chapter 2
Diocles and the Hippocratic writings on the method
of dietetics and the limits of causal explanation
1 introduction
In antiquity Diocles of Carystus enjoyed the reputation of being a ‘younger
Hippocrates’, or ‘second in fame and venerability to Hippocrates’.^1 Yet this
did not prevent him from developing his own ideas and from writing med-
ical treatises in his own style in the Attic dialect. To be sure, later reports on
his doctrines often represent him as being in perfect agreement with ‘Hip-
pocrates’ on various subjects;^2 but the fragments of his works that have
been preserved, show that the authority of ‘the great Coan’ did not prevent
him from taking issue with some ideas and practices that are similar to what
is to be found in texts which we call Hippocratic.^3 Of course we do not
know whether Diocles, if he had actually read these works, took them to
be by Hippocrates – in fact, if we accept Wesley Smith’s suggestion that the
Hippocratic Corpus was created by third-century Alexandrian philologists
who brought together a number of anonymous medical works into one col-
lection under the name of Hippocrates,^4 we may wonder whether anything
like Hippocratic authority already existed in Diocles’ time (not to mention
the fact that Diocles’ date itself is the subject of another controversy). It is
not even certain that Diocles had ever heard of Hippocrates or was familiar
with any of his genuine works.^5
This chapter was first published in R. Wittern and P. Pellegrin (eds.),Hippokratische Medizin und antike
Philosophie(Hildesheim, 1996 ) 229 – 57.
(^1) (Pseudo-)Vindicianus,On the Seed 2 (Diocles, fr. 3 ); Pliny,Natural History 26. 10 (Diocles, fr. 4 ). The
Diocles fragments are numbered according to my edition ( 2000 a, 2001 a), which replaces the edition
by Wellmann ( 1901 ).
(^2) See, for example, frs. 26 , 27 , 28 , 33 , 36 and 52.
(^3) See, for example, frs. 55 a, 55 b and 57. (^4) Smith ( 1990 a) 6 – 18.
(^5) Notwithstanding Wellmann’s view ( 1901 , 64 ) that Diocles was familiar with many Hippocratic writ-
ings and even was the creator of the Hippocratic Corpus, there are noverbatimattestations that
Diocles knew Hippocrates’ name or that he took several writings to be Hippocratic. The only excep-
tion is fr. 55 b (Stephanus of Athens,Commentary on Hippocrates’ Aphorisms 2. 33 ,p. 210 , 30 ff. Westerink
(CMGxi 1, 3 , 1 )), where Diocles is quoted as arguing explicitly against Hippocrates, but this seems
to be a doxographic construction (Stephanus is generally believed to rely on Galen’s commentary
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