Constantinus (250 – 360 CE)
Greek physician, whom O cites as the author of a soap formula made of several
plant ingredients, alum and exotic (perfumed) substances amalgamated with “soap from
Gaul” (Latin translation of the Synopsis, 3.164 [5.881 BDM]), repeated in later medical
encyclopedias (A A 6.54, CMG 8.2, p. 197.20–27]; P A CMG
9.2, p. 237). It is also known in some Latin manuscripts, probably from the Latin translation
of Oreibasios but differing from it: MS Laon, Bibliothèque communale, 426bis, f.117 (9th
c.), specifying the soap for drying excessive humor in the head; Paris, BNF, lat. 11219,
f.104V (9th c.), where it is followed by the recipe for the preparation of an oil also attributed
to a Constantinus not definitively identifiable with our man; Vendôme, Bibliothèque
municipale, 175, f.126V (11th c.). A MS also credits Constantinus with an unpublished (?)
Latin De coitu (Diels 2.24) that might derive from the treatise on the same topic by Constan-
tinus the African (11th c.), or one of its sources.
Diels 2 (1907) 24; E. Wickersheimer, Manuscrits latins de médecine du haut moyen âge dans les bibliothèques de
France (1966) 39, 119, 188.
Alain Touwaide
C ⇒ A
Cornelius (120 BCE – 80 CE)
A in G, CMLoc 9.5 (13.292 K.), records his trokhiskos against
“dysentery” and blood-spitting, composed of opium, myrrh, aloes, Indian buckthorn,
etc.; cf. G M, Med. 30. Cited also by the Antidotarium Brux. 38 (T-
P pp. 373–374 R.), for a dropsy remedy, composed of squill steeped
in aged Aminaian wine and stored in glass, and 40 (pp. 374–375 R.), for a chest-
pain remedy, containing calamint, ginger, hartwort, juniper, lovage, parsley, pennyroyal,
pepper, and Spanish thyme, in honey, also stored in glass. Cf. perhaps A
C.
Fabricius (1726) 128.
PTK
Cornelius Bocchus (120 BCE – 75 CE)
Expert in Spanish geography, cited by P (16.216; 37.24, 97 and 127) regarding min-
erals and precious stones from Spain. His identification with the homonymous historian,
author of a Chronicle ending with the 207th Olympiad (49 CE), and mentioned by I
S 1.97; 2.11 and 18, is much debated. L. Cornelius Bocchus, flamen and military
tribune, is attested by a 1st c. CE inscription from Lusitania (PIR2 C-1333; ILS 2920 – 2921);
the name “Bocchus” enters Latin from S, Iug. 70–83, 100–104.
RE 3.1 (1897) (#3), W. Henze; GRL §503.Prosa.2, 8 (pp. 835, 863); H. Bardon, La littérature latine inconnue
2 (1956) 148–149; BNP 3 (2003) 836–837, M. Meier and M. Strothmann.
Eugenio Amato
CONSTANTINUS