates and the Plague ............................................. 35 3. Hippocrates and Perdiccas .............................................. 61 4. Hippocrates and Artaxerxes ............................................. 79 II. The Islamic Hippocrates 5. Two Arabic Lives of Hippocrates: the $iwiin al-{likmah of AbiiSulaymiinas-Sijistani and the Mukhtar 95 al-{likam of al-Mubashshir b. Patik. ............................... 6. The Account of Hippocrates and the Lovesick Prince 105 in the $iwiin ........................................................ 7. The Accounts of Hippocrates and the King of Persia .. 115 in the $iwii.n and the Mukhtar ................................. Conclusion ....................................................................... 125 Appendix A: Greek and Latin Texts of the Classical Lives of 127 Hippocrates ......................................................... Appendix B: English Translations of the Hippocratic Lives of as-Sijistiini, al-Mubashshir, and Ibn Juljul .................. 135 Appendix C: English Translation of the Pseudo-Hippocratic Correspondence Between Hippocrates and 145 Artaxerxes .......................................................... Bibliography ....................................................................... 149 Index ....................................................................... 155

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Many friendly hands have helped in my search for Hippocrates. This study was begun as my doctoral dissertation in the Department of Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. I thank all there who showed me the excitement of a scholarly quest, especially Wesley D. Smith, who first kindled my enthusiasm for the Hippocratic writings, directed my dissertation, and offered valuable corrections to the final text of this book. Special thanks are due to Franz Rosenthal of Yale University and Alia Al-Osh for their translations from the Arabic. The staff of the Library of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia deserve thanks for their special assistance, particularly Christine Ruggere, former Curator of the Historical Collections. The revision, rewriting, and production of Hippocratic Lives took place at Colgate University, where I received assistance from the Humanities Division Faculty Development Fund and the Research Council. My warm thanks to John Scarborough of the University of Wisconsin and editor of this series for his strong, unflagging support for my study and many helpful suggestions, especially for "How Hippocrates Cured the Plague." An earlier version appeared in The Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, which has kindly allowed me to reprint substantial parts of my article there as Chapter Two in this book. I also thank the JHMAS and the National Library of Medicine for permission to use a photograph of the woodcut from the latter's collection that shows Hippocrates curing the plague with a bonfire. The physical production of this book would not have been possible without the endless patience and ingenuity of Peter Jorgensen, the Microcomputer Specialist of the Academic Computing Center of Colgate University. I also appreciate the generous help of Jeffrey Rusten and David Powers, both of Cornell University, with Greek and transliterated Arabic fonts, as well as the guidance and sharp eyes of Julian Deahl, my editor at E.J. Brill. For the remaining imperfections I take full responsibility. Finally, there is a special sense in which I am indebted to Hippocrates and this project itself. They brought my husband David Pinault of Colgate University and me together when we were both graduate students in Philadelphia. Since then my husband's translations, editing and revising of translations, advice on Arabic questions, editorial assistance, and, above all, unfailing emotional support have enabled me to repay that debt, I hope, with this book. For his companionship in this project I can never thank him enough.

ABBREVIATIONS

BHM CMG CQ EI JG JHMAS JAOS K

Llttre NEnglJMed Pseud. RE Rh.M. SIG Suda Tzetzes VHSS

ZPE

Bulletin of the History of Medicine Corpus Medicorum Graecorum. Academiae Berolinensis Hauniensis Lipsiensis. The Classical Quarterly Encyclopedia of Islam /nscriptiones Graecarum. Berlin, 1873Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences Journal of the American Oriental Society Claudii Galeni opera omnia. ed. C.G. Kiihn. 20 vols. Leipzig, 1823-1833; rptd. Hildesheim, 1965. Oeuvres completes d' Hippocrate. ed. E. Littre. 10 vols. Paris, 1839-1861; rptd. Amsterdam, 1961-1962. New England Journal of Medicine W.D. Smith, Hippocrates: Pseudepigraphic Writings. Leiden, 1990. Realencyclopadie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft. ed. A. Pauly, G. Wissowa. Stuttgart, 1894Rheinisches Museum Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum. ed. W. Dittenberger Suidae Lexicon. ed. A. Adler. 5 vols. Leipzig, 1928-1938. Historiarum variarum chiliades 7.155. ed. T. Kiessling. Leipzig, 1826, pp. 276-277. Vita Hippocratis secundum Soranum. ed. J. Ilberg, in Sarani Gynaeciorum Iibri IV, CMG IV. Leipzig and Berlin, 1927, pp. 175-178. 'Zeitschriftfii,r Papyrologie und Epigraphik

IN1RODUCTION

It is not my intent to construct a biography of Hippocrates here, but rather to show how the legends in the extant Hippocratic lives grew and what needs these legends satisfied. Even if I wished to write a Hippocratic life, I could not. There is not even enough contemporary fifth- and fourth-century evidence to establish without doubt that a physician named Hippocrates, identified as an Asclepiad, associated with Cos, was known in Athens. We have two references in Plato, one in Aristotle.I Then there is a five-hundred year gap until the first extant biography of Hippocrates was written. Where did the material in these lives come from? Given the sparseness of fifth- and fourth-century references to Hippocrates, it is unlikely that much more early material was available to later biographers than to us. 2 The material about Hippocrates was invented, growing slowly during the Hellenistic period. Due to recent comparative study of ancient biographies, especially those of literary figures, we are now able to understand better this process and to value it as a creative phenomenon in its own right.3 And now that Wesley Smith's new edition and translation of the Hippocratic pseudepigraphic letters and speeches has appeared, we can readily see the earliest strata of biographical fiction about Hippocrates. 4 My study can be seen as a sequel, following, chronologically, this myth-making process in the Hippocratic biographies of classical antiquity and in those of the Islamic tradition. These later lives all used a base of pseudepigraphic materials, while blending in new details, new legends, and, in some, sayings. I have chosen three legends in particular from the lives for detailed study-how Hippocrates cured a great epidemic, how he cured King Perdiccas of love-sickness, and how he refused to work for Artaxerxes, who was King of the Persians, and, therefore, enemy of the Greeks. All three legends illustrate the processes by which the biographies of famous men developed in antiquity. All illustrate different virtues of Hippocrates. The first-about Hippocrates' therapeutic skill in preventing and stopping epidemics-showed his medical brilliance and was of great practical interest for physicians and laymen alike. The story about Hippocrates and Perdiccas illustrated Hippocrates' diagnostic skills. More important, the two anecdotes about Perdiccas and Artaxerxes became emblematic of Hippocrates' moral virtues and made him an ethical exemplar for physicians in the centuries to come. Furthermore, 1 Plato, Protagoras 311 b--c and Phaedrus 270 c--d; Aristotle, Politics 7, 1326 a 15-16. 2 For example, the reference in the Life of Hippocrates According to Soranus (VHSS), to searching the Coan archives should not reassure us. Forgeries of documents were difficult to detect. For our difficulty today in dating a pseudepigraphic decree, see pp. 41-44 of this study. 3 See, e.g., the work of D.R. Stuart, Sather ClassicalLectures IV (Berkeley, 1928), pp. 143 ff.; pp. 172 ff.; "Authors' Lives as Revealed in Their Works: a Critical Resume," ClassicalStudies in Honor of John C. Rolfe (Philadelphia, 1931), pp. 285-304; J.A. Fairweather, "Fiction in the Biographies of Ancient Writers," Ancient Society 5 (1974) 231-275, and M. Lefkowitz, Lives of the GreekPoets (Baltimore, 1981). 4 W.D. Smith, ed. and trans.,Hippocrates:PseudepigraphicWritings(Leiden, 1990).

2

HIPPOCRATIC LIVES AND LEGENDS

all three legends survived antiquity and lived on into the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in Europe. Moreover, the trail of the legends about Hippocrates and Perdiccas and Artaxerxes leads into the Islamic tradition, giving us a rare opportunity to study the transformation of classical materials. Yet by the mid nineteenth century, after Littre's monumental edition and translation of Hippocrates' works, most of this rich biographical tradition, including the three legends just mentioned, was discredited. 5 By 1935 the foremost medical historian of the day had dismissed this tradition entirely and declared that Hippocrates was a "name, deprived of all tangible historical reality." 6 Historians of ancient medicine, however, have resisted giving up the notion of a historical Hippocrates. 7 The underlying reasons, I suggest, are two-fold. It is human nature, especially of the scholarly variety, to want to connect a large body of ancient medical writings, many of which are undisputably fifth-century, of the highest interest to fifth-century thought, and associated with the name Hippocrates in antiquity, with a fifth-century physician of the same name, mentioned by Plato and Aristotle.s The other impulse has to do with the need to associate an ideal, such as Hippocrates represented from antiquity on, with a flesh and blood figure. Perhaps for these reasons, despite a lack of confidence in the ancient biographical myths about Hippocrates, modern myth-making continued in connection with the idea of two rival medical schools on the islands of Cos and Cnidos and especially in the identification of Hippocratic works as Coan or Cnidian. 9 5 See Littr~. 1.27-43 and 7.v-l. In the latter preface, Littr~ refutes the attempts of scholars to use the biographical tradition as evidence for the life of Hippocrates. One of these is C. Petersen in his "Zeit und Lebensverhlilmisse des Hippokrates," Philogogus 4 (1849) 241. 6 Edelstein, RE, supp. 6, col. 1328.3-5. 7 See Smith, The Hippocratic Tradition (Ithaca, 1979), pp. 41-42, and, more recently, R. Joly, "Hippocrates and the School of Cos," ed. M. Ruse, Nature Animated: Papers Deriving from the Third International Conference on the History and Philosophy of Science, Montreal, Canada, 1980 (Dordrecht, 1983), pp. 29-47; and J. Mansfeld, "The Historical Hippocrates and the Origins of Scientific Medicine," ed. Ruse, Nature Animated, pp. 49-76. For a good summary of the continuing debate on the "Hippocratic question," see J. Scarborough, "Classical Antiquity: Medicine and Allied Sciences: an Update," Trends in History 4 (1988) 9-11. 8 Plato, Protagoras 311 b-tAapyupov), and his love of home or patriotism (to (jltAOtlCEiOV). For a detailed analysis of this anecdote, I refer the reader to Chapter 4 of this study. [9] The ninth section refers to the Speech from the Altar, a plea addressed by Hippocrates to the Thessalians. 42 In it he begs the Thessalians to come to the aid of Cos, which is being threatened by the Athenians. In the VHSS the dramatic situation pictured in the Speech from the Altar is cited as yet another proof of Hippocrates' patriotism. [10) Section ten is based on the Decree of the Athenians, a pseudepigraphic honorary decree modelled after historical documents. 43 The lavishness of the honors matches most closely historic decrees of the third century B.C., but this pseudepigraphic decree could have been composed much later, based on thirdcentury models.44 (11) This section gives the kind of details about Hippocrates' death that are commonly found in ancient biographies: the place of death, subject's age, place of burial and description of the tomb, complete with any extraordinary reports concerning these. In Hippocrates' vita, however, the lack of specific details or certainty about them is noteworthy and contributes to the impression that the information in the VHSS grew to fill a vacuum. For example, there are no unusual stories of his death, such as one finds in the biographies of a host of philosophical and literary figures.45 Nor is there mention of a famous inscription or inscriptions

40 Pseud, pp. 48-55.

41 Pseud, pp. 52-53. 42 Pseud, pp. 108-109. 43 Pseud, pp. 106-107. 44 See Rubin, "Biographical Fiction," pp. 80--83, 10-112. See also Pseud, p. 5. 45 See, e.g., Thales (Diogenes Laertius (=D.L.)1.39), Xenocrates (D.L. 4.14), Bion (D.L. 4.54), Pythagoras (D.L. 8.39-40, 45), Chrysippus (D.L. 7.184-185), Democritus (D.L. 9.43); Homer (Lefkowitz, Lives of the Greek Poets, pp. 153-154), Aeschylus (Lives, 72-73, 158-159),

TIIE INDIVIDUAL LIVES

15

on his tomb, as one finds in other biographies of famous men. 46 Epitaphs gave a sense of closure to a biography. 47 Certainly there was a wealth of suitable epigrammatic material available in the Hippocratic Corpus, as inscriptions on surviving portrait busts of Hippocrates show.48 Epigrams on Hippocrates, some of which may have been actual inscriptions, also survive in the Palatine and Planudean Anthologies. 4 9 The fact that the author of the VHSS does not mention any epitaph confirms the impression that he is not inventing any new material about Hippocrates himself, only respectfully recording well known traditions. Yet how well known was Hippocrates' tomb, which the author claims was located between Gyrton and Larissa in Thessaly? There seems to be no other ancient evidence for it. 50And the author of the VHSS reveals his own uncertainty about it, I suggest, when he adds the information that "his tomb was still pointed out until recently." Did the author try to visit the site, only to find that no one could show him the tomb? Such energetic scholarship seems unlikely, given the author's complacency in accepting the various interpretations of the portrait mentioned in the following section. The story of the healing powers of the bee hive on Hippocrates' tomb, which is otherwise unattested, seems just the sort of thing one would expect to hear about a famous physician's tomb. IfHippocrates had actually been buried near Larissa, one would expect some kind of heroic cult, such as that associated with Archilochus' burial site.51 Surely the Larissans would have been delighted to have the profitable healing shrine of such a salubrious hero in their neighborhood. Larissa and Gyrton were cities in Thessaly, where, as we have seen, Hippocrates is said in the Embassy to have lived many years and to have had a house. 52

Sophocles (Lives, 115, 162), Eupolis (Lives, 115), Euripides (Lives, 165-166), Philemon (Lives, 115-116). See also Fairweather, Ancient Society 5 (1974), p. 269-271. 4 6 See, e.g., Thales (D.L. 1.39), Midas (D.L. 1.89-90), Pherecydes (D.L. 1.120); Aeschylus (Letlcowitz, Lives, p. 159), Euripides (Lives, 162). 4 7 Fairweather, Ancient Society 5 (1974), p. 254. 48 For epigrammatic material in the Hippocratic Corpus, see Aphorisms, which start with the most famous, ·o Pfoc;ppax.uc;,TIOE'tEX,VTJµuic:pll,oOEKmpoc;c'#ic;,TIOEne'ipa acpaA.tpll,T\ OE KpiO'lc; xaA.tnTJ("Life is short, the Art long, opportunity fleeting, experiment treacherous, judgment difficult." (Aphorisms 1.1. Greek. text with Eng. trans. W.H.S. Jones (vols. 1-2, 4), E.T. Withington (vol. 3), P. Potter (vols. 5--6) Hipocrates, 6 vols. (Cambridge, Mass., London, 19231988), 4.98-99. This epigram was, in fact, used (with modifications appropriate for a funerary inscription) on a portrait bust of Hippocrates; see G.M.A. Richter, Portraits of the Greeks, 3 vols. (London, 1965), 1.152, figs. 855-857, 860. 49 See, e.g. 7.135, 9.53, 16.268, 269. The Greek Anthology, Greek. text. with Eng. trans. W.R. Paton, 5 vols. (Cambridge, Mass., and London, 1916-1918), 2.7fr77 (7.135), 3.28-29 (9.53), 5.320-321 (16.268, 269). 50 We have no information by Pausanias on Thessaly, and the only mention he makes of Hifpocrates concerns a portrait said to be of him (see next section). 1 See, e.g., Lefkowitz, Lives, pp. 29-30. 52 P seud, pp. 118-119. For Gyrton, see J.A. Cramer, A Geographical and Historical Description of Ancient Greece. 3 vols. (Oxford, 1828), 1. 371-372; for Larissa, see Cramer, 1.385-386, and The Princeton Encyclopedia of Classical Sites, ed. R. Stillwell (Princeton, 1976), p. 485.

16

HIPPOCRATIC LIVES AND LEGENDS

As for Hippocrates' age at death, variations in the number of years are not unusual in ancient biographies, but the number of ages given in Hippocrates' vita is.53 Not only does this extreme uncertainty about Hippocrates' age at death suggest that these details were invented (and quite late at that); but so does Hippocrates' absence from discussions on longevity, such as those by Cicero, Pliny, and Lucian. 54 It seems particularly telling that Hippocrates was omitted, since these authors cite Democritus and Gorgias, who played important roles in Hippocrates' life, according to the VHSS. 55 It was Democritus' and Gorgias' renowned longevity that probably supplied the impetus for fixing Hippocrates' age at death. Lucian records Democritus' age as 104, and Diogenes Laertius notes that he was 109.56 Both figures appear in the VHSS, which says explicitly that Hippocrates died at the same age as Democritus [sect. 11.1]. Yet this happy coincidence creates an embarrassing difficulty in regard to the earlier statement in the VHSS [sect. 2.2] that Hippocrates was Democritus' student.57 This chronological crux illustrates the way separate biographical anecdotes were fused together in a paratactic manner. Rather than alter tradition or remove such a credentialed figure as Democritus from Hippocrates' story, the author of the VHSS leaves the reader to perform mental gymnastics in order to reconcile both statements. [12] Section twelve is devoted to Hippocrates' appearance. The only evidence the author of the VHSS presents is a portrait, which the author, from his vague description, probably never saw himself. He does not specify if the "many likenesses" (1toA-MlEiKove~)in question were paintings, mosaics, or statuettes or portrait busts in marble or bronze. No early image showing Hippocrates with his head covered has survived. 58 Since the author has no more solid information, he spends several sections repeating theories about why Hippocrates has his head covered. From the number of theories, it seems that this piece of pseudoscholarship had been passed along from one vita to another of Hippocrates for some time before it took up residence in the VHSS; and it is a feature in all the other extant lives of Hippocrates (see below). Amusing as these explanations sound to us, they provided much desired information about Hippocrates' physical appearance. Other ancient biographies provided explanations about portraits of the subject that were puzzling 53 See, e.g., Epirnenides (D.L. 1.111), Pythagoras (8.44), Protagoras (D.L. 9.55-56), 54 In regard to Pliny and Lucian, see C. Daremberg (following M. Houdart), Oeuvres choisies d'Hippocrate(Paris, 1855), p. xxv. 55 See Cicero, De senectute 23 (Democritus-no age given) and 13, 23 (Gorgias-107); Lucian, Longaevi 18 (Democritus-104) and 23 (Gorgias-108); Pliny, Nat. hist. 48 (156) (Gorgias-108). 56 Lucian, Longaevi 18 and D.L. 9.43. 57 As Daremberg noticed almost a century and a half ago, Oeuvreschoisies,pp. xxv-xxvi. 58 A miniature portrait of Hippocrates on the title page of the fourteenth-century Cod. Parisinus Gr. 2144, f. 10, which depicts the Coan physician with his cloak framing his bald head, certainly is derived from the description of Hippocrates in the VHSS, which is contained in that Ms. See Richter, Portraits of the Greeks, 1.153, fig. 869. For earlier surviving images of Hippocrates, see Richter, pp. 151-154, figs. 855-874.

