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[German version] [1] Doctor Doctor and iatrosophist, who as Jew was expelled from Alexandria in c. AD 412, converted to Christianity in Constantinople and returned to Alexandria. Author of an abridged version of the Physiognomy of  Polemon of Laodicea, (ed. R. Förster 1893). Some prescriptions, which are ascribed to him, are handed down by Oribasius (Syn. ad Eustathium 2,58-59; 3,24-25; 9,57). He is probably not the author of the treatise ‘About the Winds’, Ed. V. Rose 1864), which refers to Peripatetic meteorology and apparently dates from the 3rd cent. AD.  …

(Δημοσθένης; Dēmosthénēs). [German version] [1] Athenian commander during the Peloponnesian War Prominent Athenian commander during the Peloponnesian War. Appointed strategos for the first time in 427/6 BC, he entered Aetolia with Western Greek allies so as to be able to attack Boeotia from the west. Through tactical errors D. suffered a severe defeat and fear prevented him from returning to Athens (Thuc. 3,94-98). However, in the Aetolian and Spartan assault on the Athenian stronghold of Naupactus in 426, D., wit…

[German version] According to Varro [2] (Rust. 2,1,19) derived from Latin volvere, 'roll', by which is meant the swathing of a fetus. In the early Imperial Period, vulva, like matrix, was used in addition to the technical term uterus as a term for the womb [1]. All three terms remained in use throughout Antiquity; in late Latin medical authors, vulva seldom occurs. In the course of time the term changed in meaning, in that it also included the vagina (Celsus, De medicina 4,1,12) and even the clitoris (Iuv. 6,129). In his Etymology (Isid. Orig. 11,1,137), Isidorus [9] of Seville connec…

(Ἀρχάγαθος; Archágathos). [German version] [1] Son of Agathocles [2] (end of the 4th cent. BC) Before his return to Sicily in 308/7 BC  Agathocles [2] gave the command of the African troops to his eldest son A. despite his poor military ability. Since the latter fragmented the invasion army, the Carthaginians soon achieved significant successes and encircled A. in Tunes (Diod. Sic. 20,57-61). Even Agathocles could not reverse the situation in Africa after his return and fled to Sicily while abandoning the army. Therefore, embittered soldiers killed A. (Diod. Sic. 20,68). Meister, Klau…

[German version] (ἀρχιατρός; archiatrós). In the original use of the name during Hellenistic times, archiatros was the title of the king's personal physician. The term first appeared in connection with the Seleucids (IDelos 1547, cf. TAM V 1,689). A similar title, wr sinw, ‘supreme physician’, is documented in pre-Ptolemaic Egyptian texts; it is missing from early Ptolemaic papyri purely by accident. Dating to 50 BC, documentations are extant from Egypt (Athenagoras, SB 5216) and Pontus (IDelos 1573) [2. 218-226]. A physician known at t…

(Ἀντιοχίς; Antiochís). [German version] [1] Tenth Attic phyle Tenth Attic phyle following the reform of the phyles by  Cleisthenes (IG II2 1700 ff.); its eponymous hero was  Antiochus, a son of Heracles. In the 4th cent. BC, A. encompassed one asty deme, six mesogeia demes, and also six paralia ones; with 28 bouleutai, they were stronger represented than either of the other two trittyes. In 308/7 BC, three demes changed over into the Macedonian phyles of Antigonis or Demetrias ( Atene,  Colonae,  Thorae), but returned to A. after the abolishment…

[German version] (πνευματικοί/ pneumatikoí, Latin pneumatici). Greek medical sect, founded by Athenaeus [6] of Attaleia under the influence of Stoicism. Galen (De causis contentivis 2) makes Athenaeus a pupil of Posidonius [2], which might indicate a date in the latter half of the 1st cent. BC. However, Cornelius Celsus [7] who wrote in Rome in the mid-1st cent. AD, seems not to have been aware of this sect at all, and its most famous representatives - Agathinus, Herodotus [3], Antyllus [2] and Archi…

