The Encyclopedia of Ancient Natural Scientists: The Greek tradition and its many heirs

(Ron) #1

saffron, frankincense, myrrh, and natron constitute a mild antibiotic, but the saffron oil as
an ingredient makes this remedy phenomenally expensive.


Fabricius (1726) 121.
John Scarborough


Damostratos or De ̄mostratos (of Apameia?) (80 BCE – 20 CE)


Roman senator writing in Greek on history and fishes (Souda Delta-51). Renowned and
important was his On fishing (Halieutika, 20 books), indirectly used by A (see, e.g., NA
epilogue) who considered him a prominent scientific authority and a brilliant stylist
(NA 15.5, 29). Aelianus preserves verbatim a fragment describing De ̄mostratos’ personal
experience of dissection and embalming of a fish (maybe the oarfish, Regalecus glesne Ascanius,
NA 15.9). De ̄mostratos’ book treated many related themes, including aquatic divination
(Peri enudrou mantike ̄s: Souda, ibid.). Identification with a Demostratus (who wrote on amber:
P 37.34) and a De ̄mostratos of Apameia (sic), author of On Rivers (at least two books,
-P, Fluv. 9.2), is then highly probable.


RE 4.2 (1901) 2080–2081 (#5), M. Wellmann.
Arnaud Zucker


Daphnis of Mile ̄tos (ca 300 BCE)


Architect who, with P  E, built the Temple of Apollo at Mile ̄tos (at
Didyma, begun ca 300 BCE: Vitruuius 7.pr.16). This Apolloneion replaced an earlier temple
burnt by the Persians in 494 BCE; work continued well into the Roman period but was never
finished.


BNP 4 (2004) 83–84, C. Höcker; KLA 1.160, R. Vollkommer.
Margaret M. Miles


Dardanos or Dardanios (ca 360 – 410 CE)


I “L” (Mens., 4.9 Wu.) quotes an etymology of the name of miliarísion: “from a
thousand oboloi” from the work of Dardanos On weights. This silver coin was introduced
under Constantine and so called because it was in fact equal to one-thousandth of a
pound of gold (see MSR 1.307). P  C cites two short passages (de fig.
num., 10 and 14) where Dardanos lists the equivalence rates (in two cases, wrong) of obol,
drachma, ounce, pound and mina, “light” and “heavy” talent. Nevertheless, Priscianus
neither refers to the miliarísion etymology nor specifies Dardanos’ work. Moreover Pris-
cianus strikingly quotes Dardanos in Latin. The evidence being too scanty, the most likely
conclusion is either that Priscianus quoted Dardanos from a Latin metrological collection or
his Greek work was translated into Latin ca 450 – 550 CE, and transmitted as C 
P.


MSR 2 (1866) 83, 85; Hultsch (1882) 7–8, 201; RE 4.2 (1901) 2163 (Dardanios); 2180 (Dardanos #14),
F. Hultsch; G. Mercati, “Il περι σταθμων di Dardano tradotto anticamente in latino?,” RIL 41
(1909) 149–156; J.-P. Callu, “Les origines du «miliarensis»: le témoignage de Dardanius,” RN 22
(1980) 120–130.
Mauro de Nardis


DAMOSTRATOS OR DE ̄MOSTRATOS
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