THE INDIVIDUALLIVES

17

in some way, such as the likeness of Sophocles in the Stoa Poikile that depicted him with a lyre instead of the scroll and mask, standard attributes of the dramatic poet. 59 As to Hippocrates' actual appearance, there was no consistent image described in antiquity. Pausanias in his single reference to Hippocrates mentions a bronze portrait said to be that of Hippocrates dedicated to Apollo at Delphi; it portrayed "a very old man whose flesh had sunk in so that he was mere skin and bone." 60 The five surviving portrait busts, in contrast, show a well-fed, confident, partly bald elderly man. The similarity of their features indicates that they all derived ultimately from a Hellenistic Greek original (late third cent. B.C.) that was, in turn, the model for the portraits of Hippocrates on Roman coins of Cos. 61 The date of this Hellenistic portrait coincides with the formation of the Hippocratic Corpus at Alexandria and corresponding curiosity about the life, character, and appearance of Hippocrates, the only name associated with the anonymous collection of all the earliest known works of medicine. 62 The Hellenistic sculptor seems to have imbued his Hippocrates with qualities found in the Corpus, namely, the intelligence of a philosopher (indeed, this portrait type of Hippocrates is very similar to the portraits of Carneades and Chrysippos), 63 and well-nourished health and confidence. All in all, this Hellenistic portrait of Hippocrates embodies the ideal image of a healer, according to the Hippocratic treatise The Physician: "The dignity of a physician requires that he should look healthy, and as plump as nature intended him to be; for the common crowd consider those who are not of this excellent bodily condition to be unable to take care of others.''64 [13] Section thirteen concerns Hippocrates' writings. It is a common pattern in ancient biographies to list the subject's works after the narration of his life proper and after his witty sayings. 65 Here the author of the VHSS demures with the excuse that there are too many disagreements about Hippocrates' work for him to undertake the task of giving his opinion about them. This probably would have included providing a list of the genuine treatises. First the author of the VHSS acknowledges problems associated with attribution of authorship. Then he acknowledges the diversity of styles represented by the treatises of the Hippocratic Corpus. Next he admits the varying quality of the works. He concludes by admitting that there are other factors besides. After that apparent prologue the author drops the subject of Hippocrates' works. The criteria that the author of the VHSS uses to pose the 59 Fairweather, Ancient Society 5 (1974), pp. 252-253. 60 Pausanias 10.2. Eng. trans. P. Levi, Pausanias Guide to Greece, 2 vols. (Middlesex, Enfiland, 1971), 1.409. 1 Richter, Portraits, p. 154. 62 For the formation of the collection and the process by which the name of Hippocrates became attached to it, see Smith, Pseud, pp. 7-10. 63 Richter, Portraits, p. 152. 64 The Physician I. Littre 9.204, 206. Greek. text with Eng. trans. W.H.S. Jones, Hippocrates, 2.310-31 I. 65 See, e.g., Speusippus (D.L. 4.4-5), Aristotle (D.L. 5.22-27) Theophrastus (D.L. 5.42-50), Chrysippus (7. 189-202), Democritus (D.L. 9.46--49)

18

HIPPOCRATIC LIVES AND LEGENDS

Hippocratic question, as he saw it, suggest that he was familiar with the work of Dioscorides and Capiton (early second century A.O.), the first editors of the complete Hippocratic Corpus. They identified which works they thought genuine, primarily on the basis of style and literary merit.66 [15] The last section lists Hippocrates' successors. He had two sons, Thessalus and Dracon, who were his most gifted followers in medicine, and many other students. Thessalus, of course, was familiar from Hellenistic times as the son of Hippocrates and the speaker of the pseudepigraphic Embassy; Dracon is mentioned in section seven of the Embassy as Thessalus describes how Hippocrates sent Dracon and him, as well as his other students, throughout the cities of Greece to help ward off the mythical epidemic threatening them from the north. 67 The Suda The Suda,an encyclopedia of historical and literary subjects, was compiled at the end of the tenth century A.D. Its anonymous author took his account of Hippocrates' life from an epitome of the Onomatologos of Hesychius of Meletus, who lived in the sixth century A.D. 68 Hesychius arranged the biographies in his work according to literary genres. When the epitome ofHesychius' work was made between A.D. 829 and 858 (mentioned under the Suda's entry for Hesychius), its compiler rearranged the material in alphabetical order.@ The form of Hesychius' biographies is a sign of his authorship; the usual order he follows is: name, homeland, literary category, ancestry, sometimes children, teachers, students, time and place of the subject's activity, associations with contemporaries, occasionally special details about a life, often the manner of death, and, finally, a catalogue of writings. 70 These topics are apparent in the Suda's account of Hippocrates' life: Hippocrates, the Coan physician, son of Heracleides. Let him be placed before his grandfather [Hippocrates], father of Heracleides, even though he was named after him, because he constituted the stars and the light of the art of medicine, which is most useful for life. And he was the [10] descendant of Gold and his son, Fawn, themselves physicians. Hippocrates was the student first of his father and after this of Herodicus the Selymbrian and Gorgias ofLeontini, an orator and philosopher. But as some say, when he was an old man, he studied with the young Democritus of Abdera. As others say, he was the student of Prodicus. [15] And he spent time in Macedonia, for he was a good friend of 66 See Smith, The Hippocratic Tradition, pp. 236-40, and Smith, BHM 63 (1989), p. 108. 67 Pseud, pp. 110-111, 118-119. 68 Suda l.xxi. Cf. A. Adler, RE, ser. 2, vol. 4, pt. 1, cols. 706-707. For Hesychius' date see

Schultz, RE, 8, pt 2, col. 1322. 69 Suda 2.594; RE, ser. 2, vol. 4, pt. 1, col. 707. 70 RE, ser. 2, vol. 4, pt. 1, col. 707. Cf. F. Leo, Die griechische-romische Biographie nach ihrer literarischen Form (Leipzig, 1921, rptd. 1965), p. 30.

THE INDIVIDUALLIVES

19

King Perdiccas. After he had two sons, Thessalus and Dracon, he died, being 104 years old. He is buried in Larissa in Thessaly. In his likenesses he is represented with his head covered by his cloak, which is thrown on top of his head, either because this was his habit or due to his love of travel or his own custom in surgery. [20] This man wrote many works and was considered so distinguished by all that the king of the Persians, the one named Artaxerxes, because he needed his wisdom, wrote to Hystanes:

King of Kings, the Great Artaxerxes, to Hystanes, Governor of the Hellespont, greetings. Hippocrates, the Coan physician, descendant of Asclepius, has a skill in medicine whose fame has reached even me. Give him, then, as much gold as [25] he wants and everything else he needs in abundance and send him to us. For he will be equal in honor to the noblest of the Persians. And if there is some other man in Europe who is good, make him a friend of the royal household, sparing no wealth; for it is not easy to find men capable of giving advice. Farewell. [30] The works written by Hippocrates have been conspicuous among all who have followed in the medical profession. As a result, they even revere them as the utterings of a god instead of sayings that came out of a human mouth. Except for the first books, let us also [p. 663] recall them. The first papyrus roll includes the Oath, the second represents the prognostic works, and the third roll, of aphorisms, surpasses human comprehension. Place fourth in order the much mentioned and much admired roll of sixty works that includes the whole of medicine's skill and [5] knowledge. 71

The Suda's life of Hippocrates, based on the same sources as the VHSS, contains all the information in the VHSS, although in a condensed form. The first section, on Hippocrates' ancestry, is taken from the same genealogy list mentioned in the VHSS. Instead of telling us the number of generations separating Hippocrates from his divine ancestors, however, the author gives the names of Hippocrates' grandfather, after whom he was named, and Hippocrates' Coan ancestors Gold and Fawn, who are mentioned in the Embassy.72 The reference to Hippocrates' grandfather of the same name allows the author a pleasant conceit about the descendant outshining his predecessor because he constituted the stars and light of medicine. The second section relates in a highly compressed fashion Hippocrates' teachers, Hippocrates' visit to Perdiccas, his two sons, his age at death, and place of death. These topics are covered in sections two, five, eleven, and fourteen of the VHSS. As to Hippocrates' four teachers mentioned in the VHSS, namely Hippocrates' father Heracleides, Herodicus, Gorgias, and Democritus, the Suda identifies Herodicus as the Selymbrian, the physician credited with developing the elaborate 71 Suda 2.662--663. 72 Pseud, pp. 112-115.

20

HIPPOCRATIC LIVES AND LEGENDS

health regimen involving diet and exercise that Plato disapproves of in the Republic. 13 The Suda distances itself from the tradition that Hippocrates studied with Democritus by prefacing the report with "as some say," and by raising the chronological difficulties. The Suda also uses this formula, "as others say," to express doubt about a report that Hippocrates studied with Prodicus. Prodicus was probably added as a gloss for Herodicus. 14 The Suda gives no reason for choosing the figure of 104 as Hippocrates' age at death from the assortment given by the VHSS, yet Tzetzes and the Brussels life both repeat this number. As to Hippocrates' burial place, the Suda locates his tomb in Larissa, whereas the VHSS and Tzetzes and the Brussels' Life carefully specify the site as located between Larissa and Gyrton. The description of his portrait is the next topic in the Suda' s life of Hippocrates. Mercifully for the reader, however, the explanations for Hippocrates' head covering have been reduced to three. Then the Suda relates the story about Hippocrates and Artaxerxes. The earlier and later sources of this anecdote are, respectively, the Decree and the first nine pseudepigraphic letters. 75The author of the Suda strikingly drops his terseness to quote the entire third pseudepigraphic letter, which contains King Artaxerxes' request for Hippocrates. 76 It is revealing that the author of the Suda does not also include Hippocrates' response in the fifth pseudepigraphic letter. 77What seems to give Hippocrates the most value from the author's point of view is the Coan physician's high status in the eyes of a world leader like Artaxerxes, rather than Hippocrates' philosophic disdain for such status, which he expresses in letter five. Finally the Suda discusses Hippocrates' writings. The author returns to the reverent tone of the opening, in which he hyperbolically called Hippocrates "the stars and light of medicine. "78Here the author states that Hippocrates' successors in medicine "even revere them [his writings] as the utterings of a god instead of sayings that came out of a human mouth." 79 And when his enumeration of the papyrus rolls of Hippocrates' works comes to the third one, containing the aphorisms, he waxes hyperbolic again, saying that "the third roll, of aphorisms, surpasses human comprehension."80 As to the works themselves, the author mentions four rolls. From the first one, he names only one treatise, the Oath; the second contains prognostic works, the 73 See comments on Section two of the VHSS above. 74 C. Harder, "De Ioannis Tzetzae historiarum fontibus quaestiones selectae" (Diss. Kiel, 1886), p. 94. 15 Pseud, pp. 106-107, 48-55. 16 Pseud, pp. 50-51. 77 Pseud,pp. 52-53.

78 'tO(lCJ'ttpaicat q,ro,;-ri\i;~ioxpWCJ'tO.'tl],; iatpucii,;yEvfo8m.

79 icat outco,; auttti; 1Catacr1ta.~ovtm ro,;8EOUq,covtt,;icat O\llC&v8pco1tivou1tpOEA.8oucra,; €1C CJ'toµato,;. 80 tpi'tl] ii t&v &q,opicrµrov &v8pco1t{vT1v i>itEp~a{voucra cruvrnw.

THE INDIVIDUALLIVES

21

third aphorisms, and the fourth sixty works. The number four in the Suda's canon of Hippocratic treatises may reflect the late Alexandrian medical curriculum. Ibn RiM.'tcov 'toitrov) Littre 2.12-93. 109 On Sores= Ulcers ( it. i:)..iccov)Littre 6.400-432 (?); On the Withdrawal of Missiles (n. Pe)..&ve~m pfoEapµ6xrov), lost; see J. Ilberg, "Prolegomena," in Hippocratis opera quae feruntur omnia, ed. H. Kiihlewein, 2 vols. (Leipzig, 1894, 1902), l.xxvi. ll2 On Fleshy Wounds(?); Diseases of Women, Bks. I and 2 (yuvm1CEirova' -13') Littre 8.10407; On the Humors of the Body (11.xuµfuv) Littre 5.47Cr-503; On the Fluxes of Women, lost. 113 On the Number Seven (1t. t~6oµa6rov) Littre 8.634--073; On the Eight Month's Child (1t. 0K'taµiivou) Littre 8.634--073; On Fixed and Legitimate Days in Affections, that is, On Crises= On Crises ( p. 1Cpiaiµrov)and Critical Days (1t.1Cpiaiµrov11µeperov)Littre 9.227Cr-307. 114 On Ancient Medicine (11. apxah1c;i11'tpiiciic;) Littre 1.570-637; On Dropsy, lost, On Headaches, lost, On Gout, lost, On Cut Sinews, lost; On Epilepsy = On the Sacred Disease (11. iepfic;vouaou) Littre 6.352-397; The Seed (1t."(Ovi\c;) Littre 7.470-485. 115 All of these have been lost. 116 Judith, in The New Oxford Annotated Bible with the Apocryphal!Deuterocanonica/ Books, new rev. standard version, ed. B.M. Metzger and R.E. Murphy (New York, 1991), p. 21 AP. 117 See, e.g., Thales (D.L. 1.24), Solon (D.L. 1.50), Plato (D.L. 3.6- 7), Pythagoras (D.L. 8.2-3).

28

HIPPOCRATIC LIVES AND LEGENDS

translation, and raises the intriguing question, whether the author-translator was a Christian. As we shall see, Syrian and Nestorian Christians in the Eastern Mediterranean played an important role in preserving Greek medical works by translating Hippocrates, Galen, and other Greek medical writings into Syriac and then into Arabic from the fifth century to the end of the ninth. 118 Both anecdotes about Hippocrates' wide travels have affinities with Arabic lives such as that by lbn al-Qifµ, which has him reside for a period in Firuha (i.e., Bipotcx= Aleppo, in the Again, this suggests the Brussels life's late date.119 text equated with 1:fim~). The Interrelation of the Lives What then, is one to make of these accounts, which are so similar to each other but which do not correspond completely? The identity of Soranus was long perceived as the key to the puzzle since the title of the longest vita (VHSS) claims him as its source, and Tzetzes explicitly states that he is following Soranus of Ephesus (1. 986). The Suda lists two physicians named Soranus of Ephesus-a Soranus of Ephesus who lived under Trajan and Hadrian and wrote "many fine books" and a later Soranus of Ephesus who wrote four books on Gynecology and Kcxt ten on the Lives of the Physicians, Their Sects, and Writings (Biot iCX't'prov cxi'.pecrw; Kcxtcruv'tayµcx'tcx ~t~licx = Bioi).120 Although these two Sorani are now usually believed to be the same man, the Suda' s double entry provided support for those who wished to argue that they were distinct. 121 For example, Emile Littre, the great nineteenth-century editor and translator of the Hippocratic Corpus, claimed that the Bioi were written by the later Soran us, that this was Tzetzes' source, and that from it the VHSS was extracted. Littre's reason for making a distinction between the two Sorani is clear. By doing so, he could reject Soranus' Bioi, which the Suda assigned to the later Soranus, as too late to provide authentic evidence for the life ofHippocrates. 122 Littre's low opinion of the Hippocratic lives as historical documents influenced his evaluation of their interrelation. A more extreme example of how an interest in the lives primarily as historical evidence for Hippocrates interfered with a fair appraisal of their interrelation can be seen in Ludwig Edelstein's comparison of the VHSS and Tzetzes' verses on Hippocrates. In line 986 Tzetzes acknowledges Soranus of Ephesus as his source. A reader who is encouraged by this explicit statement of relation to expect a close 118 See Chapter 5 of this study, esp. n. 6.

119 Ibn al-Qifµ, KitabikhbiraJ-Cu/ami'bi-akhbiral-lJukami', ed. J. Lippert (Leipzig, 1903), pp.

EI2.

90--91, mentioned by Dietrich, supp., fasc. ~. p. 154. 120 Adler, Suda 4. 407. 12l For examples of scholars who considered the two Sarani the same person, see E. Kind, RE, ser. 2, vol. 3, pt. 1, col. 1113-1115, 1118, and 0. Temkin, Soranus' Gynecology (Baltimore, 1956), pp. xxiii, n. 2, xxiv. 122 Littre 1.32, 33. Following Littre was W.H.S. Jones, who dismissed the Soranus who wrote the VHSSas a "late writer of uncertain date" (Hippocrates,1. xiii).

