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Two Problems in Ancient Medical Commentaries
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
Extract
Thirty years ago, H. Flashar discussed the introduction to an anonymous commentary on the Aphorisms of Hippocrates. The text contains an interesting picture of Hippocrates as a culture hero, who saved suffering humanity by the introduction of systematic medicine. The first section of this introduction offers some complicated problems. It ends with an extremely long and difficult sentence, which, has not yet been explained quite satisfactorily, and it contains a curious use of the verb σαρκόω, combined with τν ϕύσιν, which has led Flashar to suspect Christian influence. These two points are the subject of the first part of this paper.
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- Copyright © The Classical Association 1994
References
1 Flashar, H., ‘Beitrӓge zur spӓtantiken Hippokratesdeutung’, Hermes 90 (1962), 402–18Google Scholar. The text may be found as well in Dietz, F. R., Scholia in Hippocratem et Galenum II 244fGoogle Scholar. For further references, see Flashar, op. cit. pp. 402ff. I would like to thank Professor Dirk M. Schenkeveld and the anonymous reader of CQ for their helpful criticism on an earlier draft of this paper. Research for this paper was made possible by a fellowship of the Royal Dutch Academy of Arts and Sciences.
2 For the combination γε μν, see Denniston, J. D., The Greek Particles (Oxford, 1959), p. 349.Google Scholar
3 Ὅτε βουλόμεθα is, of course, unremarkable in Greek of this date.
4 Cf. ibid. 346: μν οὖν καιρός στιν ξὺς δι τ τς ὕλης ῥενστόν, ἢν τέχνη μεταχειρίζεται.
5 Baltimore-London, 1991, 46; 251.
6 Perhaps this necessitates reading αὐτς (= ipsius) rather than αὐτήν, bearing in mind that αὐτς can stand for ταύτης in later Greek, cf. Blass-Debrunner §277. However, I am not convinced that this is necessary. For ϕύσις ‘essence’, see Lampe s.v. II A.
7 Cf. for daemones/heroes helping mankind, because a supreme god took pity, Maximus of Tyrus, Dissert. XV 6: Souls that are freed from their bodies take pity on other souls (οἰκτείρονσα, ϕιλανθρωπία).Προστέτακται δ αὐτῇ ὑπ το Θεο πιϕοιτν τν γν, κα ναμίγνυσθαι πάσῃ μν νδρν ϕύσει, πσῃ δ νθρώπων τύχῃ κα γυώμῃ κα τέχνῃ. The daemones show a preference for the occupation they had when they were still human. Thus, Asclepius takes care of medicine. For other parallels see the commentary on Posidon. Fr. 108 by Edelstein and Kidd.
8 Formerly, I entertained the possibility that σαρκόω was used in its medical sense here, i.e. meaning ‘to make fleshy or strong’ (LSJ, s.v.). The word and its derivatives (like σάρκωσις or σαρκωτικός) are very frequent in all medical writers. For a link with ϕύσις, cf. Gal. X 178 K. (no exact parallel). If we take σαρκώσας in this way, it means that the flesh is put back on the bones of emacerated humanity. The provident god himself is the superior doctor who applies this medicine; Hippocrates then consolidates the effect. Aὐτν τν ϕύσιν would then either have to refer to an abstract ‘nature itself’, or — perhaps more probably — to the constitution of humanity. In that case one might translate: ‘the provident god…gave nature itself a fleshy strength and sent down Hippocrates etc’ However, on balance this solution seems less attractive.
9 Nutton, V., ‘John of Alexandria again: Greek Medical Philosophy in Latin Translation’, CQ 41 (1991), 509–19CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed. The article itself is a reaction to an earlier article by Hankinson, R. J., ‘Notes on the Text of John of Alexandria’, CQ 40 (1990), 585–91CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed. References to John's commentary are based on the edition by Pritchet, C. D., Iohannis Alexandrini Commentaria in librum De sectis Galeni, Leiden, 1982Google Scholar. For further references, see Nutton, op. cit., esp. notes 9 and 10.
10 CQ's anonymous referee informs me that in figuris does not appear in any manuscript, but is an emendation of the second printed edition.
11 E.g. Prise. Gramm. Lat. III 294, 5; 302, 25ff.; 371, 7f.
12 Cf. ibid. 393, 21ff.; Charisius 268, 29 Barwick; Sergius Explan, in Don., Gramm. Lat. IV 564, 14f.; Marius Plotius Sacerdos, Gramm. Lat. VI 450, 17ff.; Isid. Etym. I 33, 4.
13 Cf. the way Dionysius of Halicarnassus uses the word σολοικοϕανς: this is used for locutions that might seem to be faulty but for the authority of the writer who uses them: see e.g. DH Thuc. 29; 55; Serv. in Verg. A. 4. 355.
14 Notice that according to ancient theory the fact that we are dealing with a prepositional prefix here, is irrelevant. Prepositions can occur single and in compounds per definitionem.
15 See further Serv. on Verg. E. 8.66; G. 4.144; A. 2.2, 52; 3.446; 9.193. Augustine points out that prepositions can be ‘translated’ by other prepositions, de Mag. II 4 (about Verg. A. 2.659): praepositio est ex pro qua de possumus, ut arbitror, dicere.