linguistico in positivo’. The major failing of the volume is that the attention to lexicographica... more linguistico in positivo’. The major failing of the volume is that the attention to lexicographical matters is decidedly underwhelming (with exceptions like those noted above). Lexical notes appear in the commentaries more occasionally than systematically. In addition, the complete lack of an index uerborum is not a minor failing and limits the lexical utility of the volume, especially for scholars and readers concerned with ancient vocabulary. That said, however, the overall merits of the book are predominant. It is very well edited, with unusually few errors considering its length and complexity. The quality of the papyrus editions reflects high standards. Their stimulating and accurately detailed contents will be of interest to papyrologists, but also to philologists and scholars of ancient philosophy. Furthermore, although this volume is addressed to specialists, one of its greatest strengths is the translations that make the texts accessible to undergraduates who have recently started to study ancient Greek and Latin and to more generally interested readers: this balances the obstacle represented by the degree of technical knowledge required by the subject. This volume (together with CPF II.2) has value in presenting all the copious papyrological material pertinent to sententious literature. It greatly succeeds in illustrating the contribution of the papyri to what we know about the transmission of gnomological texts. More specifically, it helps to illuminate how this material has been transmitted and disseminated through teaching from the Ptolemaic to the Imperial period. The book marks a decisive step towards a deeper understanding of ancient sententious literature and will serve as a milestone for further studies in the field.
linguistico in positivo’. The major failing of the volume is that the attention to lexicographica... more linguistico in positivo’. The major failing of the volume is that the attention to lexicographical matters is decidedly underwhelming (with exceptions like those noted above). Lexical notes appear in the commentaries more occasionally than systematically. In addition, the complete lack of an index uerborum is not a minor failing and limits the lexical utility of the volume, especially for scholars and readers concerned with ancient vocabulary. That said, however, the overall merits of the book are predominant. It is very well edited, with unusually few errors considering its length and complexity. The quality of the papyrus editions reflects high standards. Their stimulating and accurately detailed contents will be of interest to papyrologists, but also to philologists and scholars of ancient philosophy. Furthermore, although this volume is addressed to specialists, one of its greatest strengths is the translations that make the texts accessible to undergraduates who have recently started to study ancient Greek and Latin and to more generally interested readers: this balances the obstacle represented by the degree of technical knowledge required by the subject. This volume (together with CPF II.2) has value in presenting all the copious papyrological material pertinent to sententious literature. It greatly succeeds in illustrating the contribution of the papyri to what we know about the transmission of gnomological texts. More specifically, it helps to illuminate how this material has been transmitted and disseminated through teaching from the Ptolemaic to the Imperial period. The book marks a decisive step towards a deeper understanding of ancient sententious literature and will serve as a milestone for further studies in the field.
Ancient Medicine in Its Socio-Cultural Context, Volume 1, 1995
My paper investigates the metaphors employed by Hippocratic treatises on embryology and gynecolog... more My paper investigates the metaphors employed by Hippocratic treatises on embryology and gynecology for conception, abortion, and gestation, as the means for bringing unseen happenings before the eye of the mind. Fruitful intercourse was pictured as a mixing of seed of both parents; the seed represented parents' bodily state at coition. Abortion was seen as destroying and dislodging the seed, a procedure writers of embryology located among the 'flow-outs' of the first seven days after coition and among slave prostitutes. Gestation was a baking of the fetus in the oven of the womb. These metaphors were also manipulated by contemporary authors outside medicine.