THE INDIVIDUALLIVES

29

resemblance between Tzetzes' vita and the VHSS may be puzzled. Edelstein, the leading medical historian of the nineteen thirties, found that the VHSS and Tzetzes differed both fundamentally and in detail. In general, the idealized characterization of Hippocrates in the VHSS, he claimed, was unlike Tzetzes' depiction. As for details, Edelstein cited discrepancies in Hippocrates' genealogy, accuracy of his floruit, and age at death. In addition, the VHSS, but not Tzetzes, he claimed, included Hippocrates' refusal of Artaxerxes' invitation and gave a reason for his refusal, which showed his noble character. Other differences he noted were the VHSS's description of Hippocrates' portrait, which was more detailed than Tzetzes', and the VHSS's omission of the number ofHippocrates' works.123 Prompted by these discrepancies, Edelstein disassociated the two accounts of Hippocrates' life. Tzetzes' model, he claimed, was not the VHSS, but Soranus' Hippocratic vita in his Bioi. 124 This lost original could be reconstructed, Edelstein asserted, through Tzetzes' verses.125 Edelstein's methodology must be questioned. Can Tzetzes be used to reconstruct the life of Hippocrates in Soranus' lost Bioi? Edelstein's confidence that it can seems based on the assumption that Tzetzes followed Soranus closely. In fact, Tzetzes' account aimed to entertain rather than to provide scholarly accuracy. Tzetzes was notoriously careless, and he himself admitted that he was often separated from his books.126On this basis alone it is unwise to conclude that what Tzetzes left out of his account was also not in Soranus' Bioi or that the difference in tone between the idealizing VHSS and the entertaining verses of Tzetzes was not due to differences in genre. One suspects that because Edelstein thought it impossible to prove Hippocrates' historicity, 127 he was bent on denying any coherence to Hippocrates' biographical tradition. In this study, however, I am more interested in understanding the process by which the Hippocratic lives developed than in centrifuging the fiction from a historical kernel. Accordingly, I do not have to discredit their sources or reconstruct lost works. Rather, taking into account differences in tone, content, and style due to different circumstances of composition, audiences, and purpose, I will concentrate on the connections that do exist among the lives. It is worth considering that details, such as the number of Hippocrates' works or his age at death, were less important to the ancient biographers than to modern 123 Edelstein, RE, supp. vol. 6, cols. 1293.58-1295.7. 124 Edelstein, RE, supp. vol. 6, col. 1292.55-57. Going further, Edelstein denied that the VHSS was written by Soranus or could be traced back to him (1294.~5). In contrast, Harder, "De Ioannes Tzetzae," p. 65) and Ilberg (CMG IV, p. xv), K. Deichgraber (Die Epidemienund das Corpus Hippocraticum,Berlin, 1933, p. 147), F. Leo, (Die griechische-romischeBiographie, p. 29), and Kind (RE, ser. 2, vol. 3, pt. 1, col. 115) all agreed that the VHSS derived from Soranus' Bioi. Kind even thought that the VHSSpreserved an actual fragment of the Bioi. 125 Edelstein, RE, supp. vol. 6, cols. 1293.55; 1294.68-1295.1. l26 Tzetzes 12.397, p. 440, 11.11-13. 127 Edelstein, RE, supp. vol. 6, col. 1328.1-5.

30

HIPPOCRATIC LIVES AND LEGENDS

scholars, who are intensely preoccupied with the Hippocratic question. When I turn to the details Edelstein cited to prove the divide between the VHSS and Tzetzes (=Soranus' Bioi), I find not so much lack of relation as textual corruption, differences in audience and genre, and epitomizing. For example, the discrepancy Edelstein finds between the VHSS and Tzetzes in Hippocrates' parentage consists of the VHSS' s statement that Hippocrates is the nineteenth descendant of Asclepius, whereas Tzetzes (=Soranus' Bioi) records him as the seventeenth. The second pseudo-Hippocratic letter names Hippocrates as the eighteenth from Asclepius.128 Schone sensibly concludes that it is impossible to determine whether Tzetzes' account is based on a gap in the family tree, which he found in his source, or is based on a divergent tradition.1 29 Edelstein' s certainty that Tzetzes' verses preserved the lost Bioi is not warranted. Similarly, Edelstein takes as evidence of different sources the fact that the VHSS gives four numbers of Hippocrates' age at death (90, 85, 104, and 109), whereas Tzetzes (=Soranus' Bioi) gives only one, 104. Again, differences in genre and audience-reflected in the fuller, more scholarly treatment of the VHSS and the pared down, poetic account of Tzetzesare probably responsible for the selection of material, not different sources. 130 On the whole, the similarities between the VHSS and Tzetzes are far more numerous that the minor differences. For example, the fact that both mention the number of generations between Hippocrates and Asclepius is more important than any discrepancies in the figure; it suggests that both were following some kind of genealogical list. More significant is the story that Hippocrates left Cos because he had burned the archive or library where medical works were stored. Only the VHSS and Tzetzes of the surviving lives share this anecdote. Just as Edelstein would not admit a connection between the VHSS and Tzetzes (=Soranus' Bioi), he denied that the Suda could be traced back to Soranus' Bioi. His case was based, not on radically different arrangements of the material or different lengths, but details.131 The evidence, however, does not support his conclusions. The Suda's list of teachers matches Tzetzes' except for the addition of the name Prodicus. And Prodicus, as Harder had already noted, was probably inserted as a gloss on 128 Pseud, p. 48. Smith's translation, "seventeenth" (p. 49), of the Greek 01C"CC01Cat6e1Ca:toi; (literally, "eighteenth," p. 48) takes into account that ancient Greeks counted inclusively. For example, in the sequence 1, 2, 3, 4, 4 would have been counted by, say Aristotle, as the fourth number from l; to us, of course, 4 is the third number from 1. To avoid confusion, I have followed the Greek inclusive counting of generations in my translations. 129 SchOne, Rh.M. 58 (1903), p. 63. 130 In contrast to Edelstein, neither SchOne (p. 66) nor Deichgr!lber (p. 147) doubted Tzetzes' statement that his source was Soranus of Ephesus. Deichgr!lber found that Tzetzes' account agreed in detail with the VHSS, so far as they were comparable. Moreover, Deichgraber considered Tzetzes' declaration of his source a guarantee of the authenticity of the postscript, Ka.-caI:opa.vov in the title of the VHSS (Edelstein dismissed, but could not account for this title, RE, supp. vol. 6, col. 1295.1-3). That Tzetzes' account included material not found in the VHSS Deichgr!lber took as evidence that the VHSS was only an epitome of Soranus' Bioi. 131 Edelstein, RE, supp. vol. 6, col. 1293, 30-49.

TIIE INDIVIDUALLIVES

31

Herodicus. 132 It is true that the number of works given in each account does not

correspond; but since the canon of Hippocratic works was fluid in antiquity down through the Middle Ages, 133 it seems dangerous to attach too much importance to this discrepancy. Contrary to Edelstein' s claim that Tzetzes does not mention at all the story of Artaxerxes or Hippocrates' friendship with Perdiccas or his sojourn in Macedonia, 134 Tzetzes does allude to both of these topics in lines 966 to 967, although in a very condensed manner. Tzetzes clearly refers to the stories about Artaxerxes and Perdiccas in line 967 ('tq>'Ap'tcx~EP~tlO'l))'Xpov°';-i>mipxrov1ml Tiep6h:x:~) and probably wrote ev 'H6rovoic; for ev Mcxx:e6ov{~.as Harder showed. 135 It is true that the Suda does not include the story of the burning of the library, but the points of similarity between the accounts of Tzetzes (=Soranus' Bioi) and the Suda-e.g., genealogy, teachers, sojourn in northern Greece, mention of Artaxerxes and Perdiccas, two sons (Thessalus and Dracon), age at death (104), place of burial, description of his portrait, and mention of seven Hippocrates-far outweigh the two discrepancies (the different numbers given for Hippocrates' works and the omission in the Suda of the story about Hippocrates' burning of the library). By now it should not seem surprising that Edelstein, following Schone, found the Brussels life, like the VHSS and the Suda, too different from Tzetzes (=Soranus' Bioi) in specific details to derive from Soranus. Schone and Edelstein objected that Tzetzes spoke of fifty-three writings, whereas the Latin text listed seventy-two. Edelstein also cited discrepancies in Hippocrates' genealogy and observed that only the Brussels life included a list of students and a passage describing Hippocrates' visit to Arfaxad, King of the Medes and how Hippocrates received his writings from Polybius, son of Apollonius in Egypt.136 Yet Schone and Edelstein overlooked some important points of connection between the Brussels life and Tzetzes' verses. The Brussels life alone agrees with Tzetzes (=Soranus' Bioi) in its mention of Podalirius in Hippocrates' genealogy. Nor did Edelstein note how closely the Latin description of Hippocrates' portrait resembled that in Tzetzes. Finally, neither Edelstein nor Schone mentioned that, although the Brussels life stated that Hippocrates wrote seventy-two books, its actual canon contained only fifty-three, the same number that Tzetzes gave. Close connections do exist, then, between Tzetzes' verses on Hippocrates and the VHSS and the Brussels life. Can similarities in detail, however, be used to 132 Harder, p. 94. 133 See, for example, the different works listed in the principal manuscripts, Littre 1.511-535; 10.lix-lxv. See also A.E. Hanson, "Studies in the Textual Tradition and the Transmission of the Gynecological Treatises of the Hippocratic Corpus" (Ph.D. diss. U. of Pennsylvania, 1971), pp. 2, 3, 10-16, who studied the transmission of the gynecological treatises, which may have formed a unit within the Corpus before their incorportion into Mss. 8, M, and V. 134 Edelstein, RE, supp. vol. 6, col. 1293.43-46; 1294.9-10. 135 Harder, p. 64. 136 Schllne, p. 66; Edelstein, RE, supp. vol. 6, col. 1292.60-1293.29.

32

HIPPOCRATIC LIVES AND LEGENDS

establish the interrelationship of the lives? I believe they can, especially when identical details in different lives are expressed in identical or very similar phrasing. At the same time, it is important to keep in mind that these relations will only be approximate; due to the loss of key works, such as Soranus' Bioi, Hesychius' Onomatologus, and the epitome made from it, I cannot state with confidence that any of our extant lives is the immediate source for another. In evaluating the connections among the Hippocratic lives, I follow the approach taken by Harder in his dissertation of 1886 on Tzetzes' sources. Harder made a start toward serious, detailed study of the close affinities among the lives by printing side by side the VHSS, the Suda's entry, and Tzetzes' verses. 137 Synopsis revealed to him that Tzetzes and the Suda agreed on the age Hippocrates attained (104), their use of the phrase iv xeipouyia.i~ ("in surgery") in the description of Hippocrates' portrait, and in their listing of seven Hippocrates. From these observations Harder made the following conclusions: the vita of Hippocrates by Soranus that Tzetzes worked with was more complete that the epitome (VHSS) that has reached us; the Suda's entry for Hippocrates was also drawn from a more complete version of the VHSS, which Harder identified as the Bioi and which the Suda attributed to the later Soranus of Ephesus.1 38 Since Harder did not know of the Brussels life, it remains for me to relate this fourth biographical account to his observations. Following his lead in trying to establish kinship among the lives by close study of wording and the arrangement of details, I compared the description of Hippocrates' portrait, which occurs in all four lives.139 It was apparent that the descriptions of Hippocrates' portrait in the Suda, Tzetzes, and the Brussels life were shortened versions of the one in the VHSS, since all of the reasons found in them could also be found in the VHSS.140 Leaving Hesychius aside, there is no way to determine from the evidence of the descriptions themselves if the versions in the Suda, Tzetzes, and the Brussels life were taken from the actual VHSS or a fuller version (either Soranus' Bioi or another epitome of Soranus' Bioi). However that may be, the number and exactness of the verbal echoes between any two versions may reflect their degree of kinship. For example, the VHSS and the Suda, which share two nearly identical phrases, seem to be closely related.14 1 So is Tzetzes' account, which shares one nearly

137 Harder, pp. 63--65. 138 Harder, p. 65. 139 I refer the reader to a detailed comparison of the texts, typed synoptically, in Rubin, "Biographical Fiction," pp. 29-33. 140 Except for the Suda's ethos.which represents, not so much a different reason, as a general catch-all for explanations omitted due to space. eiKOOtv(VHSS,secl 12.1)/ tv Be 't(ltc;;£iKootv(Suda662.17) and 'tOU 141 EV6£ tatc;;7t0A.A.a.tc;; q,tA..oi; yuµvao-riic;imooxotv'tOa.v oot, OU'tOVIlep6t1C1CllV ltllpllA.lli30v'tec;-ei6TJ O'b'toi;fonv O'tTlc;µ'TJ'tput~ epao8eli; ,C(l\6ta. 'tllU'tll1Cll'tE01CA'TJ1CCOc;, aUa. µTJ'Av'tiaxoc;0 'tOU l:EAEUICOU l:'tpll'tOVtlC'TJc; £1CEtVTti;-a1tO(plltVEtv 'OA.uµmovt!C'TJV ,C(l\0tayevet 't(p eaoiq> i\ IloA.u66.µav'tt'tipl:icO'touooaiq> av'tiitaAOv,aUa. 6o8eioav im68eow EU(pua. itpoc;imo6axTJv'tfji; yuµvaowciic;1tlC(l\ ~CO'tl1Ccotepov lC(l\ aMic; U7tlOUCJTJc; aa0eveatepov ... 22 Mesk, Rh.M. 68 (1913), p. 383. 23 Mesk, Rh.M. 68 (1913), p. 371.

66

HIPPOCRATICLIVES AND LEGENDS

4) All the accounts end with Seleucus' noble renunciation of his wife in order to restore his son's health. Plutarch and Appian, with more detail, place the transference of Stratonice to Antiochus in a historical framework-at the same time that Stratonice and Antiochus are married, Seleucus calls an assembly (of his army, in Appian, and of all the people, in Plutarch) and confers on the new couple rulership of half his kingdom. The prominence of the physician and the king in the story varies in each version, depending on the purpose for which it was intended. For instance, Appian, whose goal is historical, and Valerius Maximus, whose account reflects rhetorical influence, focus on the king/father. In other versions the physician is the center of attention (Lucian, Julian, the Suda),as, I think it is reasonable to say, he was in the earliest versions. 24 That the physician is the star of this story, at least in medical biographies, is clear from the Suda's brief entry on Erasistratus. There the whole story is reduced to forty-five words. In such an extreme condensation all that remains is the barest statement of Erasistratus' skillful diagnosis.25 Anchored in the historical framework of Seleucus' court and the facts of the succession-Antiochus did marry his stepmother Stratonice and receive half of his father's kingdom while Seleucus was still alive-the story was generally accepted as historical in antiquity and is even considered so today by some scholars.26 Still, the association of the basic story with other physicians, such as Erasistratus' father Cleombrotus and later, Avicenna, makes one sceptical about accepting the story as historical. 27 One's suspicions are only increased when one reads similar clever diagnoses of lovesickness by physicians in popular prose fiction written during the empire. Most similar to the report about Erasistratus and Antiochus, and no doubt derived from it, 28 is the late story told in epistolary form by Aristainetus about Polycles' son Charicles, whose lovesickness was diagnosed from his pulse by the skillful physician, Panaceos. 29 Alerted to the identity of Charicles' beloved by the youth's leaping pulse when she happened to pass by, the clever physician tested his hypothesis by having every woman in the house walk past the boy's bed.

24 Mesk, Rh.M. 68 (1913), p. 386. 25 Mesk, Rh.M. 68 (1913), p. 379.

26 M. Wellmann, "Zur Geschichte der Medizin im Alterthum," Hermes 35 (1900) 380; RE, vol. 6, pt. 1, cols. 333 ff.; Hermes 65 (1930) 322 ff., esp. 327-328. See also, P.M. Fraser, "The Career of Erasistratus of Ceos," Rendicontidell' I stitutoLombardoAccademiadi Scienze e Lettere 103 (1969) 518-537, and G.E.R. Lloyd's reply, "A note on Erasistratus of Ceos," Journal of Hellenic Studies 95 (1975) 172-175. 27 As Rohde has shown, Der griechischeRoman, p. 57, esp. n. 1. 28 Amundsen, BHM 48 (1974), p. 335, n. 75. 29 Aristainetus 1.13. Greek text, ed. R. Hercher, EpistolographiGraeci (Paris, 1873), pp. 144146; Eng. trans. and discussion by Amundsen, BHM 48 (1974), pp. 329-331. See, also, Mesk, Rh.M. 68 (1913), pp. 380-381.

HIPPOCRATESAND PERDICCAS

67

Charicles' pulse leapt only in the presence of the girl he loved. 30 The girl in question happened to be the concubine of Charicles' father. In ways reminiscent of most versions of the Erasistratus story, Aristainetus heightened the suspense accompanying Panaceas' disclosure of Charicles' lovesickness. First, the physician promised that all would be well as he left on the pretext that he was going to prepare the necessary medications. When he was greeted as their savior the next day by the father and the household, Panaceas pretended to be angry, shouting that he was withdrawing from the case. Pressed to explain, he appeared to yield and explained that the son, in love with his wife, was an adulterer. Accepting the diagnosis of his son's illness, the father tried to persuade Panaceas to give up his wife, saying it was not a question of adultery but of saving the boy. In reply, Panaceas asked Polycles if he would give up his concubine if his son were in love with her. When the father insisted that he would, as in the story about Erasistratus and Antiochus, Panaceas revealed the identity of the boy's true love. A third-century treatment of the theme, less closely related to the ErasistratusAntiochus story, does not give the physician such a large role. Heliodorus tells the story of a lovesick girl Charicleia in his Ethiopian Romance 4.7. 31 In this account, however, narrated by the father, the physician does not discover her condition from the chance visits of her beloved, nor does he test his hypothesis by having a number of possible candidates individually walk past the girl's bed while he measures her pulse. The physician who finally does diagnose her illness relies on her pulse (no details about its variations are given) and her symptoms-rings under her eyes, a darting glance, pallor, lack of pain, troubled mind, insomnia, loss of weight. The father, after he is told of his daughter's malady, is left to discover the object of her passion and to deliver his daughter from her plight. In other variations on the lovesickness theme, physicians were either unsuccessful in diagnosing the affliction or were even parodied. The daughter of the king of Pentapolis, in Apollonius, King of Tyre 18, takes to her bed with a case of lovesickness when Apollonius, the object of her passion, fails to respond.32 Even after feeling her pulse, the physicians that her father sent for are unable to identify the princess's malady. In Apuleius' Metamorphoses 10.2, his lovesick stepmother

30 In Aristainetus' version, the beloved appears as the father's concubine instead of the youth's s11imother.For the significanceof this change, seep. 76 of this chapter. 1 Greek text, ed. A. Colonna, Heliodori Aethiopica (Rome, 1938), pp. 119-121; Eng. trans. Amundsen,BHM 48 (1974), pp. 328-329. 32 HistoriaApollonii regis Tyri 18, ed. A. Riese, 2nd ed. (Leipzig, 1893), p. 22; plot summary in English, discussion, bibliography, B.E. Perry, The Ancient Romances (Berkeley, 1967), pp. 294-324. See, also, Amundsen,BHM 48 (1974), p. 329. In its opening this same romance shows more strikingly the influence of the Erasistratus-Antiochus story. The king of Antioch, Antiochus, has incestual relations with his daughter {Chaps. 1-2). This narrative feature "was undoubtedly suggested to our author by the famous and scandalous love of Antiochus I (324-262 B.C.) for his stepmother Stratonice, the wife of his father Seleucus I." (Perry, p. 301).

