for spleen disorders. In his youth, he appears to have corresponded with L
A; the letters attest his knowledge of Greek and openness to Greco-Roman
learning. In the classical Rabbinic literature, no mention is made of his medical skills,
but remedies for the spleen feature prominently in Talmudic lists of remedies (esp. b.
Gittin 69b).
Stern 2 (1980) 678–679; F. Kudlien, “Jüdische Ärzte im Römischen Reich,” MHJ 20 (1985) 49–50;
P.W. van der Horst, Japheth in the Tents of Shem (2002) 27–36.
Annette Yoshiko Reed
Q. Gargilius Martialis (220 – 270 CE)
Author of a Latin work on horticulture, likely to be identified with a homonymous man
from Auzia in Mauretania Caesariensis (CIL 7.9047, 260 CE). Surviving in a 6th c. palimp-
sest (Naples, A.IV.8, from Bobbio) is a fragment on gardens and orchards (De hortis), treating
of apples, peaches, quinces, almonds, and chestnuts. The same work apparently embraced
also therapeutic properties and applications of plants and fruits, anonymously transmitted
under the title Medicinae ex holeribus et pomis (a section on quinces overlaps with De hortis), as
Book 4 of M P. Of unlikely attribution are a life of Alexander Seuerus
and extracts on tending cattle (Curae boum). Gargilius’ primary sources were P and
D; he refers also to C C, I C and the
Q. He was abreast of developments in arboriculture, e.g. the peach, scarcely noted
by earlier writers. His work, like his Greek contemporary F, represents a
renewed circulation of old-fashioned medical lore and traditions addressed to the landed
middle class in the century after G. Extensively used as a source by P
A (for gardens and fruit-trees), the treatise won praise for its practicality and
elegance of style (C Inst. 1.28.5). It is assumed, perhaps without adequate study,
that Gargilius is the “Martial” or “Marsial” frequently named by the Hispano-Arabic writer
Ibn al-Awwam.
Ed.: S. Condorelli, Gargilii Martialis quae exstant 1 (1977: incomplete, Hort. only); I. Mazzini, Q. Gargilii
Martialis De hortis, 2nd ed. (1988); B. Maire, Les remèdes tirés des legumes et des fruits (CUF 2002); Eadem,
Concordantiae Gargilianae (2002).
PIR2 G-82; J.H. Riddle, Quid pro quo (1992); OCD3 224, M.S. Spurr; BNP 5 (2004) 700 (#4),
E. Christmann.
Robert H. Rodgers
Gaudentius (ca 200 – 400 CE)
Author of an Harmonic introduction in Greek, a mixture of Aristoxenian and Pythagorean
theory, together with a treatment of notation. C knew the treatise in a Latin
translation credited to M and clearly made use of it in his own treatment of
consonances (Institutiones 2.5); he also specifically cites Gaudentius as one whose treatise “will
open to you the courts of this science.”
The treatise begins as if Gaudentius were an Aristoxenian, moves in the middle section
to the story of P’ discovery of harmonic phenomena, returns to a discussion of
the consonant intervals, and concludes with a description of ancient Greek musical nota-
tion, which breaks off in the middle of the Hypoaeolian tonos. As the treatises survive today,
only the tables of A provide a more complete representation of the notation found
GAUDENTIUS