ABSTRACT Greek medicine is but one strand in the tapestry of ancient healing in the eastern Medit... more ABSTRACT Greek medicine is but one strand in the tapestry of ancient healing in the eastern Mediterranean over the course of millennia.Keywords:classical civilization;disease;health;medicine;science
The editio princeps makes clear that P.Mich. X 578 (P.Mich. inv. 616) is from Philadelphia; that ... more The editio princeps makes clear that P.Mich. X 578 (P.Mich. inv. 616) is from Philadelphia; that it belongs to the Julio-Claudian tax archive; and that its information ultimately derives from census submissions. The haphazard arrangement of the data is, as the first editor observes, most likely due to the fact that the ages given for these nine aphelikes were extracted from a register following the topographical arrangement of census takers and tax collectors, both of whom are known to have proceeded house-byhouse at Philadelphia. He also dates the text to "probably 22/23 A.D.," with regnal year 6 belonging to the reign of Tiberius, CE 19/20, and argues that this text furnishes additional evidence for a census in that year (but see cautions in R.S. Bagnall and B.W. Frier, The Demography of Roman Egypt [Cambridge 1994] 3, n. 10). I shall here argue that "regnal year 8" in P.Mich. 578.6, 7, 9, 10, refers to the census year of CE 47/48 in the reign of Claudius, as I promised I would do some time ago. My evidence for the revised date of P.Mich. 578 originally centered on my uneasiness over two aspects: first, the fact that documents in the Julio-Claudian tax archive dated to the reign of a named emperor only begin in the reign of Tiberius with regnal year 16, CE 29/30, and most texts in the archive with secure dates derive from reigns of Gaius, Claudius, and the first half of Nero. In this context references to regnal years 6, 7, and 8, seem out of place, if they be assigned to Tiberius (CE 19/20, 20/21, and 21/22). Second, and equally disturbing to me, is the editor's assumption about Stratippos, s. of Titan (l. 10): "The rarity of the name Titan makes it certain that the same Stratippos is referred to in all three papyri." The three papyri in question are: a declaration of death for Stratippos' son Nemesion, SB XII 11112.3-4, giving no age for Stratippos, s. of Titan, although the text itself is securely dated to CE 48; two papyri without precise dates which mention the age of a Stratippos, s. of Titan, P.Mich. 578.10, where he is 14 years old in year 8, and P.Alex. 9.7-8 + BL VI, 2, where he is 37 (). Thus the editor assigns a date of probably CE 22/23 to the Michigan papyrus on the assumption that the regnal year 6 in lines 2, 4, 5, refers to CE 19/20, and the date CE 44/45 to the Alexandrian papyrus, reflecting the 23 years he assumes separate Stratippos' age of 14 years in CE 21/22 and the year in which he would have been 37 years old. Prosopographical evidence long ago suggested to me that the tax archive contains references to at least two men named Stratippos, s. of Titan-a grandfather and a grandson. And it is the grandson who is 14 years old in CE 47/48. But there is more from other texts from Philadelphia: not only is Stratippos, s. of Titan (l. 10), more comfortable as a 14 year old in CE 47/48, but both Kollouthos, s. of Ptollis (l. 3), and Kephalon, s. of Patouamtis (l. 7), are as well. Even Herakles, s. of Herakles (l. 6), with his very common name, is better placed as a 13 year old in CE 47/48. Data for the nine individuals listed in P.Mich. 578 are surveyed below in the line-by-line commentary to the text, as are the minor adjustments made to the Greek text in lines 3, 4, 5, 7. In short, nearly half of these aphelikes obviously benefit from the revised dating, and no entry opposes the reassignment of the census year to that in the eighth year of Claudius' reign.
Selected Papers Presented at the XIIth International Hippocrates Colloquium, Universiteit Leiden, 24-26 August 2005
The Hippocratic Corpus testifies to the existence of literate doctors, as well as to literate lay... more The Hippocratic Corpus testifies to the existence of literate doctors, as well as to literate laymen interested in medicine, by the close of the fifth century BC. It is only in later Antiquity, however, that one can begin to speak with confidence about medical literacy encompassing a wide range of specific physicians and a lay public with valetudinarian interests. Evidence from the Roman province of Egypt, when coupled with testimony from Galen and others, is particularly helpful in the effort to sketch a portrait of writers and readers for medical texts. Of particular interest are the joins between the medical writers who have come down to us through the manuscript traditions, many of them practicing and lecturing to the elites of Rome, Alexandria, and eventually Constantinople, and the more ordinary practitioners and their students, friends, and neighbors in the towns and villages of Roman Egypt. My paper surveys texts on papyrus and other materials that bear witness to medical literacy: first, private letters that discuss medical matters; second, didactic texts that played a role in doctors' education, such as the catechisms (erōtapokriseis) and medical definitions; and third, collections of recipes, some of which receptaria were once rolls of many columns, while others are but a single sheet with one or two recipes. The some four hundred recipes written down in Roman and Byzantine Egypt emphasize the degree to which the same or similar therapeutic medicaments are shared with medical authors of the manuscript traditions from Dioscorides and Galen to Oribasius, Aetius, and Paul of Aegina.