[German version] (also Muscio) Translator and adapter into Latin of two gynaecological treatises by  Soranus of Ephesus.One of these, now lost in Greek, was a shorter manual of questions and answers; the second the celebrated Gynaikeîa (‘Gynaecology). Some MSS of M.'s compendium end with an appendix listing vaginal pessaries. Although not a faithful translation of Soranus, M.'s adaptation does offer help in the constitution of the Greek text, and it was the most popular treatise on gynaecology to survive from Antiquity into the …

(Θεσσαλός/ Thessalós). [German version] [1] Eponym of the Greek territory of Thessaly Eponym of the Greek territory of Thessaly (Thessalians, Thessalia; Plin. HN 4,28), son of Haemon [1] (Rhianus FGrH 265 F 30), of the Heraclid Aeatus (Charax FGrH 103 F 6) or of Iason [1] and Medea (Diod. Sic. 4,54 f.). Binder, Carsten (Kiel) [German version] [2] Of Athens, son of Peisistratus [4] Athenian, son of Peisistratus [4]. Not named in Herodotus, T. first appears in Thucydides (1,20,2; 6,55,1) as a childless full brother of Hippias [1] and Hipparchus [1] from t…

[German version] [1] Philosophers Originally a sceptical expression to designate those who adopt as their own a view ( dógma; cf. S. Emp. P.H. 1,13) ─ especially a philosophical or scientific view ─ which, in sceptical thinking, cannot be justified let alone proven (S. Emp. P.H. 1,3). Also applied by the Pyrrhonians in an extended sense to those Academicians who adopted views such as that nothing can be known (cf. the ἰδίως/ idíōs in S. Emp., ibid.). Because of the close link between empiricism and Scepticism in medicine, the term ‘Dogmatists’ was often also applied…

(Ονάσανδρος; Onásandros). [German version] [1] Physician on Cos, c. 250 BC Public physician of Cos in c. 250 BC. As a resident of Cos without citizens' rights, he apprenticed with a public physician ( archiatrós ) in Halasarna, became his assistant and followed him to Cos when he was chosen public doctor there. There he opened his own practice but continued to treat his old patients from Halasarna, at times for nothing. The inscription documenting his career is one of the most informative ones about physicians to survive from antiquity. Nutton, Vivian (London) Bibliography  R. Herzog, Dec…

(Στέφανος; Stéphanos). [German version] [1] Athenian politician, 4th cent. BC Athenian, son of Antidorides from the deme Eroiadai (Syll.3 205 = IG II/III2 213 = Tod 168: request to renew friendship and alliance with Mytilene in the spring of 346 BC), as prosecutor and politician aligned with Callistratus [2]. The allegation by Apollodorus [1] that S. had attempted to pass off the children of (his children by?) his common-law spouse, Neaera [6], a former hetaera from Corinth, as his own children from a legitimate marr…

(Κοσμᾶς; Kosmâs). [German version] [1] C. and Damianus Doctor's saints and patrons of healing Doctor saints and patrons of healing. The Greek Synaxarion (ed. by H. Delehaye) contains three different pairs of saints with these names: 1) the sons of Theodata, who were born in Asia Minor and buried in Pelusium, whose feast day is 1 November; 2) the Roman martyrs stoned during the rule of  Carinus (283-285), whose feast day is 1 July; 3) the Arab martyrs killed with their three brothers under the emperor Diocleti…

(Λυσίας; Lysías). [German version] [1] Attic logographos, 5th/4th cent. BC Attic logographos , 459/8 or c. 445 to c. 380 BC Weißenberger, Michael (Greifswald) [German version] A. Life The main biographical facts can be gathered from L.'s speeches (esp. or. 12), from which the later vitae (Dion. Hal. de Lysia; Ps.-Plut. Mor. 835c ff.) and Byzantine learning (Phot. Bibl. 262; Suda s.v. L.) drew partly. Born probably around 445, L. left Athens at the age of 15 and together with his older brother Polemarchus settled in the Panhellenic colony o…

