¹ Sörbom, G., ‘The classical concept of mimesis’, in Smith, P. and Wilde, C. (edd.), A Companion to Art Theory (Oxford, 2002), 19–28CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 19.

² Ibid.: ‘The theory of mimesis is now generally regarded as the oldest theory of art’.

³ See e.g. Koller, H., Die Mimesis in der Antike (Bern, 1954)Google Scholar; Else, G.F., ‘Imitation in the fifth century’, CPh 53 (1958), 73–90Google Scholar; Halliwell, S., The Aesthetics of Mimesis: Ancient Texts and Modern Problems (Princeton, NJ, 2002)Google Scholar; Sörbom (n. 1).

⁴ Tr. W.D. Ross (modified).

⁵ Burkert, W., Lore and Science in Early Pythagoreanism (Cambridge, 1972), 44–5Google Scholar.

⁶ For the ‘Platonic’ reading, Burkert refers to various passages in Timaeus but also to the following passage, which provides an illustrative parallel to the analogy of human body and earth discussed in De victu (ch. 10, discussed below): ‘The earth here, our mother, offers precisely this as sufficient testimony that she has brought forth humans. She first and she alone in that olden time bore food fit for humans, wheat and barley, which are the finest and best nourishment for the human race … And such testimonies are to be taken more seriously on earth's behalf than a woman's, inasmuch as earth does not mimic woman in conceiving and generating, but woman earth (οὐ γὰρ γῆ γυναῖκα μεμίμηται κυήσει καὶ γεννήσει, ἀλλὰ γυνὴ γῆν).’ (Menex. 237e5–238a5, tr. P. Ryan.)

⁷ See West, M.L., ‘The cosmology of “Hippocrates” De hebdomadibus’, CQ 21 (1971), 365–88CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; Joly, R. and Byl, S., Hippocrate: Du regime, Corpus Medicorum Graecorum (Berlin, 1984), 28Google Scholar.

⁸ West (n. 7) assigns De hebdomadibus to the same period as De victu, while Mansfeld, J., The Pseudo-Hippocratic Tract Περὶ ἑβδομάδων, ch. 1–11, and Greek Philosophy (Assen, 1971)Google Scholar, argues for the first century c.e.

⁹ For instance the text of chapter 6, where we read that macrocosmic structures ‘imitate’ parts of the human body, is preserved only in Latin translation and partly in Arabic translation of a pseudo-Galenic commentary.

¹⁰ Burkert (n. 5) refers generally to the ‘Hippocratic’ writings and explicitly mentions De victu (1.10) and Hebd. (6.1) on p. 45, n. 88, and again De victu (1.11 ff.) on p. 45, n. 89.

¹¹ Cf. Vict. 2.56 (CMG 178.14–18): ‘The powers of foods severally ought to be diminished or increased in the following way, as it is known that by fire and water all [living] things are set together, both animal and vegetable, and that through them all things grow, and into them they are dissolved.’ Non-living objects are composed of other substances or in other combinations, as for instance statues are said in chapter 21 to be made of earth and water (Vict. 1.21/CMG 140.6). Also, dead bodies which serve as a food of man are suggested to be different from the living bodies, as we can infer from the statement that ‘fresh food in all cases give more strength than others, just because they are nearer to the living creature’ (Vict. 2.56/CMG 180.21–2). Hence, the combination of fire and water, which can never be separated and exist independently (Vict. 1.3/CMG 126.7–8), expresses in a sense the very essence of life in general.

¹² Cf. Vict. 1.27 (CMG 144.4–5, trans. W.H.S. Jones): ‘And not only the man must do this, but also the woman. For growth belongs not only to man's secretion (ἀποκριθὲν), but also to that of the woman …’.

¹³ Vict. 1.27 (CMG 144.7–14).

¹⁴ I shall come back to this topic at the beginning of the appendix to this paper.

¹⁵ Vict. 1.9 (CMG 132.14–15).

¹⁶ Vict. 1.9 (CMG 132.18–19).

¹⁷ Vict. 1.9 (CMG 132.12).