, reproduced in Reggiani, Introduzione, X, the US scholar wrote a wonderful acknowledgment of her... more , reproduced in Reggiani, Introduzione, X, the US scholar wrote a wonderful acknowledgment of her Italian colleague's papyrological skills, along with a heartfelt wish for her future work ("I have much admired your detective work! Based as it is on a stringent method of research, the results are always sure. Keep up the good work!"), while on the very same occasion (Professor Andorlini's first scholarly publication, a revision of the Aberdeen medical papyri), Sir Eric Turner greeted her as the member of a triad together with Louise Youtie and Ann Hanson: "we have at least three women-Mrs Youtie, Mrs Hanson, and now Ms Andorlini-who understand of medical papyri" (cf. Andorlini, Prescription, 3 n. *).
Women and society in Greek and Roman Egypt A sourcebook A wealth of evidence for the lives of ord... more Women and society in Greek and Roman Egypt A sourcebook A wealth of evidence for the lives of ordinary men and women-from texts (including personal letters) written on papyrus and other materials to objects of everyday use and funerary portraits-has survived from the Graeco-Roman period of Egyptian history. But much of this unparalleled resource has been available only to specialists because of the difficulty of reading and interpreting it. Now eleven leading scholars in this field have collaborated to make available to students and other non-specialists a selection of over three hundred texts translated from Greek, Latin and Egyptian, as well as more than fifty illustrations, documenting the lives of women within this society, from queens to priestesses, property-owners to slavegirls, from birth through motherhood to death. Each item is accompanied by full explanatory notes and bibliographical references.
linguistico in positivo’. The major failing of the volume is that the attention to lexicographica... more linguistico in positivo’. The major failing of the volume is that the attention to lexicographical matters is decidedly underwhelming (with exceptions like those noted above). Lexical notes appear in the commentaries more occasionally than systematically. In addition, the complete lack of an index uerborum is not a minor failing and limits the lexical utility of the volume, especially for scholars and readers concerned with ancient vocabulary. That said, however, the overall merits of the book are predominant. It is very well edited, with unusually few errors considering its length and complexity. The quality of the papyrus editions reflects high standards. Their stimulating and accurately detailed contents will be of interest to papyrologists, but also to philologists and scholars of ancient philosophy. Furthermore, although this volume is addressed to specialists, one of its greatest strengths is the translations that make the texts accessible to undergraduates who have recently started to study ancient Greek and Latin and to more generally interested readers: this balances the obstacle represented by the degree of technical knowledge required by the subject. This volume (together with CPF II.2) has value in presenting all the copious papyrological material pertinent to sententious literature. It greatly succeeds in illustrating the contribution of the papyri to what we know about the transmission of gnomological texts. More specifically, it helps to illuminate how this material has been transmitted and disseminated through teaching from the Ptolemaic to the Imperial period. The book marks a decisive step towards a deeper understanding of ancient sententious literature and will serve as a milestone for further studies in the field.
linguistico in positivo’. The major failing of the volume is that the attention to lexicographica... more linguistico in positivo’. The major failing of the volume is that the attention to lexicographical matters is decidedly underwhelming (with exceptions like those noted above). Lexical notes appear in the commentaries more occasionally than systematically. In addition, the complete lack of an index uerborum is not a minor failing and limits the lexical utility of the volume, especially for scholars and readers concerned with ancient vocabulary. That said, however, the overall merits of the book are predominant. It is very well edited, with unusually few errors considering its length and complexity. The quality of the papyrus editions reflects high standards. Their stimulating and accurately detailed contents will be of interest to papyrologists, but also to philologists and scholars of ancient philosophy. Furthermore, although this volume is addressed to specialists, one of its greatest strengths is the translations that make the texts accessible to undergraduates who have recently started to study ancient Greek and Latin and to more generally interested readers: this balances the obstacle represented by the degree of technical knowledge required by the subject. This volume (together with CPF II.2) has value in presenting all the copious papyrological material pertinent to sententious literature. It greatly succeeds in illustrating the contribution of the papyri to what we know about the transmission of gnomological texts. More specifically, it helps to illuminate how this material has been transmitted and disseminated through teaching from the Ptolemaic to the Imperial period. The book marks a decisive step towards a deeper understanding of ancient sententious literature and will serve as a milestone for further studies in the field.