68

HIPPOCRATIC LIVES AND LEGENDS

has more in common with Phaedra than Antiochus. 33 Apuleius uses the context, however, to make fun of the medical acumen supposedly needed to diagnose lovesickness. 34 While Apuleius parodied the medical diagnosis of lovesickness, firmly established as a literary convention by the second century A.D., his younger contemporary, Galen, took the subject seriously. In the passage just mentioned, Apuleius subscribed to the common view that the physical manifestations of love were caused by supernatural agency. 35 Galen, however, writing as a physician, ascribed lovesickness to psychosomatic rather than divine causes. 36 He described this phenomenon several times, including his own clinical experience in diagnosing lovesickness. 37 In a well-known passage in Prognosis, to which he later refers, Galen draws a parallel between his own experience in solving a case of lovesickness and Erasistratus' famed diagnosis of Antiochus. Galen's point of departure is his criticism of doctors who, in their ignorance of how Erasistratus detected Antiochus' passion for Stratonice, conjectured that he associated a special pulsation of the arteries with love. 38 Galen then proceeds to offer his own technique of careful observation, hypothesis, and testing of his hypothesis, including the use of experimental controls, as a contemporary explanation of how Erasistratus

33 Apuleius, Metamorphoseon liber 10.2, ed. R. Helm (Leipzig, 1908), pp. 237-238. Cf. Euripides, Hippolytus, II. 267-284. 34 This was suggested to me by A.E. Hanson in an unpublished communication dated February 21, 1982. Cf. Amundsen, BHM 48 (1974), p. 331. 35 Amundsen, BHM 48 (1974), p. 333. 36 Galen, In Hif pocratis Prognosticum commentarii 1.4 (K 18.2, 18): µ11touv oioµe8cx t'TJV t1ttA.l]ljllCXV 8dov eivm vOOT]µcx µ116etov fpcotcx.For other ancient discussions of lovesickness in a medical context, see Aretaeus (1st cent A.O.), Of Chronic Diseases III.5.4-11. Greek text ed. C. Hude, Aretaeus, CMG II, 2nd ed. (Berlin, 1958), p. 41; Eng. trans. F. Adams, The Extant Works of Aretaeus, the Cappadocian (London, 1856; rptd 1978), p. 300. Rufus of Ephesus (late 1st cent., early 2nd cent. A.O.), Greek text ed. C. Oaremberg, C.E. Ruelle, Oeuvres de Rufus d' Ephese (Paris, 1879; rptd. Amsterdam, 1963), p. 608. Oribasius (4th cent. A.O.), Synopsis ad Eustathium VIII 8, Greek text ed. J. Raeder, Synopsis ad Eustathium Libri ad Eunapium, CMG VI 3 (Leipzig and Berlin, 1926; rptd. Amsterdam, 1964), pp. 249-250. Caelius Aurelianus (5th cent. A.O., following closely Soranus of Ephesus, 2nd cent. A.O.), Chronic Diseases I.5, Latin text with Eng. trans., ed. I.E. Orabkin, Caelius Aurelianus, On Acute Diseases and On Chronic Diseases (Chicago, 1950), pp. 557-558. Paul of Aegina (7th cent. A.O.), III.17, Greek text ed. I.L. Heiberg, Paulus Aegineta, CMG XI 1 (Libri I-IV) (Leipzig and Berlin, 1921), p. 160; Eng. trans. F. Adams, The Seven Books of Paulus Aegineta, 3 vols. (London, 1844), 1.390-391. 37 Galen, Quod optimus medicus sit quoque philosophus 3 (K 1. 57-58; Marquardt, Millier, Heimrich, Scripta minora, 2.5); De praenotione ad Epigenem 6 (K 14.631--635; reedited by V. Nutton, GMG V 8,1, pp. 100-104); In Hipp. Progn. comment. 1.4 and 8 (K 18.2.18 and 40; reeditedI. Heeg, CMG V 9,2, pp. 206-207; pp. 218-219); In Hippocratis Epidemiarum. librum secundum commentarius 2, CMG V 10, 1, p. 208); In Hipp. Epid. libr. sextum comment. 8, CMG V 10,2, 2, pp. 494, 495). See Nutton, CMG V 8, 1, pp. 48, 195. 3S This belief survived Galen's attack, however, in the diagnosis of Charicleia's lovesickness in Heliodorus 4.8, mentioned above. Galen, as Amundsen suggests, BHM 48 (1974), p. 336, would have found this diagnosis "primarily a lucky conjecture but surely not scientifically compatible with Galen's standards."

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uncovered Antiochus' mysterious malady. 39 Galen relates that he was once called in to treat a woman suffering from insomnia. Through questioning and observation, he determined that she was not suffering from a fever but that her insomnia was due either to a physical cause (depression caused by black bile) or some worry. By chance, during a visit the name of a dancer, Pylades, was mentioned. "Her expression and facial color changed," Galen recalls, "and observing this and putting my hand on her wrist," I found that her pulse had suddenly become irregular in several ways, which indicates that the mind is disturbed; the samehappens to those who are entering any sort of contest The next day I told one of my followers to arrive just after I had come and seen the woman and to announce that Morphus is dancing today. When he did so, I found that her pulse was unaffected. Similarly also on the following day, when I had an announcement made about the third member of the dancing troupe, her pulse stayed steady. On the fourth evening I kept a very careful watch when it was announced that Pylades was dancing, and I saw that her pulse became immediately wildly disturbed. Thus I discovered that the woman was in love with Pylades, and by careful watch on subsequent days my discovery was confirmed. 40

What is interesting here is Galen's identification with Erasistratus in this celebrated case of diagnostic acumen. 41 Galen uses the story, which he claims to be true, to enhance his own prestige as a master of diagnosis. 42 In the absence of professional licensing, ancient physicians relied on their reputation, acquired and maintained by such public displays of skill, to convey to current and prospective patients their medical competence. 43 The question remains, did Galen really view the story about Erasistratus and Antiochus as fact? The diagnosis of lovesickness was no mere literary convention to Galen; he seems to have taken it seriously as the test of a great physician's powers of observation and deduction, one that Erasistratus and Hippocrates and, of course, he Galen, could pass. 44 The detail in 39 For Galen's scientific method, see M. Mesulam, J. Perry, 'The Diagnosis of Love-Sickness: Experimental Psychophysiology without the Polygraph," Psychophysiology 9 (1972) 549; Nutton, CMG V 8,1, p. 194. 40 Eng. trans. Nutton, CMG V 8,1, p. 103; Gr. text, ed. Nutton, p. 102. 41 Elsewhere, as Nutton observes (above, n. 15), CMG V 8,1, p. 194, Galen opposed himself to Erasistratus, for example in De venae sectione adversus Erasistrateos Romae degentes (K 11.187, 1-191,7). 42 V. Nutton, "Galen and Autobiography," Proceedings of the Cambridge Philosophical Society 198=n.s.18 (1972) 50-62, esp. pp. 60-61. 43 Nutton, Proceedings of the Camb. Phil. Soc. (1972), p. 60. For the propaganda value of diagnosis in Hippocratic medicine, see L. Edelstein, "Hippocratic Prognosis," Ancient Medicine (Baltimore, 1967), pp. 65-85. 44 It is worth asking, why, then, Galen did not cite Hippocrates with Erasistratus in this passage. One possibility is that it was Erasistraws' scientific method Galen wished to spotlight, so that he could bask in the Cean Doctor's reflected prestige. The story about Hippocrates and Perdiccas may not have emphasized the method by which Hippocrates diagnosed the Macedonian king. In That the Best Physician ls Also a Philosopher 3 Galen cited the story of Hippocrates and Perdiccas as an example of Hippocrates' integrity; apparently, this story was an appropriate exemplum in a discussion of medical ethics but not in one of scientific method.

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Galen's version of the story about Erasistratus that suggests he also knew of the report about Hippocrates and Perdiccas is the identity of the prince's beloved; Galen says that Antiochus was in love with his father's concubine, whereas all the stories about Erasistratus specify that Antiochus was dying with passion for his stepmother, Stratonice.45 This brings us back to the first of the questions posed at the opening of this chapter-what is the relation between the story about Erasistratus and Antiochus and that told ofHippocrates and Perdiccas? The report about Hippocrates and Perdiccas in the VHSS, which is only an epitome of a once longer work,46 is a very condensed adaptation of the basic story about a young man's secret passion for his stepmother and the diagnosis of his ensuing lovesickness by a clever physician. This story was changed to fit different historical settings.47 In the VHSS the most striking departure from the basic pattern is the omission of an essential character-the king/father. According to the VHSS, Perdiccas' father, Alexander, is no longer alive: "For after the death of his father Alexander Perdiccas fell in love with Phila, his father's mistress." 48 The second significant alteration is that the love object in the VHSS is a concubine instead of a stepmother. Both changes reduce the logic of the story in the VHSS to shambles. Without a father does Perdiccas himself call in Hippocrates to diagnose his lovesickness, which he is at the same time trying to conceal under the guise of a wasting disease?49 Why would Perdiccas invite his own exposure? More to the point, since his father is dead, why does he need to conceal his passion for she would probably be Phila, his father's concubine? As a concubine (1taA.A.a1e{~). a slave, or, if free, presumably could be married by the former king's son. 50 Further, there is no logical connection betwen Hippocrates' diagnosis and Perdiccas' cure; all that the VHSS reports is: "Hippocrates explained the situation to her after he caught Perdiccas changing color when he looked at her. He freed him

45 Nutton, CMG V 8.1, p. 195. Nutton dates Prognosis to A.O. 178 (pp. 49, 50). 46 See Chapter 1 above. 47 As Rohde first observed,Der griechische Roman, p. 58. 48 VHSS, p. 176, 11.7-9 (For Greek text, see Appendix A). 49 Or is the VHSS suggesting that Perdiccas did not consciously connect his passion with his (VHSS, p. 176, l. 7) means that Hippocrateswas called "publicly," it would wasting? If 611µ00-t(l(p. 176, ll. 5-6), even answer the question, who summoned Hippocrates. But i>itoIlep6{1C1Ca [t&v] 'Al36l]pit&v( p. though redundant with 6l]µoo{i;i,is clearly parallel with 1tapedfi9Ti 6ei>1t0 176, I. 11), which opens the story about Hippocrates and Democritus. Also, 611µ00{~is used in the VHSS, section 10 (p. 177, l. 2) to mean "at public expense." This seems to be the best way to interpret 611µ00-{(l-in the Perdiccas story. Cf. A.E. Hanson's translation of the VHSS, in Sufglementary Readings for the Study of Hippocratic Medicine (Princeton, 1978), p. 171. If we can get any idea from the legal status of a concubine (mxUarii;;) in Athens, see D.M. MacDowell, The Law in Classical Athens (Ithaca, 1978), pp. 89-90. Concubines, in Athens at least, "kept with a view to free children," could be free or slave. Anyone who seduced such a concubinewas subject to the same legal consequencesas for seducinga wife.

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from his illness and revived him." 51 In all the other known variations on the basic story the lovesick youth plays a passive role. 52 Once the physician reveals the nature of his illness, the king/father resolves the situation. The VHSS does not explain how Perdiccas is united with Phila. The third significant change is that Hippocrates makes his diagnosis without taking Perdiccas' pulse. In all the other known versions of the story the physician makes his diagnosis by observing variations in the lovesick youth's heartbeat, accomplished either by taking his pulse or feeling his heart during the presence and absence of his beloved. There are further puzzles. Why was Euryphon included? As the story now appears in the VHSS, he serves no function. Phila, the name of the concubine, is the name of Stratonice's daughter.53 While both versions-that about Hippocrates and Perdiccas and that about Erasistratus and Antiochus-are recognizable as the same basic story, the version about Hippocrates and Perdiccas is clearly derived from the one about Erasistratus and Antiochus.5 4 In fact, the story about Hippocrates and Perdiccas, full of inconsistencies in action and character as it now appears in the VHSS, makes sense as a narrative only in reference to the story about Erasistratus and Antiochus. It is necessary, of course, to distinguish between unintelligibility due to condensation and that due to adaptation. A fuller version of the VHSS may have given Euryphon, the fifth-century B.C. Cnidian physician, a role in the story, perhaps as Hippocrates' associate. Or, possibly, a fuller version explained how Hippocrates' detection of Perdiccas' lovesickness led to a resolution. Did an older character analogous to Seleucus bring Perdiccas and Phila together? Did Phila offer herself voluntarily when Hippocrates broke the news? Such speculation, however, is fruitless, since the present, epitomized version of the VHSS is the most complete extant source for the story. Even if the gaps now present in the story also existed in a more complete version, the basic sequence of events would have been clear from an acquaintance with the story about Erasistratus and Antiochus-a prince's hidden love disguised as a wasting physical illness, brilliantly detected by a famous physician, followed by the uniting of the prince with his beloved, and leading, in turn, to the prince's recovery. Moreover, the steps by which Hippocrates arrives at his diagnosis in the VHSS follow Erasistratus' procedure very closely if they are compared to the better-known story. Hippocrates determines immediately that 51 VHSS, p. 176, 11.9-11 (For Greek text, see Appendix A). 52 Mesk, Rh.M. 68 (1913), p. 384. 53 Nutton, CMG V 8,1, p. 195.

54 Although Wenman, Hermes 35 (1900), p. 380, without further explanation, states that the story about Hippocrates and Perdiccas was the source for the story about Erasistratus and Antiochus, the weight of scholarly opinion has gone against him. Mesk, Rh.M. 68 (1913), p. 378, n. 1, and Edelstein, RE, supp. vol. 6, cols. 1296.66--1297.1, argue that the story was transferred from Erasistratus to Hippocrates. For the possibility of mutual borrowing or confusions, see Nutton, CMG V 8,1, p. 195.

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Perdiccas' affliction originates in the soul. This follows the pattern in Plutarch, Appian, and Lucian, who have Erasistratus immediately recognize that Antiochus is suffering from lovesickness. 55 The sentence in the VHSS that describes how Hippocrates confirms his hypothesis oflovesickness ("he [Hippocrates] caught him changing color when she looked at him ... ") 56 at first seems wholly unrelated to the diagnostic method in the story about Erasistratus and Antiochus, since all the extant accounts have Erasistratus take Antiochus' pulse or feel his heart. Plutarch, however, in addition to a change in pulse, states that Antiochus' involuntary change of complexion was one of the signs that gave away his true malady, and Appian says that Erasistratus "watched the changes of his body," 57 not explicitly mentioning pulse or heart beat. In the context of the story about Erasistratus and Antiochus, Perdiccas' change of complexion in the presence of his beloved is easily recognized as one of several conventional signs of lovesickness. Why the pulse is not utilized as a diagnostic tool in the story about Hippocrates and Perdiccas will be discussed later.SS Before trying to determine how and when the story was adapted to Hippocrates, it will be helpful to examine how the report about Hippocrates and Perdiccas functions in the VHSS. In the story about Erasistratus and Antiochus, when the individual version was not strongly colored by historical or rhetorical influence, the physician emerged as the focus of interest. 59 The physician's brilliant diagnosis was also the point of the many stories told about clever fictional physicians in romantic prose. To the ancient popular imagination the detection of lovesickness seems to have been the test of a physician's sharpness. 60 To Galen, also, who accepted the story as history and found in it a personal challenge, the diagnosis of lovesickness was a test that the greatest physicians of the past, such as Erasistratus and Hippocrates, had passed.6 1 In the VHSS, also, the story about Hippocrates and Perdiccas is emblematic ofHippocrates' diagnostic skill. Hippocrates' summons by Perdiccas is an illustration of Hippocrates' growing fame, explained as the result of his already considerable achievement as an itinerant physician. 62 55 Plutarch, Demetrius 38, ed. Ziegler, p. 41: 'Epa.oiotpa.tov 6e tov ia.tpov a.io9fo9m µev ou xa.un&i; ep&vwi; a.i>tou... Appian, Roman History 11, Syrian Wars 10, ed. Viereck, Roos, Mendelssohn,1.408: O'\l6'onepiwwµoi; ia.t~ 'Epa.ofotpa.toi;,btl.µ£'(iota.ii;cruv1:al;eoi:EEA£i>iccp 1:0oii'>µa. eiica.oeveivm cruvwv,elxe 1:EJCµfipa.o9m 1:0U1ta8oui;,µixpi q,uMl;a.i;ica.9a.pov£IC7tllV1:WV eppcoµevnICO.t vooouon 1:0o&µa.cruva.{08e1:m.Lucian, The Syrian Goddess -ri;i;vooov, fi 6ri ICO.t 17, ed. Macleod, 3.8: o6e i111:poi; roi;d6e µw ii; O'\l6eviµq,a.vei;nppcoo1:fov1:a., fyvco1:0Vvouoov epUA.a.~ev 1:a.u1:11i; ~A£7t0µ£VTjt; 7t0.V1:E~EICElVOV 1:pfoeo8m. 57 Plutarch,Demetrius 38, ed. Ziegler, p. 42: £y1Ca.8opixv ,:e 1:ip'Avubxou... See also the Greek text quoted in n. 19. Appian, Roman History 11, Syrian Wars 10, ed. Viereck, Roos, ICO.t Eq>lJA.a.OOE ,:~ 1:0Uowµa.1:oi; µeta.l3o~ ... Mendelssohn,1.409: 1ta.peica.8e~E1:0 58 Seep. 76. 59 Mesk, Rh.M. 68 (1913), p. 386. 60 Amundsen,BHM 48 (1974), p. 333. 61 See pp. 68-70. 62 VHSS, p. 176, ll. 4-5 (For Greek text, see Appendix A).

