C
C- ⇒ K-
C ⇒ (1) B; (2) L
Caecilius “Medicus” (100 BCE – 77 CE)
Listed by P after S N and before Metellus Scipio as a (Latin) medical
authority (1.ind.29). In his Commentarii (presumably written in Latin), he described a contra-
ceptive amulet containing two worms from a large-headed hairy spider, a type of phalangium
(29.85). Possibly bilingual, his identification with B C is uncertain.
RE 3.1 (1897) 1188 (#3), G. Wissowa.
GLIM
Caelius Aurelianus of Sicca (425 – 460 CE)
A superscription in the Leiden fragment and in the Lorsch catalogue of MSS (9th c.) reads
Caelius Aurelianus methodicus Siccensis, informing us that the author of a Latin Acute and Chronic
Diseases was from Sicca in Roman Numidia, and a Methodist. He claims to have translated
S’ (lost) books On Acute and Chronic Diseases from the Greek (Acute 2.8, 2.65). Rose
(1882) collated the Leiden Greek fragment of So ̄ranos’ Acute and Chronic Diseases, and showed
Caelius’ Latin translation was literal, but much abridged and paraphrased. Caelius
occasionally mentions his own writings (e.g. a Responsiones portion of a work on surgery:
Chron., 2.27–28 and 4.3; a Medicamina: Chron., 2.78; others including a Fevers: Amman 710,
Urso 125–149; and a work in Greek titled Letters to Praetextatus: Chron. 2.60), all lost, save
a battered six folios from a 10th c. Questions and Answers, a medical catechism (Rose 1870:
183 – 192). The Letters may indicate Caelius’ contacts among the Senatorial class, if the
addressee is Rufus Praetextatus Postumianus, consul in 448 CE (CIL 6.1761), a date consistent
with Caelius’ Latin, similar to the medical Latin of C F. Caelius had students
(e.g. “Bellicus”: Acute 1.pr.1) and a circle of friends who knew Greek (Acute 1.pr.2;
“Lucretius”), unless the names are spurious (Urso 138–143).
The editio princeps of the Chronic Diseases appeared in 1529 (Basel), by Johannes Sichart,
based on a Lorsch MS which shortly vanished, and Acute was edited and published by
Winter ( Joannes Guinterius) von Andernach at Paris in 1533, founded on a Paris MS that
also quickly disappeared. Each printed text was probably produced from a single MS and,
with the re-discovery of three leaves of the Lorsch, Sichart’s edition was shown to be an