¹⁸ As we can see in this and other passages in the treatise, the anatomical description of the inner organs is extremely rudimentary and vague. But we should not forget that, unlike the other dietetically significant topics enumerated in chapter 2, anatomical knowledge is not mentioned as a precondition for dietetic treatment. Moreover, the whole treatise – including these anatomical speculations – evidently addresses laymen rather than professional physicians (see chapters 68–9). The embryological account serves as a support of the main dietetic principle (i.e. health as balance between fire and water, activity and nutrition) and draws attention to the correspondence of macrocosmic and microcosmic structures and processes, as I shall discuss shortly.

¹⁹ Vict. 1.9 (CMG 132.28–9).

²⁰ Vict. 1.9 (CMG 134.2).

²¹ Vict. 1.9 (CMG 134.3–5).

²² The last words in brackets (<ἡλίου δύναμιν ἔχουσιν>) were added to the text by Joly and Byl. The identification of the middle sphere with the sun can be inferred from the parallel passage in chapter 89 (CMG 220.22–3), and the verb ἔχουσιν fits well with the three successive occurrences of δύναμιν with genitive: see Joly and Byl (n. 7), 242. As for the plurals in the last sentence (αἱ μὲν … αἱ δὲ … αἱ δέ), I take the text to be corrupt, since the parallel in chapter 89 clearly indicates singulars (CMG 220.22–3: ἄστρων μὲν οὖν ἡ ἔξω περίοδος, ἡλίου δὲ ἡ μέση [sc. περιόδος], σελήνης δὲ ἡ [sc. περιόδος] πρὸς τὰ κοῖλα). See also Jouanna, J., ‘L'interpretation des rêves et la théorie micro-macrocosmique dans le traité Hippocratique Du regime: semiotique et mimesis’, in Fischer, K.-D., Nickel, D., and Potter, P. (edd.), Text and Translation (Leiden, 1998), 161–74Google Scholar.

²³ Others translate ἀπομίμησις as ‘copy’ (Jones, W.H.S., Hippocrates: Volume IV, Loeb Classical Library [Cambridge, MA, 1931], 247Google Scholar), ‘copie’ (E. Littré, Oeuvres complètes d'Hippocrate [Paris 1839–61], 6.485), ‘imitation’ (Joly, R., Hippocrate: Du régime [Paris 1967], 12Google Scholar; Joly and Byl [n. 7], 135; Jouanna [n. 22], 162), or ‘Nachbildung’ (Fuchs, R., Hippokrates: Sämmtliche Werke [Munich, 1895–1900], 1.294Google Scholar; Kapferer, R., Hippokrates: Sämtliche Werke [Stuttgart, 1933–40], vol. 1, pt. 3, 35Google Scholar). From the etymological point of view the prefix ἀπο– might suggest a kind of derivativeness, since it usually means ‘from’, but at least one passage in Plato evidently shows that this does not have to be the case (Cra. 427a–c). Moreover, there does not seem to be a clear difference between ἀπομίμησις and μίμησις in De victu.

²⁴ See De hebdomadibus, 6.1.1–3 (ed. West): Quae autem in terra sunt corpora et arboret naturam similem habent mundo, quae minima et quae magna; necesse est enim mundi partes, cum sint omnia similiter, comparari mundo ….

²⁵ See De hebdomadibus, 1.2.10–11 (ed. West).

²⁶ It actually provides nutrition not indiscriminately for all creatures but only for those which are adapted to life in the sea or to nutrition provided by sea, i.e. only for some biological species. I have discussed this, and related topics, in detail elsewhere (Bartoš, H., ‘Soul, seed and palingenesis in the Hippocratic De victu’, Apeiron 42.1 [2009], 17–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar).

²⁷ Strictly speaking, the identification of the middle sphere with the sun is not explicitly mentioned here, but it can be inferred from the parallel passage in chapter 89 mentioned below.

²⁸ Vict. 4.89 (CMG 220.18–21).

²⁹ Vict. 4.89 (CMG 220.22–3): καὶ ἄστρων μὲν οὖν ἡ ἔξω περίοδος, ἡλίου δὲ ἡ μέση, σελήνης δὲ ἡ πρὸς τὰ κοῖλα.

