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

(Ron) #1

in verdigris: G CMGen 7.13 (13.1037 K.); another recipe, for a diaphore ̄tike ̄, ibid.
6.14 (13.926–927 K.). Since sage is given as salbia (i.e., Latin), Sertorius presumably wrote in
Latin, or used Latin sources (such as S L or the Latin synonyms from
D). For the non-Republican cognomen, cf. F C.


Fabricius (1726) 121.
PTK


S ⇒ D


Seuerianus of Gabala (d. before 430 CE)


One MS (Wien, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, medicus graecus 27, 16th c.) attributes
a short text peri te ̄s prose ̄gorias anthro ̄pou – better known as De hominis nomine (ed. in PG 56,
473.16–474.10) – to a Seuerianus, most likely the bishop of Gabala in Syria. The work is
philological and religious rather than medical: it explains biblical terms, as typical of 4th c.
Christian literature, especially regarding the transformation of medical anthropology (cf.
also -L and M). Seuerianus also authored several exegetic and
homiletic treatises and a short work on the names of God.


Diels 2 (1907) 91 and Suppl. (1908) 65; H. Hunger, Katalog der griechischen Handschriften der Österreichischen
Nationalbibliothek 2 (1969) 74–75; ODB 1883 – 1884, B. Baldwin.
Alain Touwaide


S ⇒ D


Seuerus Iatrosophista (500 – 520 CE)


This “Seuerus” is distinct from any homonym mentioned or quoted in G, A 
A, O, A  T, or P, and Dietz himself
(p. ) placed him ca 600. The addressee Timotheos is probably the zoologist T
 G. Seuerus adds two “appendices”: the first claiming to summarize Gale ̄n’s views on
the “Seven-Month Child” (pp. 45–46), and the second listing 97 names for surgical tools
( pp. 46–48).
The tract is similar in structure to known pseudo-Gale ̄nic texts, e.g. -G
I, which has its own synopsis of surgery and surgical operations (780– 791
K.), as well as purges (759–761 K.). Perhaps Seuerus noted the absence of enemas in
contemporary synopses, so set down a summary of his own, expanded from lines and
paragraphs in Gale ̄nic writings: e.g. ibid., 675–676, or Gale ̄n, Venesection against E
6 (11.168 K. = Brain p. 28), “.. .the Egyptian bird [ibis] imitating the enema,”
both based on H 2.76–77, compared with Seuerus, pp. 1–2, whose bird-lore
on the Egyptian Ibis converges reasonably with Timotheos’ On Animals (50.3: Bodenheimer
and Rabinowitz, p. 48).
The nomenclature of surgical instruments bears some affinities with the text analyzed
by Bliquez ( pp. 195–197), but adds names of its own, and the synopsis on the Seven-Month
Child has some overlap with -G, H  P 34, and -
G D 451 (19.331, 454 K.), but is not derivative. “Simple” enemas (water)
precede the paragraphs on particular substances, all familiar from earlier Greco-Roman
writings on botanical pharmacology: beets, centaury, colocynths, mints, leeks, wormwoods


SEUERIANUS OF GABALA
Free download pdf