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THE USE AND ABUSE OF HIPPOCRATIC MEDICINE IN THE APOLOGY OF LUCIUS APULEIUS*
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 July 2016
Extract
The Apology of Apuleius is a rare example of a complete forensic speech in Latin from the High Roman Empire. The prosecution on the charge of magia of a renowned rhetor in the court of a Roman proconsul, who might himself have been a distinguished Stoic philosopher, offers modern scholars a remarkable opportunity to observe an encounter between scholarship and legal practice. Apuleius arrived in the city of Oea en route to Alexandria as part of a life of learning and travel. While visiting Oea, Apuleius met his old schoolfriend Sicinius Pontianus, who encouraged him to wed his recently widowed mother Aemilia Pudentilla. The reason for this unusual request was Pontianus' wish that his mother would not marry someone unsuitable. Apuleius agreed and the marriage took place. However, it left Sicinius Aemilianus, a brother of Pudentilla's first husband, and Herennius Rufinus, Pontianus' father-in-law, aggrieved and they decided to pursue Apuleius through the courts. The Apology, which Apuleius later published as a record of his defence, has long attracted scholarly interest. Two commentaries have been published, the literary aspects analysed and the authenticity of the speech scrutinized.
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- Research Article
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- Copyright © The Classical Association 2016
Footnotes
*
This article is part of an ISF-funded research. I am grateful for its generous support.
References
1 Harrison, following Hunink, assumed that Maximus the presiding proconsul was Claudius Maximus, one of Marcus Aurelius' Stoic teachers. This assumption rests on Apuleius' constant allusions to Maximus' extensive learning and is chronologically possible. M. Aur. Med. 1.17.5; V. Hunink, Apuleius of Madauros Pro se de magia (Amsterdam, 1997), 1.18; S. Harrison, Apuleius: A Latin Sophist (Oxford, 2000), 45; but see the reservations of H.E. Butler and A.S. Owen, Apulei Apologia sive Pro se de magia liber (Oxford, 1914), 1.
2 For a summery of the case details, see K. Bradley, Apuleius and Antonine Rome (Toronto, 2012).
3 Butler and Owen (n. 1); Hunink (n. 1).
4 Helm, R., ‘Apuleius' Apologie: ein Meisterwerk der zweiten Sophistik’, Das Altertum 1 (1955), 86–108 Google Scholar; Hijmans, B.L. Jr., ‘Apuleius orator: “Pro se de Magia” and “Florida”’, ANRW 2.34.2 (1994), 1708–84Google Scholar; Harrison (n. 1).
5 Harrison (n. 1).
6 J. Jouanna, Hippocrates (Johns Hopkins, 1999), 351–2.
7 For a social history of medicine during the High Empire, see I. Israelowich, Patients and Healers during the High Empire (Johns Hopkins, 2015).
8 Cic. Att. 16.15.5; Nat. D. 3.38.91; Orat. 3.33.132; Celsus, Med. Prooem.2-3, 5–8; Plin. HN 29.1-2; Plut. Mor. 82d, 90c, 127d10, 291c, 455e, 515a, 682e, 699c, 1047d, 1091c, 1099d; Gell. NA 19.2.8; Jouanna (n. 6), 348–65.
9 For a discussion of Galen's impact on Graeco-Roman society, see G. Bowersock, Greek Sophists under the Roman Empire (Oxford, 1969), 59–75.
10 Gal. X.375 K.
11 D. Manelli, ‘Galen and Hippocratic medicine: language and practice’, in C. Gill, T. Whitmarsh and J. Wilkins (edd.), Galen and the World of Knowledge (Cambridge, 2009), 157–74.
12 Galen referred to his commentaries of Hippocratic works in XIX.9 K.
13 See Galen's own references to his commentaries of Hippocrates in Gal. XIX.49 K.; R. Flemming, ‘Commentary’, in R.J. Hankinson (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Galen (Cambridge, 2008), 323–52; H. von Staden, ‘Staging the past, staging oneself: Galen on Hellenistic exegetical tradition’, in C. Gill, T. Whitmarsh and J. Wilkins (edd.), Galen and the World of Knowledge (Cambridge, 2009), 132–56.