³⁰ Again, it is quite unclear to what the expression τὰ κοῖλα refers and whether the whole sentence describes the macrocosmic or rather the microcosmic structures. Jones (n. 23), 427 n. 39, takes it macrocosmically and suggests that τὰ κοῖλα means here ‘the concavity of the inmost sphere, by which we are surrounded’. Joly and Byl (n. 7), 221, read it in a similar way: ‘la concavité (de la sphère intérieure)’. Jouanna (n. 22) persuasively argues for the microcosmic reading, in which I follow him.

³¹ Vict. 4.89 (CMG 220.18).

³² Vict. 4.89 (CMG 222.31–3).

³³ Vict. 4.89 (CMG 224.3–4).

³⁴ Vict. 4.89 (CMG 224.4–6).

³⁵ Vict. 4.90 (CMG 226.10).

³⁶ Vict. 4.90 (CMG 226.14).

³⁷ Vict. 4.90 (CMG 226.13–15).

³⁸ Vict. 4.90 (CMG 226.17).

³⁹ Vict. 4.90 (CMG 226.18–19).

⁴⁰ Vict. 4.90 (CMG 226.24–5).

⁴¹ Vict. 4.90 (CMG 226.27–9).

⁴² Vict. 4.90 (CMG 228.3–4).

⁴³ Vict. 3.71 (CMG 204.5–6).

⁴⁴ Anaxagoras, DK 59 B 21.

⁴⁵ Hdt. 2.33.2; Democritus, DK 68 A 111; Diocles, fr. 56b (ed. van der Eijk); Hippocratic Vict. 1.11 (CMG 134.21); VM 22 (L 1.626–34), De arte, 12 (L 6.22–6); Flat. 3 (L 6.92–4).

⁴⁶ I have arrived at this translation from ‘how to copy [in their practising the arts] their own functions’ by replacing the problematic verb ‘copy’ with periphrasis ‘to make something exactly like something else’.

⁴⁷ Aristotle, Metaph. 985b27.

⁴⁸ Vict. 1.12 (CMG 136.5–6).

⁴⁹ Vict. 1.24 (CMG 142.4–5).

⁵⁰ Vict. 1.13 (CMG 136.17); Vict. 1.14 (CMG 136.23); Vict. 1.21 (CMG 140.8).

⁵¹ Vict. 1.22 (CMG 140.14).

⁵² Vict. 1.15 (CMG 138.2).

⁵³ Vict. 1.19 (CMG 138.29: Erm. emend. for manuscript τοῦτο).

⁵⁴ Vict. 1.24 (CMG 140.28–9 and 30).

⁵⁵ This is exactly the same terminological vagueness as we find in sixth chapter of De hebdomadibus. The nature of the relationship between the seven parts of the world and the seven parts of the human body ‘is expressed indifferently in terms of similarity, imitation (of man by the world!), or identity’ (West [n. 7], 377).

⁵⁶ Vict. 1.12 (CMG 136.6–14).

⁵⁷ The dream interpretations discussed in Book 4 follow the same pattern: ‘all the physical symptoms are foretold by soul’ (Vict. 4.87/CMG 218.16); ‘signs that foretell health’ (Vict. 4.90/CMG 224.29).

⁵⁸ Vict. 1.22 (CMG 140.11–16).

⁵⁹ MS M reads μιμητὴς περιϕερης, while θ reads ἀπόμιμα τῆς περιϕορῆς, and P translates circumfertur similitudinem. Joly and Byl (n. 7) amend it to ἀπομιμεῖται περιϕορήν.

⁶⁰ Vict. 1.17 (CMG 138.9–13). Joly and Byl (n. 7) have changed the manuscript wording μιμέεται (θ, M) into plural μιμέονται, probably because they took the builders to be the subject of the verb, in the sense ‘the builders imitate human regimen’. But supposing that the verb does not express imitation but rather resemblance or correspondence and that it is not builders but rather their activities that resemble human regimen, I suggest reading the text as it was transmitted by the manuscripts. Moreover, in the preceding and following sentences the author uses only plurals, which makes μιμέεται lectio difficilior. A similar analogy in topic as well as in wording is to be found in chapter 16 (CMG 138.3–8: τέκτονες … ϕύσιν τε ἀνθρώπου μιμέονται), which I have discussed elsewhere in detail (Bartoš, H., ‘The analogy of auger boring in the Hippocratic De victu’, CQ 62.1 [2012], 91–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar).

