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A Medical Theory and the Text at Lactantius, Mort. persec. 33.7 and Pelagonius 347

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

J. N. Adams
J. N. Adams
Affiliation:
Manchester University
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Extract

It would be a mistake to attempt to identify in modern terms the disease of Galerius described so graphically by Lactantius, Mort. 33 (cf. the similar description at Eus. H.E. 8.16). Consumption by lice or worms, if not genital ‘gangrene’, was a typical end for a tyrant or the impious, and there must be an element of literary exaggeration in Lactantius' account. But whatever one makes of the nature of the illness, Lactantius did set out to give the passage a scientific plausibility by his use of technical medical phraseology, and by an allusion to a medical theory at 33.7. Recognition of this theory allows one to settle the text at one point, where editors have failed to agree. There is also a second place in the chapter where familiarity with medical Latin points one towards the solution of a textual problem.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 38 , Issue 2 , December 1988 , pp. 522 - 527
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1988

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References

1 Such attempts have been made: see O. Temkin, ‘History of Hippocratism in Late Antiquity: the Third Century and the Latin West’, in id. The Double Face of Janus, and Other Essays in the History of Medicine (Baltimore and London, 1977), p. 168 n. 4.

2 See Africa, Thomas, ‘Worms and the Death of Kings’, Classical Antiquity 1 (1982), 1ff.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed, Keaveney, A. and Madden, J. A., ‘Phthiriasis and its Victims’, Symb. Osl. 57 (1982), 87ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Riddle, J. M., ‘Gargilius Martialis as a Medical Writer’, J. Hist. Med. 39 (1984), 408ff., especially 416–20Google ScholarPubMed, Davies, M. and Kathirithamby, J., Greek Insects (London, 1986), pp. 173ff. (stressing the imaginary character of phthiriasis)Google Scholar. Among the numerous passages which might be cited, note II Maccabees 9.5–12 (on the death of Antiochus Epiphanes, a passage which influenced Lactantius: see Creed, J. L., Lactantius, De Mortibus Persecutorum (Oxford, 1984), xxxviiiGoogle Scholar), Acts 12:23 (death of Herod Antipater), Tert, . Scap. 3.4Google Scholar.

3 The emendation, attributed to a uir insignis, is in Nic. Toinard, , Notae in Lactantium (p. 382)Google Scholar, which can be found in Bauldri, P. (ed.), Lucii Caecilii Firmiani Lactantii De Mortibus Persecutorum cum notis Stephani Baluzii 2 (1692)Google Scholar. Also attributed to Boherellus (ibid., p. 223).

4 See n. 2. Brandt, S. (L. Caeli Firmiani Lactanti opera omnia II. 1(CSEL xxvii, 1893))Google Scholar and Moreau, J. (Lactance, De la mort des persécuteurs (Paris, 1954))Google Scholar print repercussum medellis.

5 To be found in Bauldri (p. 223).

6 See Sandison, A. T., ‘Diseases of the Skin’, in Brothwell, D. and Sandison, A. T., Diseases in Antiquity (Springfield, Ill., 1967), p. 451Google Scholar.

7 In a different connexion Lactantius' familiarity with medical writings has been demonstrated by Fischer, K.-D., ‘Der Weg des Urins bei Asklepiades von Bithynien und in der Schrift De Opificio Dei des Kirchenvaters Lactantius’ in Centre Jean Palerne, Mémoires III, Médecins et Médecine dans l'Antiquité (ed. Sabbah, G., Saint-Étienne 1982), pp. 43–53Google Scholar.

8 For the common use of malum of diseases, see TLL viii.229.68ff. (Cato, , Agr. 157.6 onwardsGoogle Scholar). Malum is particularly frequent in Celsus (more than 20 examples cited by the TLL).

9 For some examples of the collocation, see TLL vi.I.970.24ff.

10 See Bauldri (above n. 3), p. 223.

11 Is. Vossius and Boherellus (in Bauldri, op. cit.). Vossius as an alternative offered odor is autem.

12 Brandt suggested odor it non modo …, but the MS. reading seems to demand something between it and non.

13 CSEL xxvii, index p. 382.

14 All proposals to be found in Bauldri (pp. 82, 307 and 202 respectively).

15 I have not seen the work of F. Corsaro (Catania, 1970), cited by Creed.

16 The same criticism can be made of Graevius' odor dints autem (see Bauldri, p. 223), which also has autem in third position, and of odor autem in the anonymous ed. Ox. 1680 (see Bauldri loc. cit.).

17 See TLL iii.231.34, vii.2.111.74f.

18 The collocation is medical, but not exclusively so (TLL v. 1.1845.638ff;.).

19 Sedes ‘anus’ used twice by Lactantius (§§6, 9) was a caique on ἕδρα. Though not found in Celsus, it was a learned scientific term in Latin, with a medical flavour (Adams, , Glotta 59 (1981), 255f.Google Scholar). Sisto (§2) of the staunching of blood was a technical term (cf. Scrib. Larg. 240 ‘omnem eruptionem sanguinis uelut cautenum sistit’). When Lactantius came to describe the appearance of worms (uermes) in the ulcus, he twice used phraseology reminiscent of Columella's account of uermes infesting ulcera (6.16.2–3): §7 ‘uermes intus creantur’ (cf. Col. §3 ‘uermes creant’), §9, ‘quis resolutis inaestimabile scatebat examen’ (cf. Col. §2 ‘solent etiam neglecta ulcera scatere uerminibus’). Both writers were presumably using technical vocabulary (for uermes creare, cf. Col, . Arb. 10.1Google Scholar; note too Diosc. Lat. II, p. 208.76 ‘lumbrices creat’).

20 Ihm, M., Pelagonii Artis Veterinariae quae extant (Leipzig, 1892)Google Scholar, Fischer, K.-D., Pelagonii Ars Veterinaria (Leipzig, 1980)Google Scholar.

21 Hoppe, K., ‘Kritische und exegetische Nachlese zu Ihms Pelagonius I’ (Abhandlungen aus der Geschichte der Veterinär-Medizin, Heft 19, Leipzig, 1929), 7Google Scholar.