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This story is also the first in a series of feats of healing and patriotism that continues with Hippocrates' visit to Democritus,63 his prevention and treatment of a panhellenic epidemic, 64 his refusal to treat Artaxerxes because, as a barbarian, he was an enemy of the Greeks, 65 and his rescue of his homeland Cos from an Athenian attack. 66 As a result of these activities he was awarded unprecedented honors from the Coans, Thessalians, Argives, and Athenians. 67 When the stories in the VHSS about Hippocrates and Perdiccas, Hippocrates and the "plague," and Hippocrates and Artaxerxes are viewed as a unit, it becomes clear that each story illustrates a different facet ofHippocrates' excellence in the manner of an ancient encomium. 68 The VHSS also reflects the practice of ancient biographers, who preferred to illustrate their subject's virtues and vices with specific anecdotes rather than generalized statements. 69 In philosophic biographies lists of anecdotes were used to characterize different aspects of a philosopher's way of life and thought, in respect to a specific schooI. 7 For example, Socrates' habit of searching deeply for the truth and cultivating a healthy life style, his civic virtue, independence, dignity of character, and disdain for wealth are each illustrated with little stories in sections 22 through 25 of Diogenes Laertius' Life of Socrates. 11 In the VHSS the successive stories of Hippocrates and Perdiccas, Hippocrates and the "plague," and Hippocrates and Artaxerxes illustrate, respectively, Hippocrates' skill in diagnosis, his skill in treatment, and his patriotic and philosophical incorruptibility. 72 Two stories in particular-that about Hippocrates and Perdiccas and the one about Hippocrates and Artaxerxes, both linked in Galen and Tzetzes, came to represent Hippocrates' virtue as a physician and a man-his professional skill and his moral superiority. This is clear from Galen's reference in That the Best Physician Is Also a Philosopher 3. Speaking of the ideal philosopher-physician, whom he modeled on Hippocrates, he says:

°

If there is such a man, he will look down on Artaxerxes and Perdiccas; he will never even see the former, while he will treat the latter when he is ill and needs Hippocrates' art

63 VHSS, p. 176, ll. 11-13. 64 VHSS, p. 176, 11. 13-18. 65 VHSS, p. 176, 11. 18-23.

66 VHSS, p. 176, 11.23-24. 67 VHSS, p. 176, 1. 25-177, 1. 3. 68 For the close relationship between ancient biography and encomium, see A. Momigliano, The Development of Greek Biography (Cambridge, 1971), p. 15. 69 Fairweather, Ancient Society 5 (1974), p. 235. 70 Momigliano, Greek Biography, p. 71. 71 Fairweather, Ancient Society 5 (1974), p. 247, n. 75. 72 For a discussion of Hippocrates and the "plague" and Hippocrates and Artaxerxes, see Chapters 2 and 4, respectively.

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HIPPOCRATIC LIVES AND LEGENDS but surely will not think it right to stay with him forever; and he will treat the poor of Cranon, Thasos, and other small towns. 73

Galen clearly expected his readers to recognize Perdiccas from the story as a type of royal patient who, by offering a talented physician like Hippocrates vast wealth and other inducements to serve as his personal physician, could tempt him to compromise his professional ethics. Tzetzes in his verses on the life of Hippocrates managed to condense each story to one word each, Artaxerxes and Perdiccas, and to combine both in a single line: "He was, you know, contemporary with Perdiccas and Artaxerxes. " 74 A motive for associating the diagnosis of lovesickness with Hippocratesnamely to demonstrate Hippocrates' diagnostic skill-has been suggested. The question remains, however, how did the story, associated with Erasistratus, come to take the form it did in the VHSS? This raises questions about the working methods of ancient biographers. Often they found the seeds of anecdotes in the writings of their subjects, which they interpreted with overliteralness. 75 Was there any hint in the Hippocratic Corpus that could have provided a starting point for the story about Hippocrates and Perdiccas? Lovesickness, which was discussed as a medical condition by later physicians in their works, is not mentioned once in the Hippocratic Corpus. The case histories in the Epidemics, however, do situate the anonymous narrator in Abdera, in Thrace, near the territory of the Macedonians. 76 And, although there is no mention of Hippocrates and Perdiccas in the pseudepigrapha, the earliest strata of biographical information available about Hippocrates, as there is with the reports about Hippocrates and the "plague" and Hippocrates and Artaxerxes, yet the Embassy may have provided a starting point for the story. 77 In relating how Hippocrates saved all of Greece from a fierce 73 Galen, Quod optimus medicus sit quoque philosophus 3, ed. Marquart, Miiller, Helmreich, Scripta minora, 2.5, 6-12. In his article, "Galen on the Ideal of the Physician," SA Mediese Tydskrif (1977) 936-938, P. Brain, unaware of the story about Hippocrates and Perdiccas (p. 937, n. 4), misses Galen's meaning in his translation of these lines as "Indeed, if there is such a one, he will hold Artaxerxes and Perdiccas in contempt. He will never even come in sight of them [my italics]. He heals a patient whose illness calls for the Hippocratic art, yet he does not think it right to stay with him always, but he treats the poor inhabitants of Cranon and of Thasos and the other towns" (p. 937). 74 Tzetzes 7.155, p. 277, 1.967 (For Greek text, see Appendix A). 75 Fairweather, Ancient Society 5 (1974), pp. 232-235. Cf. M. Lefkowitz, "Fictions in Literary Biography: the New Poem and the Archilochus Legend," Arethusa 9 (1976) 183; Lefkowitz, "The Quarrel Between Callimachus and Apollonius," ZPE 40 (1980) 4; Lefkowitz, The Lives of the Greek Poets (Baltimore, 1981), p. 102. 76 E.g., Epidemics 3, cases 6, 7, 9, 10, 13 (Littre 3.120, 122, 128, 130, 136); Epidemics 4.31 (Littre 5.176); Epidemics 5.101 (Littre 5.258); Epidemics 6.8.30, 32 (Littre 5.354, 356); and Epidemics 7.114, 115, 116, 117 (Littre 5.462). See Smith's suggestion in The Hippocratic Tradition (Ithaca, 1979), p. 219, that the biographical reports in the pseudepigrapha were inferences drawn from the Hippocratic Corpus, especially the Epidemics. 77 The Embassy offered the earliest version of the Hippocratic legend in the pseudepigrapha. For its date, see Chapter 2 of this study.

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epidemic, Hippocrates' son Thessalus reported that his father had a house in Thessaly and an ancestral guest-friendship with the kings of Macedon. 78 Not only did the Embassy situate Hippocrates near Perdiccas' court. In the Embassy, too, the kings of Paeonia and Illyria played a role parallel to that of Perdiccas. Impressed by Hippocrates' reputation, they invited him to their lands to fight the epidemic raging among their people. Hippocrates' refusal of their lucrative offer established his ethical superiority. Similarly, in the VHSS it was Hippocrates' growing fame that brought him to Perdiccas' notice, and it was Hippocrates' refusal to stay on as Perdiccas' well-paid court physician that won him the exalted moral status we have just seen Galen accord him. The next question is, how was the role of the lovesick youth transferred to Perdiccas? Rohde and Mesk have suggested that the basic story was fitted out with different historical trappings, depending on the setting in which it was placed. 79 The hint in the Embassy that Hippocrates had an ancestral guest-friendship with the kings of Macedon was enough to establish a connection between Hippocrates and the historical ruler of Macedonia, whose lifetime would have coincided with that of Hippocrates-Perdiccas II, who died in 413 B.C. 80 Of course it is possible that some historical parallel-Perdiccas' taking one of his father's concubines or his calling in Hippocrates to cure a case of wasting (phthisis}-may have led to the transfer of the Erasistratus-Antiochus story to Hippocrates and Perdiccas.8 1 But such a supposition is unnecessary; the mere accident that Hippocrates and Perdiccas lived in the fifth century B.C. would have sufficed to whet ancient biographers' inventiveness. Ancient biographers liked to establish connections between famous contemporaries and near contemporaries. 82This inclination is revealed in the line of Tzetzes, cited above, in which he alluded to the stories about Hippocrates and Artaxerxes and Hippocrates and Perdiccas merely by listing their names and mentioning Hippocrates as their contemporary (cn,y:x;povoi;). To Tzetzes, as to 78 Embassy 7, Greek text and Eng. trans. Pseud, pp. 118, ll. 4-5, 119: bce'i yap OTJo iµoc; 1tll'tTJ p 1eal.1tpo-cEpov 1eal.wv oi'.1CT1ow EtXE("He had lived in Thessalypreviouslyand had a dwelling i!;a1t£0'CE1.A£, ~(l0\A.E\)0\ there then.") and Pseud, p. 118, ll. 14-16, 119: iµe OErnl. Ma1CEOov{11c; lCCl'CE):000\ 1tCl'CptlCTJ !;EtvtllUlt'i\PXEV iiµiv ("and he sent me to Macedonia, yap 'Hpawtoecov o'i£ICE\ for we had an ancestralguest-friendshipwith the kings of the Heraclidswho are in power there"). 79 Rohde, Der griechische Roman, p. 58; Mesk, Rh. M. 68 (1913), p. 367. 80 For Perdiccas' dates, seeDer Kleine Pauly 4.622. 81 The difficult Greek may, just possibly, be explained by the latter suggestion-consider that the original story was only that Hippocrates, called in to cure a case of wasting (phthisis), diagnosed mental illness: ... 1C(l1. 011µEt{Mc; (VHSS,p. 176, 11.7-10), £1tEtOT11tClpE(j)1)A.a!;Ev 'CCXU'Cllc; ~A.E1toµeV11c; ltClV'CEA.COc; £1CE\VOV 'Cp€1tEo0at. which got into the text. 82 Fairweather,Ancient Society 5 (1974), pp. 256-261; Lefkowitz, ZPE 40 (1980), pp. 8, 14; Lefkowitz, Lives, pp. 64-65, 125, 131-132. "Contemporary" was interpreted very loosely, as shown by Fairweather, p. 248; Lefkowitz,ZPE 40, p. 80 (=Lives, p. 125).

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generations of biographers before him, the lives of these three famous men were linked by their contemporaneity. Nor do the alterations in the story have to be explained as attempts to adapt it to a new historical framework. The major changes can be seen as an attempt to remove the incestuous overtones from the story, that is, making the object of Perdiccas' passion a concubine instead of his stepmother and having him fall for her after his father's death. 83 The same impulse to make the story more seemly is shown in at least one variant of the Erasistratus-Artaxerxes story. Julian had Antiochus decline to marry his stepmother, Stratonice, until Seleucus' death, which conveniently occurred a short time afterwards. 84 This variation on the basic plot may or may not have been a conscious attempt to make the story fit Julian's notion of the morality of a simpler time; certainly it indicates his own asceticism. 85 The second significant departure from the Erasistratus-Antiochus model is that Hippocrates does not take Perdiccas' pulse. It is possible that someone gave some serious thought to Hippocratic medical practice in having Hippocrates diagnose Perdiccas' lovesickness without taking his pulse at all, but merely by observing a change in Perdiccas' complexion. This unknown writer may have been clever enough to know that using the pulse for diagnosis was anachronistic for the fifth century B.C., 86 but it is wise to be cautious. The fuller version of the VHSS may have contained a more detailed account of the diagnosis, from which only a few details, not necessarily the most important, remain. In at least two accounts of Erasistratus' diagnosis, Antiochus' complexion is one of the diagnostic signs. 87 Finally, when was the story first associated with Hippocrates? A rough terminus ante quem of the second half of the second century A.O. can be established with the earliest explicit reference to the story-by Lucian in How to Write History 35 and Galen in That the Best Physician Is Also a Philosopher 3. On the other hand, a less secure terminus post quem can be argued for the first century A.D. That is when Erotian first cited the Hippocratic pseudepigrapha. 88 The pseudepigrapha contain no reference to the story about Hippocrates and Perdiccas, which they would have without doubt, had the story existed when the other Hellenistic legends were being written down. 89

83 Hanson (above, n. 34): " ... the Soranus biography of Hippocrates, although it is using and projecting a similar diagnosis [of lovesickness] back to the master himself, seems to make the story a more decorous one and one more in keeping with the morality of an earlier age, by having the young man fall in love with the woman only after his father's death." 84 Julian, Misopogon 348 A, ed. Prato, Micalella, Guiliano,p. 28. 85 For Julian's asceticism, see P. Athanassiadi-Fowden, Julian and Hellenism:an Intellectual Biography(Oxford, 1981), p. 231. 86 uure1.39. 87 Plutarch and Appian. See p. 72. 88 Erotian, ed. Nachmanson, ErotianivocumHippocraticumcollectio(Uppsala, 1918), p. 9. 89 For the date, see Chapter 2, pp. 41-44.

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This proposed 15O-year period of transference agrees with other information about the story. In its earliest stages the basic story about the astute diagnosis of a youth's hidden lovesickness was easily transferred from one physician to another. For example, the earliest authorities for the story about Erasistratus and Antiochus, Valerius Maximus and Pliny, are undecided about the identity of the sage who detects the prince's true malady. Valerius Maximus attributes this feat first to an astrologer, Leptines, then to Erasistratus, while Pliny associates the story once with Cleombrotus, the father of Erasistratus (7 .123) and another time with Erasistratus himself (29.3). 90 The allusions of Lucian and Galen in the next century reveal continuing fluidity in the tradition. Lucian in How to Write History 35 confesses that he is not sure if it was Perdiccas or Antiochus who was wasting away with lovesickness for his stepmother.9 1 Galen, as I have shown, cites the story about Erasistratus in Prognosis6 only to make the prince's beloved a concubine, a feature of the Hippocrates-Perdiccas story. Furthermore, the diagnosis of lovesickness as a literary motif does not appear before the first century A.O. Not until prose fiction developed as a genre were physicians depicted in this role.92 Finally, the story had to be already finnly associated with Erasistratus and widely recognized as a symbol of diagnostic skill before it would have been worth adapting to Hippocrates' biography.9 3 The transference of the story from Erasistratus to Hippocrates, then, probably did not occur before the first century A.O., when the story about Erasistratus and Antiochus first appeared. In conclusion, the diagnosis of lovesickness came to be regarded as the sign of a brilliant physician-both in the popular imagination, as evidenced by popular prose fiction, and by the best physicians of the time, like Galen. Allusions to the story of Hippocrates and Perdiccas, as to the tale of Erasistratus and Antioch us, from which it was adapted in the first or second century A.O., appear in a number of genres-biography, popular nonfiction (and, in the case of the story of Erasistratus, fiction, as well), and serious medical works. It would appear that on more than one level of ancient society there was a desire to associate this romantic story with the life of Hippocrates. Furthermore, men wished to believe that, just as Hippocrates could cure epidemics and resist huge bribes to serve the king of Persia, Hippocrates of Cos could detect a case of hidden lovesickness merely by his royal patient's change of complexion.

°

9 For the text of Valerius Maximus, seen. 12; for the text of Pliny 7.123, seen. 16. Pliny 29.3, ed. Mayhoff, C. Plini Secundi,4.369: Horum placita Chrysippus ingenti garrulitate mutavit, plurimumque et ex Chrysippo discipulus eius Erasistratus, Aristotelis filia genitus. hie Antiocho rege sanato centum talentis donatus est a rege Ptolemaeo filio eius, ut incipiamus et praemia artis ostendere. 91 For the text of Lucian, seen. 16. 92 Amundsen, BHM 48 (1974), p. 333. 93 Hanson (above, n. 34): " .. .I would see the Hippocrates-Perdiccas version as coming into being after the Erasistratus (or Erasistratus senior or Leptines)-Antiochus story had made the rounds and become established as a literary motif."

CHAPTER FOUR

HIPPOCRATES AND ARTAXERXES

Following the legend about Hippocrates and the plague in the VHSS is the famous story that Hippocrates refused to serve great Artaxerxes, King of the Persians, even though Artaxerxes offered him as much gold and silver as his heart craved and honors equal to those of the highest Persians in the realm. This story is included in the three Greek biographical accounts ofHippocrates-the VHSS, the entry in the Suda, and Tzetzes' verses on Hippocrates. In addition, it is the subject of a nine-letter correspondence that heads the collection of fictional letters and documents attached to the Hippocratic Corpus and is also mentioned in a fictional Decree of the Athenians,part of the same collection. Because the VHSS explicitly names one of these fictional letters as its authority and the Suda quotes another in its entirety, the immediate source of the story in these two biographies, at least, is not in doubt. 1 Yet the questions how and when the story originated, what its relationship is to the legend about Hippocrates and the plague, and the story's subsequent development have prompted considerable scholarly ingenuity in the past; now that the story no longer needs to be evaluated according it its wortli as a piece of historical evidence for Hippocrates' life but can be studied as a piece of biographical fiction, these problems deserve a fresh examination. Further, because the tale of Hippocrates and Artaxerxes is related in three different genres--bios, fictional letter, and fictional decree, this story affords an unusual opportunity to compare how characteristics of each genre influenced its development. Finally, since the story is cited by such ancient authors as Plutarch, Galen, and Stobaeus, 2 it is wortli looking at how they used the tale. The bare circumstances of the tale would have resonated for any Greek speaker in antiquity-the clever Greek defying the mighty Persian tyrant; a citizen of the tiny island of Cos against the king of a vast empire. The situation echoed the Greeks' finest moments-their resistance to Darius and Xerxes in 490 and 480 B.C. No wonder the story of Hippocrates and Artaxerxes was told and retold to the end of antiquity and beyond. Moreover, different emphases could be put on Hippocrates' refusal-on his patriotism or on his philosophic detachment from material reward and sense of self-worth.

1 C. Daremberg, Oeuvreschoisiesd'Hippocrate(Paris, 1855), pp. xxix-xxx; K.E.C. Schneider, "Hippokrates und Artaxerxes," Janus 1 (1846) 113, 114; L. Edelstein, s. v. Hippocrates,RE, supp. vol. 6, cols. 1297.35-36. 2 Plutarch, Cato Major 23.3; Galen, That the Best Physicianls Also a Philosopher,Chapter 3, ed. J. Marquardt, I. Miiller, G. Helmreich, Claudii Galeni Pergameni scripta minora, 3 vols. (Leipzig, 1884-1893; rptd. Amsterdam, 1967), 2.5; Stobaeus, Anthologium, ed. C. Wachsmuth, 0. Hense, 2nd ed. 5 vols. (Berlin, 1958), 3.464.