⁶¹ Vict. 1.21 (CMG 140.6 and 10); Vict. 1.22 (CMG 140.16).

⁶² Cf. Morb. sacr. 21 (L 6.396), tr. Jones: ‘Whoever knows how to cause in men by regimen moist or dry, hot or cold, he can cure this disease also …’.

⁶³ Cf. Vict. 1.32 (CMG 148.25–6): ‘Such persons ought to use a regimen that warms and dries, whether it be exercise or food …’; Vict. 1.32 (CMG 148.32–3): ‘Their regimen should consist of such things as dry and cool, both food, drink, and exercise …’; Vict. 1.32 (CMG 150.2–3): ‘Regimen should be such as cools and moistens, with such exercises as warm and dissolve least and produce the most thorough cooling …’; Vict. 1.32 (CMG 150.8): ‘Regimen should be such as is warm and at the same time moistens …’.

⁶⁴ Cf. Vict. 1.15 (CMG 136.24 and 26).

⁶⁵ Vict. 1.2 (CMG 122.22–4): ‘I maintain that he who aspires to treat correctly of human regimen must first acquire knowledge and discernment of the nature of man in general – knowledge of its primary parts and discernment of the parts (μέρεα) by which it is controlled’; Vict. 1.3 (CMG 126.5–6): ‘Now all animals, including man, are composed of two [parts] … namely, fire and water’. See also Vict. 1.25 (CMG 142.6–7): ‘The soul of man, as I have already said, has a mixture of fire and water – parts of man.’

⁶⁶ Vict. 1.6 (CMG 128.25–130.1).

⁶⁷ Vict. 1.2 (CMG 124.6–7): ‘For food and exercise, while possessing opposite qualities, yet work together to produce health.’

⁶⁸ Vict. 1.3 (CMG 126.5–6): ‘Now all animals, including man, are composed of two things, different (διαϕόροιν) in power but working together (συμϕόροιν) in their use, namely, fire and water.’

⁶⁹ Vict. 1.21 (CMG 140.5–10).

⁷⁰ For a useful summary of this interpretative tradition, see Joly and Byl (n. 7), 27–30. Elsewhere, I have added to the list of previously suggested ‘Pythagorean’ reflections attested in De victu another topic, namely a version of the theory of transmigration (Bartoš, n. 26).

⁷¹ Vict. 1.8 (CMG 132.6–11, trans. A. Barker, modified).

⁷² Vict. 1.5 (CMG 128.20–21).

⁷³ In the preceding chapter (Vict. 1.7/CMG 130.27–9), the author suggested that, concerning ‘human nutrition’ (τροϕὴ ἀνθρώπου), whatever happens at a wrong time and occasion (παρὰ καιρόν) results in failure (παντὸς ἀποτεύξεται).

⁷⁴ The musical terminology has a close parallel in Philolaus (fr. 6a), which also discusses the mathematical proportions of the intervals. See also Burkert (n. 5), 390, and C.A. Huffman, Philolaus of Croton: Pythagorean and Presocratic (Cambridge, 1993), 152, who suggests that De victu draws on Philolaus. Providing that Burkert is right when claiming that this passage is ‘obviously Pythagorean’, it is remarkable that in this Hippocratic version of Pythagoreanism no mathematical ratios are presupposed, only the acoustic dimension of harmony.

⁷⁵ In this sense the copyist's remark preserved in the manuscripts at the beginning of chapter 18 (‘first there must be an instrument of music, whereby to set forth what is intended’, CMG 138.14) would be more appropriate at this place.

⁷⁶ Barker, A., The Science of Harmonics in Classical Greece (Cambridge, 2007), 22CrossRefGoogle Scholar: ‘What we call the perfect fourth, for instance, was called syllabē, “grasp”, or dia tessarōn, “through four [strings]”…. Neither tells us, in any relevant sense, “how big” the interval is. The terms for the perfect fifth and for the octave are no more helpful. The former is di'oxeiōn, “through the high [strings]”, or dia pente, “through five”; the octave is harmonia (“attunement”, indicating that the normal compass of an attunement was an octave), or dia pasōn, “through all”. None of this terminology has anything to do with the measurement of the relations between the pitches of notes standing, as we might put it, a fourth, a fifth or an octave “apart” from one another.’

