Olumnios of Alexandria (400 – 650 CE)
Olumnios’ Alexandrine origin indicates a terminus ante quem and suggests his participation in
the Alexandrian school (provided that he did not move to another center such as Ravenna,
which reproduced the Alexandrian model). Two MSS (the more recent perhaps a copy of
the other) contain two fragments of medical works: Paris, BNF graecus 2289 (mid 14th c.),
and New Haven, Yale University, History of Medicine Library, 34 (ex Phillipps 6763)
(1540s). One discusses the critical days, that is, the evolution of diseases in the Hippokratic
and Gale ̄nic model; the other fragment describes the evolution and treatment of a clinical
case. It is unclear if Olumnios is likewise responsible for the iatromathematical texts
that follow in the MSS. Significantly, both works seem still to have been used in 14th c.
Constantinople: the Parisian codex was written and owned by the monk, philosopher, and
physician Neophutos Prodrome ̄nos who possibly used Olumnios’ work in his own medical
practice or in teaching at the hospital of the Krale ̄, which was adjacent to the Monastery
of the Prodromos, also hosting a school.
Diels 2 (1907) 70; Boudreaux in CCAG 8.3 (1912) 23–27.
Alain Touwaide
Olumpiakos of Mile ̄tos (ca 80 – 150 CE)
Physician cited as Olumpikos (G MM 1.7, 1.9 = 10.54–57, 67–68 K. = pp. 28–29, 34– 35
Hankinson = frr.162, 165 Tecusan) and Olumpiakos (-G I
14.684 K. = fr.283), taught A C, and listed among the Methodists
(frr.11, 162, 219, 283). Disagreeing in some points with predecessors, he was considered
arrogant and foolish by Gale ̄n who sharply criticizes Olumpiakos’ definition of illness as a
bodily change from a state in accord with nature into one beyond nature as simplistic and
naïve (frr.162, 165). Gale ̄n further reprimands Olumpiakos’ failure to discriminate between
“affection” and “symptom” (frr. 165 – 166). P A preserves a recipe for a
treatment called Olumpiakon (thus perhaps by Olumpiakos), or Olumpos (cf. O), com-
pounded from 20 (pricey and exotic) ingredients including frankincense, myrrh, spikenard,
saffron, and Indian buckthorn (7.16.24 [CMG 9.2, p. 339] = fr.248), recommended for
prolapses and various protuberances (warts, staphylomata: 3.22.22 [CMG 9.1, pp. 179–180]
= fr.239). Olumpiakos is probably distinct from O.
RE 18.1 (1939) 199 (#2), K. Deichgräber; Tecusan (2004) 63.
GLIM
Olumpias of Thebes (325 BCE – 77 CE)
P, citing her among medical authorities (1.ind.20–28), records her emmenagogue
pessary of bull’s gall, lanolin, and natron on wool, 28.246, as well as her abortifacient
pessary of mallows in goose-fat, 20.226 (Pollux 10.12 [ p. 192 Bethe] cites her for the
danger of mallows). She claimed to cure parturition-induced barrenness with a vaginal
ointment of bull’s gall, snake-fat, and verdigris in honey, 28.253: copper-salts are however
contraceptive. Alleged parallels to D seem weak.
BNP 10 (2007) 109–110 (#2), V. Nutton.
PTK
OLUMNIOS OF ALEXANDRIA