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The VHSS presents more than one motive for Hippocrates' refusal. In the sentence describing his rejection of Artaxerxes' appeal, the syntax of the opening suggests a connection between Hippocrates' patriotism and his refusal--rocrou-rov 0£ q>tA.£A.A.11V u1t11p~ev, rocr'te... The sentence ends, however, by explicitly attributing his refusal to other virtues, of which the first two befit a philosopherOta 'CO creµvov x:a.laq>tA.apyopovx:a.lq>tA.OtX:£tOV. Here is the complete sentence, translated, with these key words italicized:

He was such a Philhellene that when his fame reached the Persians and Artaxerxes, hearing it, begged him to come to him, making his request through Hystanes, Governor of the Hellespont, and offering great gifts, Hippocrates refused. This was due to his dignity, indifference to money, and love of home, as is shown by his letter to Hystanes. 3

The letter that is cited in the VHSS is the fifth letter of an extant, nine-letter fictional correspondence between Artaxerxes and Paitus (letters 1, 2), Artaxerxes and Hystanes (letter 3), Hystanes and Hippocrates (letters 4, 5), Hippocrates and Demetrius (letter 6), and Artaxerxes and the Coans (letters 7, 8). Hippocrates' refusal in the VHSS to serve the King of Kings, due to 'to creµvov x:a.l aq,tMpyopov x:a.lcptlo{x:etov,is clearly derived from the fifth letter, as the VHSS claims. 4 The motive of philhellenism, however, is also clearly evident in the following sentence of the same fifth letter:" ... and [say] that I am not willing to enjoy the prosperity of the Persians nor to relieve the illnesses of the barbarians, since they are enemies of the Hellenes."5 The Suda also refers to the story. Not only does it cite another of the letters, the third in the fictional correspondence just mentioned, but it accurately quotes the entire text. Curiously, while the Suda presents in detail the first part of the story, the invitation, it omits the climax of the story, Hippocrates' refusal. Although there is no way to be sure, it is likely that the Suda's source was incomplete, for after the letter is quoted, the narrative jumps abruptly to Hippocrates' works:

This man wrote many works and was considered so distinguished by all that the King of the Persians, the one named Artaxerxes, because he needed his wisdom, wrote to Hystanes: King of Kings, the great Artaxerxes, to Hystanes, Governor of the Hellespont, greetings:

3 VHSS, p. 176, 11.18-23. For Greek text, see Appendix A. 4 The Greek text of the pseudo-Hippocratic letters and other pseudepigraphical documents has been newly edited, with Eng. trans., by W.D. Smith, Hippocrates: Pseudepigraphic Writings (Leiden, 1990). For an alternative version, the reader can consult my translations of letters 1-9 in Appendix C of this study. 5 Greek text, Smith, Pseud, p. 52: ... ical.IlepoEWVoAPcp O'O0eA.q> btai>pao0m oi>6eitai>ew

pappapouc;av0pcimouc; vcr6orov,ix0poiic;Mvtac;'EU11vrov.

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Hippocrates the Coan physician, descendant of Asclepius, has a skill in medicine whose fame has reached even me. Give him, then, as much gold as he wants and everything else he needs in abundance and send him to us. For he will be equal in honor to the noblest of the Persians. And if there is some other man in Europe who is good, make him a friend of the royal household, sparing no wealth; for it is not easy to find men capable of giving advice. Farewell. 6

Tzetzes pares the story down to its most significant word Artaxerxes,then forces it to share a single line with his equally terse allusion to the story of Hippocrates and Perdiccas: "He was, you know, contemporary with Perdiccas and Artaxerxes." 7 Although it is possible to question whether the author of the VHSS knew of pseudo-Hippocratic letters one and two and six through nine, 8 it is almost certain that he had versions of letters three, four, and five, at least, since the particulars reported by the VHSS match those in these letters. The sequence of events in the VHSS is as follows: Hippocrates' fame reaches Artaxerxes, who then asks Hippocrates to come to him. Artaxerxerxes makes his request through Hystanes, Governor of the Hellespont, and has Hystanes offer Hippocrates great gifts. Hippocrates declines Artaxerxes' offer for reasons that can be found in the letter he writes in reply to Hystanes. It is immediately apparent that letters three and four contain, respectively, all the information necessary for the VHSS's report of Artaxerxes' invitation and Hystanes' transmission of it to Hippocrates. In addition, letter five contains statements that correspond to the explicit reasons given by the VHSS for Hippocrates' refusal-his patriotism, indifference to money, and love of home. The tone of this same fifth letter, on the other hand, could be seen as an expression of "his dignity" (to m:µv6v), the remaining reason that the VHSS gives for Hippocrates' rejection of Artaxerxes' invitation. The close correspondence between narrative and details in the VHSS's account and in the third, fourth, and fifth pseudo- Hippocratic letters can be seen in the following translations of the letters: 3. King of Kings, the great Artaxerxes, to Hystanes, Governor of the Hellespont, greetings: Hippocrates the Coan physician, descendant of Asclepius, has a skill in medicine whose fame has reached even me. Give him, then, as much gold as he wants and everything else he needs in abundance and send him to us. For he will be equal in honor to the noblest of the Persians. And if there is another man in Europe who is good, make 6 Suda, vol. 2, p. 662, 11.20-29. For Greek text, see Appendix A. For the third pseudoHippocratic letter (Liltre 9.316), quoted in the Suda, see the Greek text in Smith, Pseud, p. 50; for Enf trans., see below or Appendix C. Tzetzes, Chiliades 7.155, p. 277, 1.967. For Greek text, see Appendix A. 8 Schneider, Janus 1 (1846), p. 109, claims that all the information that is cited by the VHSS is contained in letters 3 and 5. However, A.H. Lewin, "Hippocrates Visits Democritus: Letters 1017 of the Hippocratic Corpus, Translated, with Introduction and Notes" (M.A. thesis, Cornell U., 1968),p. 10, thinks that the VHSS shows a "complete knowledge of the letters."

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him a friend of the royal household, sparing no wealth; for it is not easy to find men capable of giving advice. Farewell.

4. Hystanes to Hippocrates the physician, descendant of Asclepius: The Great King Artaxerxes, having need of you, sent lieutenants to us and commanded us to give you silver and gold and all other things in abundance that you need and as much as you desire, and to send you to him swiftly. For he commands that you will be equal in honor to the noblest of the Persians. You, then- nept ti]c;'l1t1t01epchouc; a.ipfoecoc;.C. Keil, Zeitschrift fur A. W. III, p. 265, corrected 'Iax6µa.xoc;to 'Iot6µa.xoc;.H. Schooe,"Bruchstiickeeiner neuen Hippokratesvita," Rh.M. 58 (1903) 58, identified Ischomarcus with the VHSS's 'Iox6µa.xoc;,also mentioned in Erotian 19, 7; 79, 15. L. Edelstein, RE, supp. vol. 6, col. 1295.58, takes the position that Histomachuscannotbe identifiedfurther. 20 Schneider,Janus 1 (1846), pp. 114-115. 21 See W. D. Smith, "Galen on Coans vs. Cnidians," BHM 41 (1973) 569-585; I. Lonie, "Cos Versus Cnidus and the Historians:Part I," History of Science 16 (1978) 42-75; W.D. Smith, The Hippocratic Tradition (Ithaca, 1979), pp. 22, n. 15, 34, 39-43.

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the Coan school as a retort to the boasts of the Cnidian school about its celebrated alumnus, Ctesias, who was, apparently, a personal physician of the Persian king. Cos' Hippocrates surpassed Ctesias' achievement by disdaining, like a true philosopher and patriot, the fabulous riches offered to him if he would serve the King of Persia.22 In contrast to Schneider and Petersen' s energetic constructions based on possibilities and negative arguments, Littre's evaluation of the anecdote about Hippocrates and Artaxerxes holds up well over 150 years later. After dismissing Schneider's theory as "une supposition gratuite," Littre stated his preference for Schneider's second theory that the story was a fiction, made up by the "school of Cos." 23 He added that no extant author who cited the story mentioned any Greek historian of the Persians as his authority. 24 Littre concluded sceptically that it was possible that Hippocrates was called to Artaxerxes' court and also possible that he was not; there was no way of determining this from the letters. 25 Elsewhere Littre stated firmly that the story was not true and demonstrated that the letters were not authentic on the basis of style, contradictions between the letters and the Decree, and contradictions between the portrayal of the epidemic in the letters (letters 1 and 2) and in Thucydides.26 As to his own theory about the origin of the story, Littre seemed to view Hippocrates' refusal of Artaxerxes as an outgrowth of the legend about Hippocrates' efforts against the panhellenic "plague." 27 As told in the Hellenistic Embassy2S and later in the VHSS,29 when an epidemic attacked the lands of the barbarians, the Illyrians and Paeonians, the kings sent ambassadors to Hippocrates and offered gold, silver, and other wealth if he would help them. He refused. Both accounts contain the significant word, barbaroi. The longer account in the Embassy mentions the reward offered-"not only gold and silver and other wealth, but in addition, if he assisted them, he would carry off as much as he wished. "30 Littre found here all the essential features of the story about Hippocrates' refusal of Artaxerxes-a king asks Hippocrates for a remedy against an epidemic, he offers Hippocrates enormous riches, and Hippocrates refuses to accept the riches or to

22 Schneider, Janus 1 (1846), p. 115. 23 Littre 7 .xlvii. 24 Littre 7 .xlviii. 25 Littre 7.xlviii-xlix. 26 Littre 1.426-429. 27 Littre 1.42 refers to the story of Hippocrates' refusal as "the other form of the legend" about Hippocrates and the plague. Plague is used here as the traditional term for an epidemic, without any associations with the specific disease bubonic plague. See Chapter 2, n. 5. 28 For Greek text, see Smith, Pseud, pp. 116-120; for Eng. trans. and discussion, see Chapter 2 of this study. 29 VHSS, p. 176, II. 13-18. See translation and discussion in Chapter 2. 30 For Greek text, see Smith, Pseud, p. 118, II. 5-7.

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give his assistance. 31 Despite continuing attempts to find a historical basis for the story,32 the scholarly consensus in this century has been that the story is a fiction.33 To explore how this fiction may have developed, I would like to return to Littre's assertion that all the elements of the Artaxerxes story were present in the earliest document of the Hippocratic legend the Embassy34:an epidemic, kings of barbarian lands asking Hippocrates to help them against the disease and offering great riches to do so, and Hippocrates' refusal. What is missing is detail about the kings' identity. The later pseudo-Hippocratic document the Decree35 drops all references to Hippocrates' refusal to help the barbarian kings of Illyria and Paeonia against the epidemic; rather, it refers to Hippocrates' refusal of "the King of the Persians. "36 In terms of reader recognition, the King of Persia would have been a more satisfying barbarian for Hippocrates to snub than the rulers of Illyria and Paeonia, given continuing Greek interaction with the Persian Empire. It is likely that some version of the Artaxerxes story had already taken shape by the time the Decree was written. 37 The next stratum of the legend is represented by the pseudo-Hippocratic letters, which were composed between the mid second to mid first century B.C.38 These documents identify the Persian king as Artaxerxes and present a detailed dramatic narrative with the creation of character through variations in style.39 One example may suggest how the author of the letters took a hint from the earlier Embassy and skillfully developed it into an important theme in the letter correspondence-the Coans' resistance to the Persians. Never mind that the picture of the Coan' s resistance is unhistorical; the version of their bravery in the Embassy and the pseudo-Hippocratic letter correspondence must have soothed local embarrassment over the actual collaboration of the Coans with the Persians suggested by Herodotus. 40 Hippocrates' son Thessalus, the speaker of the Embassy, after discussing the devastating punishments inflicted by the Persians on the Coans in revenge for their resistance, concludes, "For all that, it seems, we

3l Littre 7.xliv.

32 E.g., R. Herzog, Quell. Stud. z. Gesch. d. Naturwiss 3.264.3. See J. Rubin [Pinault], "Biographical Fiction in the Lives of Hippocrates" (Ph.D. diss., U. of Penn., 1983), p. 132. 33 See, e.g., Edelstein, RE, supp. vol. 6, cols. 1300-1304; summary of arguments in Rubin, "Biographical Fiction," pp. 133-135. See also Smith, The Hippocratic Tradition, p. 216, and Pseud, pp. 1-2. 34 Littre 7.xliv. For the Embassy as one of the earliest writings of the pseudepigrapha, see Smith Pseud, p. 5. 35 For the problems in dating the Decree, see Smith, Pseud, pp. 5-6, Rubin, "Biographical Fiction," pp. 110-111, n. 8, and Chapter 2, pp. 42-44, of this study. 36 For Greek text, see Smith, Pseud, p. 106. 37 See Smith, Pseud, p. 5. It is not necessary, however, to conclude, as he does, that the story had already crystallized into "some version" of pseudo-Hippocratic letters 3 to 6. 38 For the date of the letters, summarizing earlier work on the topic, see Rubin, "Biographical Fiction," p. 149, n. 44. More recently, see Smith, Pseud, p. 5, and my response in Chapter 2, n. 41 of this study. 39 See Rubin, "Biographical Fiction," pp. 143-145. 40 Herodotus 6.49 and 7.99. See Smith, Pseud, p. 3.

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were not overlooked by the gods." He then goes on to describe the storms that afflicted Artemisia's fleet and visions of heroes seen on Cos, implied signs of divine protection. 41 Without a doubt the later author of the letters echoed this passage in the Embassy and even its wording in the last sentence of the pseudepigraphic decree of the Coans to Artaxerxes: "Tell him, 0 messengers, that the gods will not be unmindful of us."42 This last document of the pseudepigraphic epistolary novella about Hippocrates and Artaxerxes, focusing on the brave and patriotic character of the Coans, is in the form of a decree rather than an actual epistle. It is likely that this decree was inspired by the Decree of the Athenians. 43 In terms of the development of the fiction, it is worth noting how the larger scope of the letter correspondence has encouraged the creation of telling detail in these documents. For example, the Coans' decree (letter nine) shows Doric forms (e.g., Mµ(!l, 0va·w6K ,\µtl,e{)µe8a. 42 Greek text, Smith, Pseud, p. 54, II. 21-22: 1bmyyeUete ~v autq, oi ciyyeAOt,ott ot>6' oi 8eot aµEAT]O"OUOW cxµerov. 43 For the Greek text of the Decree (Littre 9.400, 402); see Smith, Pseud, p. 106. For Eng. trans. and discussion of the Decree's relationship with the Embassy and dating, see Chapter 2, pp. 41--44 of this study. 44 Greek text, Smith, Pseud, p. 54. 11.14, 19, and 20, respectively. For the characteristics of the actual Coan dialect, see C.D. Buck, The Greek Dialects, rev. (Chicago, 1973), pp. 167-168. 45 For Greek text, see Smith, Pseud, p. 54. For Eng. trans., see Appendix C. While decrees are not entirely consistent in their formulas, this shift from the third person plural to the second person plural imperative is not, to the best of my knowledge, exampled in any extant decree. For a rhetorically effective shift from the first person plural to the first person singular in a historical decree, see King Ziaeleas' letter to the Coans (240 B.C.) in C.B. Wells, Royal Correspondence in the Hellenistic Period (New Haven, 1934), no. 25. Also, there is a shift from the third person plural to the first person plural on a stele from Argos about the Common Peace of 362 B.C. in MN. Tod, A Selection of Greek Historical Inscriptions, 2nd ed. 2 vols. (Oxford, 1946, 1948), vol. 2, no. 145, l. 12; the shift there corresponds to a heightening of the emotional pitch as the Greeks warn the Persian king to keep the peace or else face the forces of the Greek allies.

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conclusion ofletter four: "You, then--1tm6t 1ta.vtcxi;. Eng. trans. by B. Perrin, Plutarch's Lives, 11 vols. (Cambridge,Mass., London, 1914-1928), 2. 373. Again, to bring out the Greek better, I changed Perrin's translation,"all Greek physicians had taken a similar oath" to "this was the common oath of all physicians." 59 As A. Astin does in Cato the Censor (Oxford, 1978), p. 170. 60 See Astin, Cato the Censor,p. 273, on what the charges barbariand Opici meant to Cato. It is not necessary to trace a politicalconnectionbetweenbarbariand the Romans back to the legend about Hippocrates that arose on Cos, as Edelstein does, RE, supp. vol. 6, cols. 1302.22-26; cf. Edelstein, cols. 1310.62-07.

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Republic and Empire-the conflict between a physician's professional and political duty. 61 In contrast, Galen in his treatise That the Best Physician Is Also a Philosopher uses the life of Hippocrates to illustrate his theme. After blaming the mediocrity of contemporary physicians on their wretched upbringing and the fact that they value money more than excellence, Galen asks two rhetorical questions:

Are we able to say of any man living today that he aims at acquiring only so much money as will serve the necessary needs of the body? Is there anyone who is able not only to imagine with words, but to teach through actions the limit of wealth which is according to nature--just enough to prevent hunger, thirst, or cold? 62

He then answers his questions by describing the actions of such a philosopherphysician, if he existed:

If there is such a man, he will look down on Artaxerxes and Perdiccas; he will never even see the former, while he will treat the latter when he is ill and needs Hippocrates' art but surely will not think it right to stay with him forever; and he will treat the poor of Cranon, Thasos, and other small towns.63

Galen mentions Artaxerxes, it would appear, in order to make his reader think of Hippocrates' refusal to serve Artaxerxes. It would be pointless to mention Artaxerxes' name if the story about Hippocrates and him were not well known. In contrast to the passage in Plutarch, which features the political implications of the story, Galen makes use of its philosophical message-Hippocrates the ideal physician is not impressed by mere riches; he will avoid bribery and even the temptation of bribery. The part of the story that seems to have attracted Galen most is the reason Hippocrates gives for his refusal of Artaxerxes' riches and honors-that he has enough food, clothing, housing, and possessions. For the rhetorical purpose of Galen's passage, it is not necessary to mention the rest of Hippocrates' answerthat it is not right for him to treat the enemies of the Greeks. From this passage it is not safe to infer what pseudo-Hippocratic letters Galen knew or whether he was familiar with a different version of the story.64 Furthermore, Galen's allusion to the story about Hippocrates and Artaxerxes does not indicate that he believed it was true, but merely that the story served his point well.

