natural allegory of Christ assuming mortal nature to defeat the evil spirit. The selected
animals are mostly savage (and often exotic), and some are mythical: onocentaur, siren,
phoenix, ant-lion (fantastic creature generated by a free translation in the Septuagint of a
rare Hebraic word for lion). However, Physiologos, containing no original naturalistic data,
offers rather a series of peculiar behaviors or powers (called “natures”) turning to popular
themes (curative properties of the bird kharadrios – not the ordinary plover, the horror of the
wolf in front of a naked man, the tears of the anthropophagous crocodile, etc.); and it
gathers the main moral figures of medieval imaginary and Romanesque architecture (the
fireproof salamander, abstinent elephant, resuscitating phoenix, heroic ichneumon, savage
unicorn tamed by a virgin, eagle renewed by the sunlight of the truth and the water of
baptism, etc.). The apologetical function and homiletical use of the text is obvious, but
Physiologos often occurs in the manuscript tradition with zoological (and not Christian) writ-
ings and was read and treated as such. Medieval zoology (from I H to
Bartholomaeus Anglicus, 13th c.) relies in fact amply on Physiologos’ moralizing, myths, and
erroneous assumptions.
Ed.: A. Zucker, Physiologos. Le bestiaire des bestiaires (2004).
M. Wellmann, Der Physiologos. Eine religionsgeschichtlich-naturwissenschaftliche Untersuchung = Philologus S.22.1
(1930) 1–116; F. Sbordone, Ricerche sulle fonti e sulla composizione del Physiologus greco (1936); RE 20.1
(1941) 1074–1129, B.E. Perry; N. Henkel, Studium zum Physiologus im Mittelalter (1976); J.H. Declerck,
“Remarques sur la tradition du Physiologus grec,” Byzantion 51 (1981) 148–158; A. Scott, “The Date
of the Physiologus,” Vigiliae Christianae 52 (1998) 430–441; BNP 11 (2007) 227–228, K. Alpers.
Arnaud Zucker
P ⇒ C
T. Pitenius (ca 100 CE)
Astrologer, wrote an elaborate horoscope on a papyrus roll for Hermo ̄n, born on April 1,
81 CE, presumably in Lower Egypt (P. Lond. 1.130). The positions of the heavenly bodies
were computed by the “Eternal Tables,” mentioned also by P (Almagest 9.2) and
V V (6.1).
Neugebauer and van Hoesen (1959) 21–28.
Alexander Jones
Sextus Placitus Papyriensis (400 – 450 CE)
In the corpus constituted of (1) pseudo-A M, De herba uettonica, (2) -
A, H, (3) the anonymous De taxone, and (4) pseudo-D, De
herbis feminis, there is a Liber medicinae ex animalibus, ascribed to this man. Each of its 34
chapters treats an animal, describing its products used as materia medica (e.g., from deer, fox,
rabbit and wild goat to eagle, vulture and other birds). It borrows material from M
B and the Plinian tradition, and its illustrations may be based on Hellenistic
models (Grape-Albers 1977: 27, 35). Both the text and its illustrations, originating probably
in the first half of the 5th c. CE, are known through two recensions (text: Howald
and Sigerist 1927; illustrations: Talbot and Unterkircher 1971–1972; Grape-Albers 1977:
23 – 25), probably resulting from independent rearrangements of an original nucleus, rather
than from two authors (Howald and Sigerist 1927: ). The compiler has sometimes been
T. PITENIUS