⁷⁷ Vict. 1.9 (CMG 132.22).

⁷⁸ For the reasons discussed below, in the second sentence I follow MS θ and translate μιμεῖται as ‘resembles’.

⁷⁹ Diller, H., ‘Der innere Zusammmenhang der hippokratischen Schrift De victu’, Hermes 87 (1959), 39–56Google Scholar, at 53: ‘Es handelt sich also in beiden Fällen um Künste, die am Menschen ausgeübt werden, und man fragt sich, welche die nachahmende und welche die nachgeahmte sein soll. Der Verfasser, der dies sonst durch Ausdrücke wie μιμεῖται oder ταυτὰ πάσχει klarstellt, begnügt sich hier mit einer bloßen Nebeneinanderstellung, so daß man schließen könnte, daß er vielleicht selbst seiner Konzeption nicht sicher war.’

⁸⁰ We have already seen that the main thesis of the phusis–technē analogies is that ‘arts are like (ὁμοίας ἐούσας) the affections of man’, eventually that ‘all the arts have something in common (ἐπικοινωνέουσιν) with the nature of man’, but definitely not that arts ‘imitate’ human nature in the Platonic sense.

⁸¹ Joly, R., Recherches sur le traité pseudo-hippocratique Du régime (Paris, 1960), 57, n. 1Google Scholar: ‘Découverte inattendue: le microfilm révèle la vraie lecture de M, ignorée des éditeurs: γλῶσσα μουσικὴ κ.τ.λ., qui apporte un appui décisif à notre correction: elle représente un stade intermédiaire entre le texte authentique et la corruption commune au reste de la tradition.’ As for the reading attested in M, Joly is right, as I have collated through the microfilm available at CMG in Berlin. Needless to say, the rest of the story I find unacceptable.

⁸² Joly (n. 23), 179. Surprisingly, the apparatus criticus does not even mention the difference between the reading of M and θ.

⁸³ Joly and Byl (n. 7), 138. In the commentary to the passage (p. 247) Joly provides the following explanation: ‘Cette correction qui s'impose selon la logique de toute la section 12–24 (c'est à la musique d'imiter la langue, aspect de la nature humaine) et que j'avais proposée d'une façon plus décidée que Koller, p. 60, est encore appuyée par le fait que la leçon de M est γλῶσσα μουσικὴ et non γλῶσσα μουσικὴν, comme θ. M représente ainsi un text intermédiaire entre le texte originel et la faute de la tradition. Je connaissais cette leçon de M, laquelle avait échappé à Diels et à Jones, dès mes Recherches (p. 57, n. 1), mais je l'ai malheureusement omise dans ma première édition.’

⁸⁴ Joly and Byl (n. 7), p. 81.

⁸⁵ The manuscript reads imitatum, which Deroux and Joly sensibly amend to imitatur (Deroux, C. and Joly, R., ‘La version latine du livre I du traité pseudo hippocratique Du régime’, in Cambier, G., Deroux, C., and Préaux, J. (edd.), Lettres latines du Moyen Age et de la Renaissance [Brussels, 1978], 129–51, at 141Google Scholar). Moreover, the words lingua musicam correspond clearly to the Greek γλῶσσα μουσικὴν and therefore support the reading of manuscript θ. Besides the editio princeps I have also collated a photocopy of the Latin manuscript (7027) which I have obtained from the Bibliothèque nationale de France. (I am very grateful for the help with reading the manuscript which I have received from my colleagues Oliver Overwien, Christina Savino, and Matteo Martelli.)

⁸⁶ Deroux and Joly (n. 85), 150, in the notes to these lines in the editio princeps of the manuscript P admit that ‘le traducteur lisait, comme les lecteurs de θ and M, γλῶσσα μουσικὴν μιμεῖται διαγινώσκουσα …, au lieu du text qui s'impose: γλῶσσαν μουσικὴ μιμεῖται διαγινώσκουσαν’.

⁸⁷ Oddly enough, Joly and Byl (n. 7), 29 n. 8, refer to the same passage in Burkert, which I have quoted and discussed above, without taking his suggestions into consideration.