61 For the political background to this conflict, see Kudlien, Clio Medica 5 (1970), pp. 91-97. 62 Greek text ed. Marquardt, Millier, Helmreich, Scripta minora, vol. 2, p. 4, II. 21-22, p. 5, II. 1-5. 63 Greek text ed. Marquardt, Millier, Helmreich, Scripta minora,vol. 2, p. S, II. 6-12. 64 Schneider, Janus 1 (1846), p. 115.

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Two hundred years later, in his early fifth-century anthology of excerpts from writers of poetry and prose, Ioannes Stobaeus included Hippocrates' reply to the King of Persia, here called Xerxes:

Someone tried to persuade Hippocrates to set out towards Xerxes, averring that the king was good. But Hippocrates said, "I do not need a good master."65

This anecdote about Hippocrates occurs in the context of unrelated, clever retorts. 66 The first sentence, stating that an unidentified person tried to persuade Hippocrates to go to Xerxes, is merely a frame for the clever retort. The quip achieves its effect by a play on the difference in meaning between the predicate and attributive positions of the adjective XP'TIO"'t'oi; in the first and second halves of the at the end sentence, as well as by the parallel positions of j3acrtM:-6i;and oecr1t6't"Tli; of each clause, which equate their meaning. Stobaeus' allusion to the story of Hippocrates and Artaxerxes shows only slight acquaintance with it. He names the King of Persia Xerxes instead of Artaxerxes, and he has Hippocrates reply out loud instead of sending his refusal in writing to the king through Hystanes, as in the letters and as it is reported in the VHSS. 61 Furthermore, no one tries to persuade Hippocrates to go to Artaxerxes in the letters or in the biographical tradition. If all of this raises one's suspicions that the retort was taken over from an earlier source and attributed to Hippocrates either by Stobaeus or an intermediary, there is more convincing evidence. Exactly the same riposte is attributed to Hypereides in the VitaeDecem Oratorum,68 first attributed to Plutarch several centuries after his death. 69 It cannot be determined from the anecdote whether Stobaeus himself transferred the retort to Hippocrates because it fitted so well the circumstances of the story about Hippocrates and the Persian king or whether the quip had already been attributed to Hippocrates by someone earlier. At any rate, Stobaeus' version of the Hippocrates-Artaxerxes story occurs in a

65 Greek text ed. Wachsmuth, Hense, loannis Stobaei Anthologium, 3. 464, ll. 10-12:

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The Brussels Life Yppocratis genus, vita, dogma Yppocrates fuit genere Cous a Eraclide filius ex Finerata ortus ab Asclepia stirpe. Asclepio enim ex Epionab Herculis filia duo sunt creati successus, Podalirius et Macaon. quorum Macaon, ut plurimi tradunt, Troiae excidio vitam finiuit nulla subole derelicta, Podalirius vero Sime consistens Rodi defecit, ut Antimachus memorat in Thenito, filistactus duos, Rodonem et Ippolochon, ex lfiana sauca flegontis filia. lppolocho creatur Appollonius, Sostratus; huic Dardanus et Cimno; Dardano Ablavias (10) et Crisamis; Crisamidi adagibuas, qui venerunt drieam. Item Tessalus de Yppocratis libri honoribus corrigens Apollodori dicta aliis aliisque usus est demonstrationibus. Filios reliquit Yppocrates duos ex Ablavia uxore sua, Thessalum et Dragonem. (15) Discipulos habuit plurimos quippe veluti primus medicinae conscriptor. Quorum nobiles atque digne gloriosos Dragonem et Thessalum suos filios imbuit prudentia medicinae; item Polibium et Filionem, Dexippum, Apollonium, Praxagorem seniorem; item Coos multos, Coorum domesticos ac plurimum suos, Archipolim, (20) Timbreum, Tumulicum, Menalum, Siennesium, Poliarchonem et Bonum. Traditur autem ceteris corporibus Yppocratem fuisse minorem, capite tamen delicato; aiunt denique ob hoe velato semper incessisse capite; sic etiam plurimas eius imagines inveniri (25) depictas. Alii dicunt, quod caput in nobis senserit esse omnium partium principale et hoe ostentaverit demonstrans. Alii dicunt, quod ob chirurgiae officium accelerandum, ut inpedimento submoto facilius manus Latin text ed. H. SchOne,"Bruchstueckeeiner neuen Hippokratesvita,"Rh.M. 58 (1903) 56--66. The numbers in parenthesesand in the margin here correspondto the line numbers of SchOne's text.

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operentur, compraehendens vestium summitatem, hoe est manicas, quadam inversione conducens caput (30) imponenda ostenderem. Senectutem autem superatus et ut aiunt anno centesimo quarto vitam finiuit. Apud Larismum Thessaliae civitatis sis sepultus inter Virtonem Larismam proper memoriae cultum. Scripsit ut multi memorant, libros LXX et II. f. 52v f. 3r hos ordinavit in Athenis, postquod Yppocrates locutus est in Athenis, postquam reversus 35 quam reversus est a Medis de Batchanacivitate ab Arfaxath est a Medis de Bacthanancivirege Medorum tate ab Arfaxadrege Medorum. Eodem tempore accepit sepEo autemtempore acceptitVII tern libros de Memfis civitate libros de Memfi civitate a Po40 a Polibio, filio Apollonii, quos libio, filio Apollonii, quos secum secum inde portavit et ex his inde in Choum portavit et ex libris suis canonem medicinae his libris canonemmedicinae recte ordinavit. recte ordinavit. quia in suis libris primus est ab hoe primum inventum est iuramentumYpocratis, quod 45 liber iuramenti, quern grece orcon appellamus grece orchon appellamus sed ex iuramento scripsit in post iuramentum scripsit in secundis, ut multi memorant, lisecundis,ut multi memorant, libros IIII bros IIII de articulis unum de articulis de fracturis unum et de fracturis post hoe prognosticum et prognosticum exinderegularem et unum regularem sed ut Comarcus Bithiniensis sed Ischomarcus Bitiniensis affirmat ab eo perscritum reaffirmat ab eo perscriptum re55 gularem Eraclides Efesius adgularem Heraclides Effesius adiecit iecit post hunc alios habet conpost hunc alius ab eo conscriptos,quos appellavit epidiscriptus sex, quos appellavit mion 60 epimidion post hos rationalem, quern post hos stationalem, quern chatha iatrion appellavit catdiatrionappellavit exinde aforismos exinde aforismos Accius autem Erofili sectator post huncy is commoratpost aforismos de in65 fantis natura fecisse Ypocratem post hunc de aquis post hunc autem de aquis unum etdelocis et de locorum positione unum

APPENDIX A

70

exinde proreticum seu, ut Latini, praedictorium unum et alium de praecidendo et de inflationibus unum, quern perifison appellavit 75 becticolum quern ochicon appellavit etde locis

80

85

90

95

100

105

110

et de finibus unum post hunc de ulceribus et telorum detractionibus unum item de morbis duos post hos de partu unum et unum id est teteticum Post hunc de vulneribus et capite vel ulceribus item de emorroide post hunc de fistulis et de medicaminibus sequentem de carnosis vulneribus et duos de genecia, id est mulieribus de sucis corporum, quern appellavit periquimon et de floribus feminarum, quos appellavit peri ron gynecon item de septimanarum numero, quern appellavit peri ebdomadon item de partu octo mensium, quern appellavit peri octomeneon et de statu ac legitimis in passionibus diebus, id est creticis item de veteris medicinae mandatis unum et de ydropicis unum de cephalargia unum de podagricis unum benei unum

exinde proreticum sive, ut Latine, praedictorium itemque de praecidendo exinde de inflationibus, quern perisifon appellavit item picticulum quern mucli con appellavit item de aquis et aere quern grece pergeron kaeidaton appellavit et alium de finibus post hunc de ulceribus et telorum detractationibus item duos de morbis post hos de partu unum et unum id est de et teticum post hunc de vulneribus et capite vel ulceribus item de emorroide post hunc de fistulis et de medicaminibus sequentem de carnosis vulneribus et duos de genecia, id est mulieribus de sucis corporum, quern appellavit periquimon et de fluoribus feminarum, quos appellavit peri ron gynecon item de septimanarum numero, quern appellavit peri ebdomadon item de partu octo mensium, quern appellavit peri octomeneon et de statu ac legitimis in passionibus diebus, id est creticis item de veteris medicinae mandatis unum et de ydropicis unum de cephalargia unum de podagricis unum beneiunum

133

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HIPPOCRATIC LIVES AND LEGENDS

drototis id est nervis vel musculis incisis unum et de epilemsia unum et de semine unum 115 et de similitudinibus unum et de ictericis unum et de geminis unum et de ennafroditis unum de stomaticis unum de epaticis unum 120

drototis id est nervis vel musculis incisis unum et de epilempsia unum et de semine unum et de similitudinibus unum et de ictericis unum et de geminis unum et de ennafroditis unum de stomaticis unum de epaticis unum

APPENDIXB

ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS OF THE HIPPOCRATIC LIVES OF AS-SITISTANI, AL-MUBASHSHIR, AND IBN JULJUL Abii Sulaymiin as-Sijistiini

$iwanal-lµkmah Hippocrates, the Perfect Virtuous Doctor He and Democrates appeared during the time of Bahman B. Esfandiar, and he became famous for practicing medicine. Word of him reached Bahman, who wrote to Filaµis the King of Cos, which was the homeland of Hippocrates, ordering him to send Hippocrates to him, and he set aside for him 100 qintars of the purest gold. The qintar, according to the Greeks, is 120 ra{ls, and the rat}is ninety measures. The Greeks at that time had rulers who were regional petty princes, with no single ruler to unite them, and each of them was subject to the King of Persia and had to pay him a portion of the produce of the land. So Filiitus the King of Cos ordered Hippocrates to go to the King of Persia, and Hippocrates refused to emigrate because of his attachment to his country and people. Filiitus informed him that if he did not do so, since he had been sent for, he could not be sure that it would not lead to his death and the death of the people of his kingdom, for they did not have the power to resist the King of Persia, who was the King of Kings on earth. So Hippocrates, because of Filiitus' warning, resolved to go to Bahman. This was too much for Filiiµis and for the people of his kingdom, and they grudged Hippocrates' leaving their country and going to Persia. So they agreed unanimously and said: "We will be killed to the last man rather than send Hippocrates away from our country." So Bahman's messenger wrote to Bahman about what he had seen and explained it to him, so he softened towards them, allowed him to stay in his country, did not insist upon requesting him and taking him away from them, and he ordered the 100 qintarsof gold to be sent to him. Before practicing medicine he had been a king who had turned ascetic, abdicating his rulership and dressing in black. He would only take three things from those whom he treated: a collar, a crown, or an armlet of gold. He was asked, "Professor, why do you wear black, and why have you insisted upon taking these three things in payment for practicing medicine?" He said, "I have made black the distinguishing color of medicine, and I have made these three things payment for practicing medicine because the common people and the poor are unable to give

The Arabic text of as-Sijistani is edited by D.M. Dunlop, TheMuntakhab$iwiinAl-l;likmahof Abii SulaimiinAs-Sijistiini (The Hague, 1979), pp. 74-78. The translation here is by Alia Al-Osh, with certain revisions by David Pinault

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them; therefore, I only take payment from the rich or the well-off, and spend it on the common people and the poor." He used to say to his students, "Your way to the people is your love for them, your concern about their affairs, your knowledge of their condition, and your goodness to them. Charity to the needy and the desperate is better than charity to those who are not in need or desperate, even though all charity is good." He said, "Make light of death, for its bitterness comes from the fear of it" He also said, "Walls and towers do not protect a city. Rather, it is protected by the opinions of men and the practice of the wise." He also said, "Each sick person should be treated with the remedies of his native soil, because each person's nature inclines towards its native climate and native food. This is because a wall of brick, once it has crumbled, cannot be suitably repaired with sand." He said when death approached him, "Take all my knowledge from me. He who sleeps much, whose temperament is moderate, and whose skin is moist will live long." He also said, "A diminution of harmful things is better than an increase of beneficial things." He also said, "If a man had been created from one nature alone, then he never would get sick because there would be nothing to oppose the nature and thus make him sick." He also said, "The prudent should drink wine; as for the ignorant, they should drink hellebore." He was asked, "Why is a man's body most disturbed after he has taken medicine?" He said, "This situation is like a house which appears more dusty when it is regularly swept." ·He entered the room of a sick man and once said, "You, the illness, and I are three. If you help me against it by accepting what you hear from me, we shall become two, and the illness will be isolated. We shall become two, and the illness will be alone. We shall be stronger than it, since two can overcome, if they join against one." The son of the king of that time fell in love with a concubine of his father's, and his body wasted away, and his illness became severe. Hippocrates was brought, and he checked his pulse and examined his urine, and did not find in them any trace of bodily illness. So he sat away from him for a long while, and then spoke to him about desire and love. At that, he saw him become stirred up and agitated and knew that he was in love. So he called for his nurse and guardian and [all] those in whose lap he had been raised and from whom he had never been separated. He asked them, "Has this young man ever gone out and seen a free woman or a slave-girl?" They said, "No, he has never left the palace of the king." So he went to the king and said, "Order the chief eunuch to obey me in whatever I order him." So the king ordered him to do so. Hippocrates said to the servant, "Take me with the king's son

APPENDIXB

137

into the quarters of the women, and bring them out one by one." They came out, while Hippocrates held his finger on the pulse of the boy, and not a vein throbbed. So he said to the servant, "Is there anyone in the room?" The servant said, "Only the king's concubine remains." So he said, "She must come out." And so she was brought out. When the young man looked at her, his pulse became tumultuous and confused, and his heart leaped, so Hippocrates knew that he loved her. He went to the king and said that the illness of his son was grave and there was no way to treat it. He said, "What is his illness?" He said, "He is in love with one who is difficult to attain." He said, "And who is that?" Hippocrates resisted him for a while and then said, "Sire, he loves my wife." The king asked him to give her up for him, so Hippocrates showed sorrow and was gloomy. Then he said, "Have you ever heard of someone requiring another to divorce his wife, especially the king in his justice, fairness, and good behavior?" 1 The king said, "My son is more important to me than you; I will recompense you and put at your disposal the women and girls of the city, whom I offer you." He said, "I do not wish this." The king grew irritated and said, "She must be my son's, or else I will kill you." When Hippocrates saw that he was serious he said, "The king, and especially a just one, must demand fairness, even from himself. Do you think that if she were the wife or the concubine of the king, he would give her up?" He said, "Yes, by God, and I would gladly save his life by giving up the likes of her!" So he said, "He loves the concubine of the king, So-and-so herself." So he said, "Hippocrates, your mind is even more perfect than your knowledge," and he gave her up for his son, and the young man was cured. And he said, "Know whether what you are eating is digestible, for if you do not digest it, it will eat you." He also said, "Every body into which wine does not enter will more quickly decay, for wine banishes sufferings, awakens pleasures, and brings friends together." Hippocrates was asked, "Why is a dead man heavy?" He said, "Because he was two: one was light and buoyant, and the other heavy. When the heavy is left alone and the other does not lift him up, he becomes heavy." He said, "For the wind is light and buoyant, lighter than the sparrow, and it lifts the sparrow." He also said, "Three things which cause emaciation are: drinking water on an empty stomach, sleeping without intercourse, and speaking a great deal in a loud voice."

1 Al-Shahrastiini, [Kitib] al-milal wa-al-mi~al, ed. M. Sayyid Kiliini, 2 vols. in one (Cairo, 1976), 2.110, who, for the most part has the exact wording of the $iwin, has a fuller version for this sentence, which may reflect the original, unabridged text of the $iwin. "Have you seen someone impose on someone the burden of divorcing his wife, especially the king in his justice and fairness, ordering me to separate from my wife, when separation from her amounts to separation from my spirit?"

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HIPPOCRATICLIVES AND LEGENDS

He also said, "The body should be treated, on the whole, with five things: head ailments with gargling, stomach ailments by vomiting, body ailments with laxatives, subcutaneous ailments by perspiring, and that which is deep and inside the veins by cupping the blood." He also said, "If bodies are not cleansed, then the more they are nourished, the worse they become, and such is the base, sick soul with respect to its nourishment, which is knowledge and wisdom." He also said, "Four things which destroy the body: going to the baths after overeating, intercourse when satiated, eating dried, jerked meat, and drinking cold water on an empty stomach." He also said, "Yellow bile's dominion is the liver; 2 phlegm's home is in the stomach, and its dominion is the chest; black bile's home is in the spleen, and its dominion is the heart; and blood's home is in the heart, and its dominion is the head. Yellow bile is like a child who cries for no reason in order to get a bit of kindness, at which he will be silent. Phlegm is like a depraved enemy who cannot overcome his opponent fairly. If he gets an opportunity, he will say, 'If I leave him, he will kill me,' and so he will not withdraw until he commits murder. Black bile is like a prudent enemy who wishes his opponent harm, so he waits and considers whether or not he has a way out, and will not seize him until he has become thoroughly enraged. Blood is like a king who becomes angry; nobody is able to speak to him until he is calmed down or has committted murder." He also said, "He who has not looked at wealth will not despise poverty, and he who has not been crushed by misfortunes is not secure against adversities, and the perfect man is one who has not grown accustomed to good health." He also said, "Man is an image, language is expression, and clarity is a guide." He said to his student, "Let your best way to the people be your love for them, your concern about their affairs, your knowledge of their condition, and your goodness to them." He said in the first essay of his Aphorisms: "Physical overdevelopment of athletes is dangerous, if they have achieved it to an extreme. This is because they cannot remain in this condition or maintain it, and since they cannot remain this way, and it is not possible for them to improve, nothing remains except for them to deteriorate. For this reason development of the body should be less than perfect: it should not be retarded, so that the body becomes overfed, nor should it be taken to an extreme in terms of effort expended, because that is dangerous. One should aim for the degree of effort which the nature of the body can tolerate. Furthermore, any attempt to reach an extreme limit is dangerous, and an extreme amount of nourishment is also dangerous."

2 Al-Shahrastiini,.Kitibal-milal, 2.110, again, probably provides the $iwin's original reading: "The house of yellow bile is the gall bladder, and its dominion is the liver."

