Epigene ̄s of Rhodes (285 – 90 BCE)
Agronomist whose work may have treated cereals, livestock, poultry, viticulture, and arbori-
culture (cf. P, 1.ind.8, 10, 14–15, 17–18). C D excerpted from his
writings (V, RR 1.1.8–10, cf. C, 1.1.9). Pseudo-P, Nobil. 20 (7.269
Bern.), reports that Epigene ̄s advanced numerous arguments to prove that humans lived in
the countryside long before they lived in cities (cf. Varro, RR 3.1); this sort of speculative
anthropology seems to have been popularized by D.
RE 6.1 (1907) 65 (#19), E. Fabricius.
Philip Thibodeau
Epigonos (250 BCE – 10 CE)
H records that some attributed the “I” plaster to Epigonos; it “drew out poison,”
and contained aloes, alum, birthwort, galbanum, copper flakes, myrrh, verdigris, etc. in
aged olive oil and vinegar: G, CMGen 5.2 (13.774–778 K.). A credits
him with a “green” plaster, of almost identical ingredients, in an olive oil and “Kolopho ̄n”
resin base: ibid. 2.2 (pp.492–493); Gale ̄n himself cites Epigonos’ plaster as exemplary, Rat.
Cur. ad Glauk. (11.126 K.). Cf. also G and H.
RE 6.1 (1907) 66 (#21), M. Wellmann.
PTK
Epikharmos of Surakousai (fl. 488 – 485 BCE)
Sicilian comic poet, known through several hundred testimonia and fragments. Most evi-
dence about his life is obscure, but he undoubtedly lived and wrote in Surakousai in the
times of Gelo ̄n and Hiero ̄n (491–467), and died after 458 (perhaps as late as 438). Frag-
ments containing either satires against contemporary thinkers or sententious maxims, taken
out of context, shaped the idea of Epikharmos as philosopher and “wise man,” later aug-
mented by his alleged relationship with P. Consequently, other writers ascribed
to him their own philosophical or quasi-scientific works, most of them linked to the
Pythagorean school, written in trochaic tetrameters, and in a dialect which tried to imitate
Epikharmos’ Sicilian Doric. According to Athe ̄naios, Deipn. 14 (648d), the spuriousness of
these writings (the Pseudepikharmeia) was known to some authors from the late 4th c. BCE,
thus A, Philokhoros (early 3rd c. BCE), and Apollodo ̄ros of Athens (2nd c.
BCE), but many continued treating them as genuine, and at least one of them, the Antenor,
seems to have been forged after Aristoxenos, and may be the latest. They addressed phil-
osophy or physics (so the Republic, written by a flute-player called Khrusogonos; the Kano ̄n,
by a certain Axiopistos; and the Antenor), general truths and rules of conduct (the Maxims,
also by Axiopistos), and medicine and veterinary medicine.
The first writer to connect Epikharmos with medical subjects is D S,
and many others did so afterwards (P 20.89, 20.94, etc., C 7.3.6, P
A, D L, C 7.5–6, I). By asserting
that Epikharmos was a native of Ko ̄s, Diogene ̄s Laertios (8.78) might mean to connect him
with that island’s medical school. In a rather obscure passage, Iamblikhos (VP 241) also links
a certain M (allegedly his son) with Epikharmos’ theories on medicine. In all
likelihood, the source for pharmaceutical prescriptions allegedly coming from Epikharmos
was the poem Kheiro ̄n (Chiron), which probably included the culinary treatise also attributed
EPIKHARMOS OF SURAKOUSAI