Ancient Medicine in Its Socio-Cultural Context, Volume 1, 1995
My paper investigates the metaphors employed by Hippocratic treatises on embryology and gynecolog... more My paper investigates the metaphors employed by Hippocratic treatises on embryology and gynecology for conception, abortion, and gestation, as the means for bringing unseen happenings before the eye of the mind. Fruitful intercourse was pictured as a mixing of seed of both parents; the seed represented parents' bodily state at coition. Abortion was seen as destroying and dislodging the seed, a procedure writers of embryology located among the 'flow-outs' of the first seven days after coition and among slave prostitutes. Gestation was a baking of the fetus in the oven of the womb. These metaphors were also manipulated by contemporary authors outside medicine.
ABSTRACT Greek medicine is but one strand in the tapestry of ancient healing in the eastern Medit... more ABSTRACT Greek medicine is but one strand in the tapestry of ancient healing in the eastern Mediterranean over the course of millennia.Keywords:classical civilization;disease;health;medicine;science
The editio princeps makes clear that P.Mich. X 578 (P.Mich. inv. 616) is from Philadelphia; that ... more The editio princeps makes clear that P.Mich. X 578 (P.Mich. inv. 616) is from Philadelphia; that it belongs to the Julio-Claudian tax archive; and that its information ultimately derives from census submissions. The haphazard arrangement of the data is, as the first editor observes, most likely due to the fact that the ages given for these nine aphelikes were extracted from a register following the topographical arrangement of census takers and tax collectors, both of whom are known to have proceeded house-byhouse at Philadelphia. He also dates the text to "probably 22/23 A.D.," with regnal year 6 belonging to the reign of Tiberius, CE 19/20, and argues that this text furnishes additional evidence for a census in that year (but see cautions in R.S. Bagnall and B.W. Frier, The Demography of Roman Egypt [Cambridge 1994] 3, n. 10). I shall here argue that "regnal year 8" in P.Mich. 578.6, 7, 9, 10, refers to the census year of CE 47/48 in the reign of Claudius, as I promised I would do some time ago. My evidence for the revised date of P.Mich. 578 originally centered on my uneasiness over two aspects: first, the fact that documents in the Julio-Claudian tax archive dated to the reign of a named emperor only begin in the reign of Tiberius with regnal year 16, CE 29/30, and most texts in the archive with secure dates derive from reigns of Gaius, Claudius, and the first half of Nero. In this context references to regnal years 6, 7, and 8, seem out of place, if they be assigned to Tiberius (CE 19/20, 20/21, and 21/22). Second, and equally disturbing to me, is the editor's assumption about Stratippos, s. of Titan (l. 10): "The rarity of the name Titan makes it certain that the same Stratippos is referred to in all three papyri." The three papyri in question are: a declaration of death for Stratippos' son Nemesion, SB XII 11112.3-4, giving no age for Stratippos, s. of Titan, although the text itself is securely dated to CE 48; two papyri without precise dates which mention the age of a Stratippos, s. of Titan, P.Mich. 578.10, where he is 14 years old in year 8, and P.Alex. 9.7-8 + BL VI, 2, where he is 37 (). Thus the editor assigns a date of probably CE 22/23 to the Michigan papyrus on the assumption that the regnal year 6 in lines 2, 4, 5, refers to CE 19/20, and the date CE 44/45 to the Alexandrian papyrus, reflecting the 23 years he assumes separate Stratippos' age of 14 years in CE 21/22 and the year in which he would have been 37 years old. Prosopographical evidence long ago suggested to me that the tax archive contains references to at least two men named Stratippos, s. of Titan-a grandfather and a grandson. And it is the grandson who is 14 years old in CE 47/48. But there is more from other texts from Philadelphia: not only is Stratippos, s. of Titan (l. 10), more comfortable as a 14 year old in CE 47/48, but both Kollouthos, s. of Ptollis (l. 3), and Kephalon, s. of Patouamtis (l. 7), are as well. Even Herakles, s. of Herakles (l. 6), with his very common name, is better placed as a 13 year old in CE 47/48. Data for the nine individuals listed in P.Mich. 578 are surveyed below in the line-by-line commentary to the text, as are the minor adjustments made to the Greek text in lines 3, 4, 5, 7. In short, nearly half of these aphelikes obviously benefit from the revised dating, and no entry opposes the reassignment of the census year to that in the eighth year of Claudius' reign.