14 Galen's library: V. Nutton, ‘Galen's library’, in C. Gill, T. Whitmarsh and J. Wilkins (edd.), Galen and the World of Knowledge (Cambridge, 2009), 19–38; Hellenistic commentaries: von Staden (n. 13).
15 See most recently Gill, Whitmarsh and Wilkins (n. 11). See also: J. Kollesch, ‘Galen und die zweite Sophistik’, in V. Nutton (ed.), Galen, Problems and Prospects (London, 1981), 1–11.
16 On the dominance of such ethnography and the pivotal place of the Hippocratic Aer., see B. Isaac, The Invention of Racism in Classical Antiquity (Princeton, 2004), 57–74.
17 For the image of the Greek doctor as artisan, see L. Edelstein, Ancient Medicine: Selected Papers of Ludwig Edelstein (Baltimore, 1967), 65–86; V. Nutton, Ancient Medicine (London, 2012), 87–102.
18 Edelstein (n. 17), 65–86.
19 The literature on the Hippocratic Aer. is vast. The best edition is J. Jouanna, La Maladie Sacrée (Paris, 2003), which offers an extensive introduction.
20 Hippoc. Aer. 1.1-1.3.
21 Hippoc. Aer. 12.1.
22 Vegetius' sources: N.P. Milner, Epitome of Military Science (Liverpool, 1995), xv-xvi; publication date: Goffart, W., ‘The date and purpose of Vegetius' de re militari ’, Traditio 33 (1977), 65–100 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Barnes, T.D., ‘The date of Vegetius’, Phoenix 33 (1979), 254–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Zuckerman, C., ‘Sur la date du traité militaire de Végèce et son destinataire Valentinien II’, SCI 13 (1994), 67–75 Google Scholar; Vegetius' acquaintance with past scholarship: cf. Milner (this note), xxii.
23 Veg. Mil. 1.2, trans. Milner.
24 Vitr. De arch. 5.3.1.
25 Capitoni, U., ‘Una presenza di Vitruvio in Vegezio?’, Maia 32 (1980), 179–85Google Scholar.
26 Apul. Apol. 42.
27 Apul. Apol. 43.
28 Apul. Apol. 43: quod si ita est, nominate, quis ille fuerit puer sanus, incolumis, ingeniosus, decorus, quem ego carmine dignatus sim initiare.
29 Apul. Apol. 43.
30 Apul. Apol. 43.
31 In discussions of epilepsy (or any other named disease) in classical antiquity reservations must be applied concerning the consistency of its nosology, as well as the ability of Greek and Roman doctors both to diagnose it properly and consistently, and to refer to it by names, which are synonymous to current names. Thus, the disease called ‘sacred’ which historians of medicine associate with epilepsy, and to which Greeks and Romans referred using many names, is taken here to be epilepsy because this is how it was conceived by contemporaries. I follow this without making any claim concerning its ‘actual’ or ‘real’ nature.
32 Hippoc. Morb. Sacr. 1.4.
33 Hippoc. Morb. Sacr. 2.
34 Hippoc. Morb. Sacr. 1.1.
35 Hippoc. Morb. Sacr. 2.1.
36 The stimulating study of J. Laskaris, The Art Is Long: On the Sacred Disease and the Scientific Tradition (Leiden, 2002), does much to locate this work in its contemporary intellectual and medical environment. After an excellent overview of early healers, the transmission of medical knowledge and religious healing, Laskaris emphasizes the polemical aspects of this work. Her argument that this treatise ‘is best understood as a sophistic protreptic speech that was meant to demonstrate its author's superior understanding and treatment of that disease for the purpose of attracting students and a clientele’ (2) testifies to the exceptional nature of the work.
