Medical Art and Studies of Medicine in Sicily in the Age of Scribonius Largus

Abstract

  The aim of the present study is to investigate three authors quoted by Scribonius Largus in his Compositiones: first, Apuleius Celsus, praeceptor of Scribonius and (Vettius) Valens; second, Paccius Antiochus, the author, among other compound medicines, of the renowned Antidotos hiera; third, Philonides Catinensis, of whom Paccius was auditor. An outlook survey on Apuleius Celsus, starting from a working hypothesis by Ioannes Rhodius, which was later neglected by this great academic, supplies new and sometimes surprising insights and contributes to an unpredictable  proposal of identity. The three authors represent studies and activities between the end of the first century B.C. and the first century A.D., in the sphere of medicine in republican and imperial Sicily. With the help of passages in the writings of authors drawn on by Galen, aspects and characteristics of the three authors are highlighted.