Selected Papers Presented at the XIIth International Hippocrates Colloquium, Universiteit Leiden, 24-26 August 2005
The Hippocratic Corpus testifies to the existence of literate doctors, as well as to literate lay... more The Hippocratic Corpus testifies to the existence of literate doctors, as well as to literate laymen interested in medicine, by the close of the fifth century BC. It is only in later Antiquity, however, that one can begin to speak with confidence about medical literacy encompassing a wide range of specific physicians and a lay public with valetudinarian interests. Evidence from the Roman province of Egypt, when coupled with testimony from Galen and others, is particularly helpful in the effort to sketch a portrait of writers and readers for medical texts. Of particular interest are the joins between the medical writers who have come down to us through the manuscript traditions, many of them practicing and lecturing to the elites of Rome, Alexandria, and eventually Constantinople, and the more ordinary practitioners and their students, friends, and neighbors in the towns and villages of Roman Egypt. My paper surveys texts on papyrus and other materials that bear witness to medical literacy: first, private letters that discuss medical matters; second, didactic texts that played a role in doctors' education, such as the catechisms (erōtapokriseis) and medical definitions; and third, collections of recipes, some of which receptaria were once rolls of many columns, while others are but a single sheet with one or two recipes. The some four hundred recipes written down in Roman and Byzantine Egypt emphasize the degree to which the same or similar therapeutic medicaments are shared with medical authors of the manuscript traditions from Dioscorides and Galen to Oribasius, Aetius, and Paul of Aegina.
, reproduced in Reggiani, Introduzione, X, the US scholar wrote a wonderful acknowledgment of her... more , reproduced in Reggiani, Introduzione, X, the US scholar wrote a wonderful acknowledgment of her Italian colleague's papyrological skills, along with a heartfelt wish for her future work ("I have much admired your detective work! Based as it is on a stringent method of research, the results are always sure. Keep up the good work!"), while on the very same occasion (Professor Andorlini's first scholarly publication, a revision of the Aberdeen medical papyri), Sir Eric Turner greeted her as the member of a triad together with Louise Youtie and Ann Hanson: "we have at least three women-Mrs Youtie, Mrs Hanson, and now Ms Andorlini-who understand of medical papyri" (cf. Andorlini, Prescription, 3 n. *).
Women and society in Greek and Roman Egypt A sourcebook A wealth of evidence for the lives of ord... more Women and society in Greek and Roman Egypt A sourcebook A wealth of evidence for the lives of ordinary men and women-from texts (including personal letters) written on papyrus and other materials to objects of everyday use and funerary portraits-has survived from the Graeco-Roman period of Egyptian history. But much of this unparalleled resource has been available only to specialists because of the difficulty of reading and interpreting it. Now eleven leading scholars in this field have collaborated to make available to students and other non-specialists a selection of over three hundred texts translated from Greek, Latin and Egyptian, as well as more than fifty illustrations, documenting the lives of women within this society, from queens to priestesses, property-owners to slavegirls, from birth through motherhood to death. Each item is accompanied by full explanatory notes and bibliographical references.
A wealth of evidence for the lives of ordinary men and women -from texts (including personal lett... more A wealth of evidence for the lives of ordinary men and women -from texts (including personal letters) written on papyrus and other materials to objects of everyday use and funerary portraits -has survived from the Graeco-Roman period of Egyptian history. But much of this unparalleled resource has been available only to specialists because of the difficulty of reading and interpreting it. Now eleven leading scholars in this field have collaborated to make available to students and other non-specialists a selection of over three hundred texts translated from Greek, Latin and Egyptian, as well as more than fifty illustrations, documenting the lives of women within this society, from queens to priestesses, property-owners to slavegirls, from birth through motherhood to death. Each item is accompanied by full explanatory notes and bibliographical references.
The collaborative research project, Scientific Papyri from Ancient Egypt in Cross-Cultural Perspe... more The collaborative research project, Scientific Papyri from Ancient Egypt in Cross-Cultural Perspective (SciPap), is pleased to announce its 3rd international conference-an interdisciplinary, cross-cultural event facilitating new research into the sciences of the ancient Egyptian, Near Eastern, and Greek worlds, focusing on medicine, astral sciences, and divination. Prescription to Prediction will open scholarly and public access to an extremely large, varied body of source material currently unavailable to both non-specialists and many specialists while also advancing theoretical models of intercultural interaction.
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