110 Hippocratic Corpus and Diocles of Carystus
It is hazardous, with so little information of such questionable reliability,
to draw any firm conclusions, but there is some plausibility in the hypoth-
esis that Diocles’On Treatmentswas a more specialised work, which paid
more attention to therapeutic detail (apparently arranged by disease) but
less to causal explanation or symptomatology, whereas his briefer patholog-
ical workAffection, Cause, Treatmentdealt with the therapy of diseases in
a wider, more general framework. Further titles and fragments of Diocles’
works indicate that he wrote separate works on regimen in health, anatomy,
physiology (digestion), external remedies, toxicology, prognostics, gynae-
cology, fevers, catarrhs, evacuations, bandages, surgery, vegetables, rootcut-
ting, and possibly cookery and sexuality.^19 Although there may have been
a substantial overlap in subject matter between some of these works, these
titles suggest that by the time of Diocles medicine had increasingly become
compartmentalised, and this well accords with Celsus’ reference to Diocles
‘proceeding into diverse ways of treatment’.^20
As far as point (iii) in Celsus’ text about the tripartition of medicine is
concerned, some interpreters seem to take the words ‘in the same times’
(isdemque temporibus) as referring to the times of Diocles, Praxagoras and
Chrysippus, Herophilus and Erasistratus, and this would mean that the
division of medicine is presented as a post-Hippocratic development.^21
aquatum pueris uel his, qui ex uulnere in passionem ceciderunt. prohibet etiam cibum dari et iubet ea,
quae passione tenduntur, uaporari et emolliri. itemtertio libro de curationibussimiliter clystere utitur
et uinum dulce dat bibendum adhibens uaporationes nunc siccas, nunc humectas, et ungit cerotario atque
lanis patientia contegit loca;Diocles, fr. 100 vdE).(^19) See the list of preserved titles in van der Eijk ( 2000 a) xxxiii–xxxiv. Apart from the titles mentioned,
there is also a work by Diocles entitledArchidamos(fr. 185 ), which dealt, among other things, with
the use of olive oil for hygienic purposes. Wellmann’s assumption of a work by Diocles 3
"(fr. 20 W.) is based on the (highly doubtful) presupposition that the anonymous source
to which (Ps.-)Vindicianus refers by means of formulae such asinquit, ait, is Diocles; a refutation of
this view has been offered by Debru ( 1992 ); see also Debru ( 1996 ) 311 – 27 and van der Eijk ( 2001 a)
79 – 91.
(^20) I prefer to interpret this phrase as referring to varietywithinthe healing practices of individual
physicians rather than as suggesting that each physician developed his own peculiar method(s) of
treatment as distinct from those of the others (von Staden ( 1999 b) 268 ) or as referring to the divisions
within the Dogmatist tradition between Erasistrateans, Herophileans, etc. (Smith ( 1989 ) 76 : ‘alludes,
apparently, to the divisions between Erasistrateans and Herophileans, and perhaps to other dogmatic
sects’; the latter seems unlikely as the difference is said to lie in methods oftreatmentrather than
in theoretical justification for this). But many commentators have expressed uncertainty about the
precise meaning of this phrase; cf. Smith ( 1989 , 76 ): ‘I am uncertain what differences Celsus may
have had in mind’ and Serbat ( 1995 , xxxix: ‘observation assez ́enigmatique’), and the translations by
Spencer: ‘so practiced this art that they made advances even towards various methods of treatment’;
Serbat: ‘pratiquerent cet art en le faisant mˆeme progresser dans des voies th ́erapeutiques diff ́erentes’; and Mudry ( 1982 , 67 ): ‘pratiquerent cet art de telle sorte qu’ils avanc`erent encore dans des voies
differentes’). ́
(^21) Mudry ( 1982 ) 67 ; von Staden ( 1989 ) 99 ; Serbat ( 1995 , xxxix) takes it as a reference to the times of
Herophilus and Erasistratus.