APPENDIXB

139

He said in his second essay, "If, in the course of an illness, sleep causes harm, then it is a sign of death. And if sleep is beneficial, then it is not a sign of death. When sleep calms the tumult of the mind, this is a good sign." He said in his third essay, "If the seasons of the year fall in accordance with their system, and each one is when it is supposed to be, the occurrence of illnesses in them will be well fixed and organized, and each will neatly run its course. And if the seasons of the year are not in accordance with their system, then the occurrence of illnesses in them will be disorganized, and they will not run their course." He said in the fifth essay, "If you wish to know whether or not a woman is pregnant, give her honey-water to drink before she goes to sleep. If she gets cramps, then she is pregnant, and if she does not get cramps, then she is not pregnant." He also said, "The king is the disciplinarian of those who know no discipline: he encompasses us and protects our property, and prevents us from doing evil." These are his pledges and his oath: I swear by God, the Lord of life and death, and the bestower of health, and I swear by Asclepios and by the creator of healing and every treatment, and I swear by the saints of God, men and women together, and call them to witness by fulfillment of this oath and this covenant: That I hold the one who taught me this art as equal to my parents, and I will share my life with him; if he needs money I will share with him and give him some of my money. As for his descendants, I will hold them as equal to my brothers, and I will teach them this art if they need to learn it, without compensation or covenant. I will share the oral directives, sciences, and all that is in the art, with my sons, the sons of my teacher, and the students who have signed the covenant and have sworn by the medical law, and as for any other, I will not do this for him. I will seek in my life the benefit of the sick, as much as I am able. As for that which may harm them or expose them to injustice, I shall present it as I see fit. I will not administer a deadly medicine if I am so requested, nor counsel such a thing. Nor shall I give women farzajah to cause abortion if I am so requested. I will preserve in my lifetime my soul and my art in holiness and purity. I will not perform surgery on anyone in whose bladder there are stones, but will leave this to one whose job it is. All houses which I enter, I will enter to benefit the sick, and I shall be above any intentional crime, injustice, or corruption, especially regarding intercourse with females or males, be they free or slaves. Whatever I see and hear while treating the sick, or in the lives of people when I am not treating them, which should not be spoken about publicly, I shall keep to myself, holding that such things should not be talked about. May he who fully keeps his oath and does not violate any part of it, live out his life and practice his art in the best and most perfect of situations, and may he be praised among men in the future and for all time, and may he who transgresses this suffer the reverse.

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HIPPOCRATIC LIVES AND LEGENDS

Al-Mubashshirb. Fatik

Mukhtaral-Jµkam The Story of lbbuqrii! the Physician Ibbuqriit the physician, the son of Iriiqlis, was a disciple of Asqilibiyus the Second, the physician. He was a descendant of Asqilibiyus the First. He had made a covenant with his sons that they would not teach the craft of medicine to strangers. The kings used to choose the (i.e., their) physician from the descendants of Asqilibiyus. The craft of medicine originated with him. He taught it to his sons and forbade teaching strangers any part of it. He commanded them two things, one of which was to take up residence in the land of the Greeks in the middle of the inhabited part of it on (p. 45) three islands, one of them called Riidhus, the second Qnidus, and the third Qii-lbbuqriit was from the island of Qii. The other thing was that the craft of medicine should not pass from them to others. Rather, the sons should learn it from the fathers, so that its nobility would remain constant. The places in which medicine was studied were three: the city of Riidhus, the city of Qnidus, and the city of Qii. The instruction offered in the city of Riidhus disappeared speedily because its masters had no heirs. The one offered in the city of Qnidus was interrupted because its heirs were few persons. The one offered in the city of Qii remained and was constant because of the constancy of its heirs. Asqilibiyus the First's view on medicine was experience, 3 since he had invented medicine just by experience. Medicine and the discussion of it remained based upon experience in the same way for 1,416 years, until there appeared Minus the physician. He looked at that and found that experience alone was a mistake. Thus he added analogical reasoning 4 to it. He said, "Experience without analogical reasoning is risky." This went on this way for 715 years, until there appeared Barmiinidis the physician. He vilified experience, saying, "It is a mistake." He followed analogical reasoning alone. He left three disciples, Thiisfilus, Aqrun, and Dhiyiiqis. Dissension occurred among them, and they became three sects. Aqrun spoke only about experience, and Dhiyiiqis only (p. 46) about analogical reasoning. Thiisiilus claimed method, mentioning that medicine was just a "method."5 This remained thus for 735 years. Then there appeared Afliitiin the physician. He

The Arabic text of al-Mubashshir is edited by A. Badawi, Mukhtar al-.Qikam(Madrid,1958), pp. 44-49. The page numbers of the Arabic text appear here in parentheses. The translation is by FranzRosenthal, with certain revisions by David Pinault. 3 Tajribacan also mean experimentationhere-see J.M. Cowan, ed. The Hans WehrDictionary of Modern WrittenArabic, 3rd ed. (Ithaca, NY, 1976), p. 118. 4 Qiyas describes the analogical reasoning used in Islamic law. One seeks out the Quranic passage that is closest to the legal situation at hand, and then one makes a judgment by analogy.

See Wehr, p. 804.

5 The root of ~ila means to get around a problem, hence, a stratagem, device, maneuver, or expedient,Wehr, p. 217.

APPENDIXB

141

considered their statements and looked at their views. It thus became clear to him that experience alone was risky and that it was bad, and that analogical reasoning alone was not sound. Thus he followed both views combined. He burned the books of Thiisfilus and his colleagues on methods, and the ones composed by those who followed a view [derived] from either experience or analogical reasoning alone. He left alone the ancient books which contained both views combined. He died, and after his death things remained among his disciples as he had set them up with them. They were six:6 Mira.us, whom he had made to specialize [in the judgment of diseases; Biiriyiis, whom he had made to specialize] in the (dietetic?) handling 7 of bodies; Qiiriis, whom he had made to specialize in the handling of bloodletting and cauterization; Niifiriin, whom he had made to specialize in the treatment of wounds; Sarjis, whom he had made to specialize in the treatment of the eye; and Qiiyiniis, whom he had made to specialize in the setting of broken bones and the correction of dislocated [limbs].8 Then there appeared Asqilibiyus the Second after 1,420 years. He looked at the [various] views and declared that of Afliiµin correct and relied upon it. He died9 and left three disciples: Ibbuqrii!, Miighiiris, and Arkhus. Miighiiris died after some months. He was joined by Arkhus. There remained Ibbuqrii!, the one unique in his time, the one of perfect virtue. Through his ability the craft of experience and analogical reasoning grew strong. Ibbuqrii! saw that the craft of medicine was near extinction because of the small number of the three categories, (p. 47) which we have mentioned before, of the descendants of Asqilibiyus the First in Riidhus, Qnidus, and Qii, so much so that only the remnant in Qii revived by Ibbuqrii! was left of them. He also looked at the statements of his relatives from the inhabitants of the three islands, and he found that many of them had produced wrong views on medicine, which became more and more all the time. Therefore he feared that corruption would grow, and what their ancestor Asqilibiyus had left behind would be lost, and the craft of medicine be wiped out. He therefore saw fit to set it down permanently in books by means of obscure statements. He urged his sons Thiisiilus and Dhariiqun to teach these things to those deserving of them, for this one (that is, the one who deserves these things) is more suitable than the undeserving stranger. He also saw fit to spread them over the rest of the earth lest they disappear. And so the two of them did that, especially Thiisiilus. Thus the nobility of medicine remained in existence from that long time on to today. He made the strangers who studied medicine like sons by the oaths imposed upon them. There had been no 6 Since six are mentioned, and the printed text mentions only five, it must be corrected according to parallel versions in other Arabic authors. The supplied words are not found in the Arabic manuscripts. 7 The Arabic for handlingis tadbir,which means regulation,management.planning,Wehr, p. 270. 8 Miyliniisin the printed text has no manuscript authority and is probably a misprint. The name may be Polybos. 9 "He died" is omitted by mistake in the printed text

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books on medicine. Rather, everyone of the family of Asqilibiyus would teach it (i.e., medicine) to whatever person they taught by way of dictation and memorization in languages which only he would know, so that this noble craft would not pass to any other people, entailing the loss of its good aspects and an increase in error with respect to it. When Ibbuqriit died, he left his sons Thiisiilus and Dhariiqun, his daughter Miiliinii'arsii, and of his grandchildren Ibbuqriit, the son of Thiisiilus, and Ibbuqriit the son of Dhariiqun. He left a large number of disciples who were strangers. Bahman Ardashir, the King of the Persians, sent to Filiitus, 10 the King (p. 48) of Qii, the island of Ibbuqriit, requesting that he send Ibbuqriit to him. He ordered that Ibbuqriit be given one hundredweight of gold-a hundredweight being 120 ritJ, and a ritJninety mithqal, so that the total was 1,080,000 mithqal of gold. The realm of the Greeks belonged at that time to the petty kings. They did not have one common king. Some of them paid tribute to the King of the Persians. Filiitus, the King of the island of Qii, aproached Ibbuqriit with (the request to) go to the King of the Persians. He informed him that he could not be sure that his staying behind would not be a reason for his destruction and the destruction of the people of his place because they did not have the power to resist the King of the Persians. He ordered him to go to him and treat him and treat the Persians for the pestilence that had befallen them. However, Ibbuqriit did not agree to treating the enemies of the Greeks, and he refrained from that. He repeated the request. Then he referred the matter of what (Hippocrates) should do to the people of his city. They felt very strongly about it. They did not want him to leave their country and refused to make it possible for him to leave, saying, "We will be killed to the last man, but Ibbuqriit shall not leave our country." Then he excused himself with the king with reference to their refusal. His messenger wrote him a letter telling him about what he had experienced from the people of this place. Thereupon, he refrained from asking for him. Ibbuqriit came forth in the year 146 of Bukhtna~~ar (Nebuchadnezzar). He composed many books on medicine. Those we have heard of are about thirty. Most (p. 49) of these thirty (books) exist today. The books to be studied by the reader of the craft of medicine at this time, when his study is to proceed on a sound basis and in good order, are twelve, after the sixteen books composed by Galen. Ibbuqriit was of medium size, white, and well formed. (He had) dark blue eyes and big bones. He was irascible. His beard was medium long and white. His back was bent. His head was big. He moved slowly, when he turned, with his entire (body). He bowed his head frequently (in meditation). He was precise and deliberate in his speech and repeated (what he had been saying) to those who were listening to him. When he was sitting, his sandals were always in front of him. When he was spoken to, he replied, and when he was not spoken to, he asked lO The reading of the last syllable of the names as -µs with long i, as indicated in the printed text, appears in only one of the many manuscriptsof the work and is clearly wrong.

APPENDIXB

143

questions. When he was sitting, he looked down at the ground. He did some joking. He fasted much and ate little. In his hand he always carried either a lancet or a probe. He died at the age of ninety-five years. Of these he lived sixteen as a child and student and seventy-nine as a scholar and teacher. (There follows a section with his wise and learned sayings.)

lbn Juljul Tabaqatal-a{ibba'wa-al-lp1kama' Greco-Roman Wisdom, from Among Those Who Have Spoken of Medicine and Philosophy and Have Excelled Therein (p. 16) The first of them: Hippocrates, the preeminent, who is from the family of Asclepius. His dwelling was the city of Qii, and this is the city of l:lim~in the land of Syria.11 And it is he who spoke of medicine and who composed concerning it writings and books, and he is the author of the Book of the Chapters, and the Book of Presentation of Knowledge, and the Book of Epidemics, and the Book of Acute Diseases, and the Book of Bone-setting and Dislocation, and the Book of the Nature of Man, and the Book of the Humors, and the Book of Wounds and Surgical Procedures of the Head, and the Book of Waters and Airs, and many books. And he was preeminent, more than mortal, ascetic. He would treat illness through careful reckoning. He would wander and roam about the land. His student who succeeded him from the people of his city was Fiiliinis. And he was in the realm of Azdashir Bahman (p. 17) the Persian, grandfather of Darius, son of Darius. And Galen has mentioned in his treatise which he composed, "The Physician Must Be a Philosopher," that Azdashir Bahman summoned Hippocrates to treat him for an illness to which he had been exposed; but he (i.e., Hippocrates) refused this, since Azdashir was an enemy of the Greeks. And two kings from among the Greek kings summoned him to treat them, and so he gave them both medical assistance since they both lived morally upright lives. He did not accept a post with the two of them once they had recovered from their illnesses. Azdashir

The Arabic text of lbn Juljul, Tabaqatal-apbba'wa-al-~ukama', is edited by Fu'ad Sayyid, Les Generationsdes Medecinset des Sages (Cairo, 1955), pp. 16-17. The translation here is by David Pinault. The page numbers in parentheses refer to the Arabic text 11 For the Arabic tradition that Hippocrates visited Syria, first attested in Ibn J uljul's identification here of Cos with J::1.im~ (=Emesa), see Hans J. Oesterle, "Die hippokratische Schrift 'Uber die Umwelt' und eine unbekannte arabische Tradition zur Hippokrates-Vita," Sudhoffs Archive 63 (1979) 326-337.

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offered Hippocrates a thousand qintars of gold on the condition that he become his companion, but he refused him that. And Galen said in this essay, "If someone desires Hippocrates' learning, let him imitate Hippocrates in preeminence and in the desire for moral excellence and let him avoid depravity." And I have seen a charming tale of Hippocrates. I have brought in the mention of it so as to give an indication of his moral excellence. Namely, Aflimiin, the master of physiognomy, claimed in his [science of] physiognomy that through an individual's physique he could judge the moral quality of that person's soul. 12 And so Hippocrates' disciples gathered and said to each other, "Do you know in this our present age anyone· more excellent that this excellent man Hippocrates?" Others replied, "No, we do not." One of them said, "Let us go use him to test the knowledge of Aflimiin in that which he claims concerning physiognomy." And so they made a picture of Hippocrates, then they brought it up to Aflimiin and said to him, "O preeminent one, look at this person and render judgment as to the moral qualities of his soul from his physical appearance. And so he gazed at it and compared one limb with another, and then he passed judgment and said, "This is a man who loves fornication." They replied to him, "Liar! This is a picture of Hippocrates the Sage." He said to them, "My learning must be correct. So go question him, for the man will not accept dishonesty." So they returned to Hippocrates and informed him of what they had done and of what Aflimiin had said to them. And Hippocrates said, "Aflimiin has spoken truth. I do love fornication, but I have mastery over myself." And so this indicates Hippocrates' moral excellence and his self-mastery and the way in which he schooled his soul in moral virtue.13 And in the Book of His Oath and His Pledges he adjured that the student of medicine should be only a person of abstinence and virtue and compassion towards his fellow humans and that he should be fine of feature, immaculately attired, trained in the four professions, 14 wise, of noble descent, discerning.

12 D. Pinault notes that Ibn Juljul's text reads bi-tarklll al-asnan (''through the arrangement of the teeth"), but Sayyid, p. 20, n. 26, offers the reading bi-tarklll al-insan ("through an individual's physique") on the basis of the wording in other Arabic versions of this tale. Al-asniin is in all likelihood a textual error which crept in via metathesis of the consonantal root-letters. 13 The basically unflattering portrayal of Hippocrates in this anecdote resembles similar stories told about famous men in classical biographies (See Chapter One, n. 28). Specifically, this story could have developed from an anecdote in Diogenes Laertius' life of Democritus (D.L. 9.42) in which Democritus greets the maidservant accompanying Hippocrates as a girl (xa'ipe icop11) on the flfSt day, then as a woman (xa'ipe yuvat) on the next, after she has been seduced. The text implies, but does not state directly, that Hippocrates is her seducer. Here, in its new Islamic context the anecdote has been altered in an attempt to illustrate Hippocrates' moral superiority. The result is not, I suggest, wholly successful. 14 F. Sayyid, Les Generations,p. 20, notes that the four professions refer to the four branches of learning, i.e., instructional, natural, theological, and logical.

APPENDIXC

TIIE PSEUDO-HIPPOCRATIC LEITER CORRESPONDENCE BE1WEENHIPPOCRATES AND ARTAXERXES 1. The King of Kings, great Artaxerxes, to Paitus, greetings: Sickness approached our armies, the sickness called plague, and despite all our efforts, it did not let up. For this reason, I ask you in every way, in return for all the gifts given to you by me-send quickly either some remedy you know found in nature or made according to the systematic practices of art, or the advice of another man who is able to heal. Whip, I ask you, this sickness. For there is distress among the troops, a great agitation that produces gasping and panting breathing. Without making war, we are warred upon, since we have for an enemy a wild beast that devours the flocks. It has wounded many; it left many incurable; it continues to hurl down bitter missiles on missiles. I cannot bear it. I no longer intend to take counsel with men of high birth. Put an end to all of this by not holding back any good information. Farewell. 2. Paitus, to the great King Artaxerxes, greetings: Natural remedies do not put an end to an epidemic of plague. When diseases arise from an individual nature, that nature, using its own good judgment, heals them. However, when diseases arise from a widespread occurrence, the medical art, making judgments on the basis of art, heals the destructive changes in bodies. Hippocrates the physician heals this disease. He is of Dorian stock, from the city of Cos, son of Heracleidas, son of Hippocrates, son of Gnosidicus, son of Nebros, son of Sostratus, son of Theodorus, son of Cleomuttades, son of Crisamis. Hippocrates, making use of his divine nature, has led medicine from its small and amateurish accomplishments to a great and systematic art. Now then, the divine Hippocrates is ninth 1 in line of descent from Crisamis the king, and eighteenth from Asclepius, and twentieth from Zeus, while on the side of his mother, Praxithea, daughter of Phainarete, he is descended from the family of the Heracleidae. Thus, on both sides the divine Hippocrates is the offspring of gods--being by his father a descendant of Asclepius, and by his mother a descendant of Heracles. He learned the medical art from his father Heracleidas and from his grandfather Hippocrates. The Greek text on which my translation is based has been newly edited by W. D. Smith, Hippocrates: Pseudepigraphic Writings (Leiden, 1990),pp. 48-54. For an alternative translation,

see Smith, pp. 49-55. 1 "Ninth" (tvator;), counting inclusively. Smith's translation,"eighth" (Pseud, p. 49) here and and "nineteenth" for ei1Cout6r; in the same sentence, takes into "seventeenth"for 6ictro1Cm6e1Ca-to