Heart, brain, blood, pneuma 121
any particular place, but that the entire body is ill and therefore the entire
body requires treatment. Another characteristic of the Methodists is that
speculations on the location of the mind are rejected for being pointless, as
it is impossible to reach conclusions on the matter on empirical grounds,
and the doctor should abstain from expressing any opinions (‘first of all it
is still uncertain which part of the body is the leading part’). This attitude
is inspired by the close connection between the epistemological views of
the Methodists and those of the philosophical school of the Sceptics, who
on principle refuse to express opinions on any non-perceptible matters. In
addition, the Methodists consider such questions irrelevant to therapeutic
practice, which they regard as the focus of medical science.
Whether Caelius Aurelianus does justice to all his medical predecessors
by presenting matters as he does is very much the question. Recent research
into the principles and methods of doxography (the description of thedoxai,
the characteristic doctrines of authorities in a certain subject) has revealed
that the question ‘What is the leading principle in man and where is it
located?’ more or less assumed a life of its own in late antiquity, separate from
the scientific context from which it originated. It became a favourite subject
for practising argumentation techniques (comparable to questions such as
‘Is an embryo a living being?’),^7 whereby contrasting views were taken
in an artificial debate (sometimes even views that, although theoretically
possible, have, as far as we know, never actually been supported), which
were subsequently attributed to authorities in the field, and which served as
exercise material for finding and using arguments both for and against. Such
‘dialectic’ staging of a debate bears little relation to a historically faithful
rendition of a debate that actually took place in the past.
It is most probable that Caelius Aurelianus’ summary of views as quoted
above is part of such a doxographical tradition, and therefore highly schema-
tised. In his presentation, the views of those to whom he refers – without
mentioning their names^8 – imply a number of presuppositions regarding
empirical evidence and theoretical concepts in respect of which it is ques-
tionable whether the authorities concerned actually held them. A question
like ‘What is the leading principle of the soul and where is it located?’
presupposes that there is such a thing as a leading ‘part’ or principle in the
soul and that it can be located somewhere. The debate to which Caelius
(^7) On this see Mansfeld ( 1990 ), and for embryology Tieleman ( 1991 ).
(^8) The doctors and philosophers to whom Caelius Aurelianus refers can be identified by studying other
doxographic authors (for this purpose see the discussion by Mansfeld mentioned in n. 7 ). Further
down in the same book Caelius Aurelianus discusses the therapeutic views onphrenitisheld by
Diocles, Erasistratus, Asclepiades, Themison and Heraclides.