(Εὔδημος; Eúdemos). [German version] [1] Sculptor in Miletus, 1st half of the 6th cent. BC Sculptor in Miletus. He signed a male seated statue of the 1st half of the 6th cent. BC, one of the earliest  Branchidae of Didyma. Neudecker, Richard (Rome) Bibliography Fuchs/Floren, 373-375 Loewy, No. 3 K. Tuchelt, Die archaischen Skulpturen von Didyma, 1970, 77-78, 121. [German version] [2] of Cyprus Friend of Aristotle A friend of  Aristotle of about the same age, participated, as a follower of Dion [I 1], in the overthrow of Dionysius II and was killed in the fight…

(Λυσίμαχος; Lysímachos). [German version] [1] Athenian, 5th cent. BC Athenian, son of Aristides [1], born around 480 BC, is a dialogue partner in Plato's Láchēs (178ff.), where he is represented as the prototype of the unsuccessful son of a celebrated father. A decree mentioned by Demosthenes (20,115; cf. Plut. Aristides 27), according to which L. is said to have been granted support from the state because he was penniless after the death of his father, is probably a construction from the 4th cent. Stein-Hölkeskamp, Elke (Cologne) Bibliography Davies 1695 III-IV. [German version] [2] G…

[German version] (Ἀρχιγένης; Archigénēs) of Apamea. Physician, student of  Agathinus, lived under Trajan (AD 98-117) and died at the age of 63 (Suda s. v. Archigenes). He was an eclecticist and had close ties to the Hippocratic view that disease is caused by the dyscrasia of hot, cold, moist and dry. A. was predominantly influenced by the Pneumatists and wrote extensively about the study of the pulse. Galen (8,625-635) criticized his list of eight different pulse qualities as too tenuous. Some of t…

(Επαίνετος; Epaínetos) [German version] [1] Medicinal plant expert Medicinal plant expert and author of toxicological works, who lived between the 1st cent. BC and the 3rd cent. AD. His views on the dangerous characteristics of wolfbane, hemlock, opium, mandrake, henbane, poisonous mushrooms, black chamaeleon (a plant whose leaves can change colour), of bull's blood, of litharge and of lumpsucker as well as his remedies against these poisons are reported in detail in Ps.-Aelius Promotus' De venenis (ed. princeps, S. Ihm, 1995).  Medicine;  Toxicology Nutton, Vivian (London) …

[German version] (Ἀγαθῖνος; Agathînos) of Sparta (Ps.-Gal. 19,353). Greek doctor of the first cent., student of Athenaeus of Attaleia, teacher of Archigenes and the Pneumatist  Herodotus. Even though he was mostly counted among the Pneumatists, some believed that he had founded his own, the Episynthetic or Eclectic School. The handed-down fragments of his writings allow connections to the Empiricists and Methodists to be recognized. He wrote about medicines (a fragment about stinking hellebore is i…

(Ἀνδρόμαχος; Andrómachos). [German version] [1] Possessor of a dorea (middle of the 3rd cent. BC) Documented between 253 and 249 BC in Egypt as possessor of a δωρεά ( dōreá) of 10,000 arourai. ‘Father’ of  Ptolemaeus Andromachou (?) [1]. Ameling, Walter (Jena) [German version] [2] Strategos of Syria and Phoenicia (end of 3rd cent. BC) Aspendian, commanded the phalanx in 217 BC at Raphia, later strategos of Syria and Phoenicia. PP 2, 2150. Ameling, Walter (Jena) [German version] [3] Ptolemaean official (1st half of 2nd cent. BC) Son of  Eirene, grandson of  Ptolemaeus Agesarchou; c. 197/8…