Diocles of Carystus on the method of dietetics 89
While it has also been argued very frequently that Diocles here shares the
sceptical attitude towards theoretical approaches of dietetics found in the
treatiseOn Ancient Medicine,^35 Fredrich’s view that the third claim Diocles
is criticising corresponds with the actual practice of the writer ofOn Ancient
Medicinehas been received with mixed feelings.^36
However, it seems very questionable to me whether it is correct to present
Diocles as making a common stand with the authors ofOn Ancient Medicine
andOn Regimen.As forOn Ancient Medicine, this seems to misunderstand
both the claims that Diocles is opposing (especially claim one) and Diocles’
own position. The scope of the Diocles fragment is rather different from
what is at issue inOn Ancient Medicine. Diocles does not object to the
postulation of warm and cold, nor does he object to referring to these pos-
tulates as causesper se: he simply warns against premature generalisations.
His argument allows for cases in which a thing’s having the quality hot
causes it to produce such-and-such an effect, but he points out that this
does not imply that all things that have that quality produce that effect (for
instance because of the combination with other factors, or because it is only
an incidental cause), nor that all cases where this effect is produced are due
to this very quality. Diocles points out that one should look for the essential
cause: sweet things may cause certain effects, but not necessarily so and not
in so far as they are sweet. Nor does Diocles make the distinction between
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being a possible target see Smith ( 1980 ) 444 , and von Staden ( 1992 ) 240 ; a more sceptical attitude is
taken by Bertier ( 1972 ) 30 – 1.(^35) Apart from Fredrich ( 1899 ) 171 (‘Kurz, Diokles vertritt denselben Standpunkt wie der Autor von
"#
#
, der auch Praktiker ist’) see also Wohrle ( ̈ 1990 ) 175 ; Jaeger ( 1938 a) 38 ; Kullmann
( 1974 ) 352 ; von Staden ( 1992 ) 240. The passage which comes closest to Diocles’ views isOn Ancient
Medicine 17. 1 – 2 (pp. 141 , 15 – 142 , 2 Jouanna; 1. 612 L.), where the Hippocratic writer bluffs his way out
of the problem of fever: ‘I think personally that this is the most important proof that it is not simply
through heat that people get fever, nor that this is the only cause of feeling unwell; rather it is the
combination of bitterness and heat, or sharpness and heat, or saltiness and heat, and innumerable
other things – and, again, the combination of cold with other properties’ (5cF . $!
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(^36) See Wohrle ( ̈ 1990 ) 175 : ‘Auch der zweite Teil des Textabschnittes, in dem sich Diokles gegen die
Atiologen wendet, kann sich kaum auf den Katalog des zweiten Buches von ̈ De victubeziehen.
Denn erstens wird dort nur zu einem geringen Teil eine Erkl ̈arung f ̈ur die Wirkung bestimmter
Nahrungsmittel gegeben, und zweitens liegt diesen Ausf ̈uhrungen kein streng hypothetisches Schema
zugrunde (im Gegensatz zur Feuer-Wasser-Theorie des ersten Buches).’ On the other hand, Fredrich’s
view seems to have been accepted by Kullmann ( 1974 ) 352 : ‘Fredrich, der zugleich einleuchtend
Polemik des Diokles gegen die hippokratische Schrift
#vermutet’) and by During ( ̈ 1966 )
527 n. 105. On this see below.