37 Cf. Quintus Serenus, Liber medicinalis 56: est subiti species morbi, cui nomen ab illo | haesit, quod fieri prohibet suffragia iusta. | saepe etenim membris atro languore caducis | concilium populi labes horrenda diremit; Festus, Gloss. Lat. 234.65.
38 Plin. HN 28.35.
39 Plaut. Capt. 550.
40 Apul. Apol. 44: eum tamen uos carminibus meis subuersum dixistis, quod forte me coram semel decidit. conserui eius plerique adsunt, quos ex<h>iberi denuntiastis. possunt dicere omnes quid in Thallo despuant, cur nemo audeat cum eo ex eodem catino cenare, eodem poculo bibere. et quid ego de seruis? uos ipsi uidetis. negate Thallum multo prius quam ego Oeam uenirem corruere eo morbo solitum, medicis saepe numero ostensum! negant hoc conserui eius, qui sunt in ministerio uestro?
41 Caelius Aurelianus, Morb. Chron. 1.4, par. 60.
42 Caelius Aurelianus, Morb. Chron. 1.4, par. 60.
43 Cf. Paul of Aegina, III.13 = vol. 1, p. 152 ed. Heiberg; Caelius Aurelians, Morb. Sacr. 1.4, par. 60.
44 Erasistratus, fr. 162.43-58 Garofalo.
45 Apul. Apol. 43: est enim miser morbo comitiali ita confectus, ut ter an quater die saepe numero sine ullis cantaminibus corruat omniaque membra conflictationibus debilitet.
46 Apul. Apol. 44: uos ipsi uidetis; negate Thallum multo prius, quam ego Oeam uenirem, corruere eo morbo solitum, medicis saepe numero ostensum.
47 O. Temkin, The Falling Sickness (Baltimore, 1972), 36; cf. Gal. VII.58-9 K.; XIX.414 K.; Celsus, Med. III.23.
48 Sen. De ira, 3.10.3-4; cf. Hippoc. Morb. Sacr. 7.
49 Apul. Apol. 43.
50 Theodorus Priscianus, p. 148.3-4 H.
51 Apul. Apol. 43.
52 Caelius Aurelianus, Morb. Chron. 1.4, par. 70.
53 Israelowich, I., ‘Physicians as figures of authority in the Roman courts’, Historia 63 (2014), 445–62Google Scholar.
54 Apul. Apol. 44: Maxime, XIIII seruos quos exhibemus, Thallus puer ubi sit et quam salue agat, interroga seruos accusatorum meorum.
55 Apul. Apol. 45.
56 Apul. Apol. 45: quod si magnum putarem caducum deicere, quid opus carmine fuit, cum incensus gagates lapis, ut apud physicos lego, pulchre et facile hunc morbum exploret.
57 Cf. Dioscorides, 5.149; Plin. HN 36.142; Gal. 12.203 K.
58 Apul. Apol. 45.
59 Apul. Apol. 49–50: … quorum e numero praecipuast materia morbi comitialis, de quo dicere exorsus sum, cum caro in humorem crassum et spumidum inimico igni conliquescit et spiritu indidem parto ex candore compressi aeris albida et tumida tabes fluit. Cf. Pl. Tim. 35a.
60 Apul. Apol. 50.
61 Apul. Apol. 69.
62 Apul. Apol. 69.
63 Ibid.
64 Ibid.
65 Galen's female patients: S. Mattern, Galen and the Rhetoric of Healing (Johns Hopkins, 1996), 122–4 and R. Flemming, Medicine and the Making of Roman Women (Oxford, 2000).
66 Gal. IV.498-9 K.
67 Cf. H. King, ‘Once upon a text: hysteria from Hippocrates', in S.L. Gilman, H. King, R. Porter, G.S. Rouseau and E. Showalter (edd.), Hysteria Beyond Freud (Los Angeles, 1993), 42–3.
68 Israelowich (n. 53).
69 The pivotal place of Hippocrates in second-century Greek paideia is repeatedly affirmed by Galen, Apuleius' contemporary; Flemming (n. 13); Nutton (n. 14), 19–34; Manelli (n. 11).