wounds (20.103–104). Dalio ̄n “the herbalist” prescribes a poultice of anise and parsley as
well as an anise-dill drink for women in labor (20.191) and, as an aphrodisiac, to drink a
potion of ass-genitals ashed, or bull’s urine produced after copulation (28.262). Distinct
from D the geographer. The name Dalio ̄n is five times rarer (LGPN 1.112, 3B.96)
than Damio ̄n (LGPN 1.115, 2.99, 3A.110, 3B.99).
RE 4.2 (1901) 2022 (#2), M. Wellmann.
GLIM
Damas (ca 280 – 250 BCE)
S, in Arist. Phys. 6 (CAG 10 [1895] 924), cites Damas’ Life of Eude ̄mos, discussing the
arrangement of the works of A; probably Eude ̄mos’ student, hence the date range.
FGrHist 1101.
PTK
Damaske ̄nos (ca 800 – 857 CE)
Attested in the unpublished Greek translation of the Ephodia (Za ̄d al Musa ̄fir) by the Arabic
physician ibn al-Jazza ̄r of Kairouan (d. 979/980), and in some medical recipes contained
in 15th c. manuscripts (Paris, BNF, graecus 2194, ff. 455 and 462– 462 V, and Bologna,
Biblioteca Universitaria, 3632, f. 189V). In the Ephodia, Damaske ̄nos is credited with
17 medical recipes to treat white spots on the face, affections of the throat, cough, wounds
in kidneys and bladder, cardiac arrhythmia, intestinal wounds due to yellow bile, amenor-
rhea, wounds due to heat and fractures, as well as an aphrodisiac. The same text further
credits Io ̄anne ̄s Damaske ̄nos with eight treatments (against hemorrhage in the lung, shiver-
ing, excess of heat in the throat, hemorrhage in the stomach, swellings, spots on the skin,
plus a cathartic, and one using squirting cucumber). The Vatican manuscript of the Ephodia
(= graecus 300) and others preserve a short treatise on cathartic medicines ascribed to a
Io ̄anne ̄s Damaske ̄nos (ff. 273V; 284), to whom other manuscripts (e.g. Escorial, T.II.12, ff.
182 V; 183V, and Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional, Vitr. 26.1, ff. 212, 213V) likewise ascribe
medical recipes. Both Damaske ̄nos and Io ̄anne ̄s Damaske ̄nos are very probably identifiable
with the well-known Arabic physician Abu ̄ Zakar ̄ıya ̄’ Yu ̄hanna ̄ ibn Ma ̄sawayh (b. ca 777
CE), also known in the medieval West as “Mesue.” He wrote 42 medical treatises treating
wide-ranging topics (e.g., materia medica, ophthalmology, diet, cathartic medicines), several of
which were translated into Latin. In the Latin West, the treatise on cathartic medicines,
medical recipes and collections circulated under the name of Mesue or John Damascenus
(the 7th/8th c. theologian).
Diels 2 (1907) 25; Thorndike and Kibre (1963) 85, 128, 415, 833, 1493; GAS 3 (1970) 231–236;
S. Lieberknecht, Die Canones des Pseudo-Mesue. Eine mittelalterliche Purgantien-Lehre. Übersetzung und
Kommentar (1995) 212–215.
Alain Touwaide
Damaskios (ca 485 – after 538 CE)
Born ca 460 CE; Neo-Platonic philosopher, the last diadokhos of the Academy in Athens.
Originally from Damascus, Syria, Damaskios studied and taught in Alexandria, Athens and
- after the Academy’s closure in 529 – in Mesopotamia and Syria. He studied rhetoric with
DAMASKIOS