So ̄takos (320 – 270 BCE)
Lapidary author (On stones) according to A P. 36, and whom P
1.ind. 36 – 37 includes among foreign authors. Pliny, citing So ̄takos on magnetite (36.128–129),
hematite (36.146–148), amber (37.35), sardonyx (37.86), onyx (37.90), keraunia (37.135) and
drakonite (37.158), quotes him among the most ancient writers; this might suggest that our
author dates to the late 4th c. BCE. So ̄takos probably used P M for
information about Britain, reported by Pliny 37.35. Pliny 1.ind.37 lists So ̄takos with Putheas
and other authors who probably spoke about northern European amber.
GGLA 1 (1891) 860–861; RE 3A.1 (1927) 1211, F.E. Kind; K.G. Sallmann, Die Geographie des älteren Plinius
in ihrem Verhältnis zu Varro. Versuch einer Quellenanalyse (1971) 82–83; Ullmann (1972) 96–98; J. Kolendo,
À la recherche de l’ambre baltique. L’expédition d’un chevalier romain sous Néron (1981) 68; A. Grilli, “La
documentazione sulla provenienza dell’ambra in Plinio,” Acme 36 (1983) 5–17; S. Bianchetti, Plo ̄ta kai
poreuta. Sulle tracce di una Periegesi anonima (1990) 78–82; Eadem, Pitea di Massalia. L’Oceano (1998) 204.
Eugenio Amato
So ̄teira (300 BCE – 77 CE)
Midwife (obstetrix) listed with L, E, and S as a foreign authority on drugs
obtained from animals (P 1.ind.28). She recommended smearing the soles of the feet
with a patient’s own menstrual blood to treat fevers and epilepsy (28.83).
RE 3A.1 (1927) 1239 (#3), F.E. Kind; Parker (1997) 145 (#47).
GLIM
So ̄tio ̄n (200 BCE – 65 CE)
Said by Pho ̄tios (Bibl. 189) to have written a booklet containing “miscellaneous marvelous
stories about rivers, springs and lakes” (ta sporadèn paradoxologoumena peri potamo ̄n kai kre ̄no ̄n kai
limno ̄n). That the short work treated exclusively various kinds of miraculous waters (unlike
other paradoxographical collections covering different parts of the physical world) elicited
the suggestion that this So ̄tio ̄n was the anonymous P F, but
this hypothesis cannot be supported. Likewise, it is impossible to tell whether the paradox-
ographer cited by Pho ̄tios is identical with the homonymous author of a treatise on agri-
cultural wonders (Paradoxa peri geo ̄rgias) mentioned in the G (arg. 1, v.1, p. 7
Nicl.), or with any other of the dozen of homonymous writers known from the early 2nd
c. BCE until the first half of the 1st c. CE.
Ed.: PGR 167 – 168.
RE 18.3 (1949) 1137–1166 (§29, 1161), K. Ziegler; Giannini (1964) 128; NP 11.754–755 (#1),
R.W. Sharples.
Jan Bollansée, Karen Haegemans, and Guido Schepens
So ̄tio ̄n of Alexandria (200 – 150 BCE)
Wrote the earliest comprehensive survey of philosophers. On the basis of Peripatetic
notions, he organized all philosophers in “schools,” one philosopher succeeding another, and
one school of philosophy linked up with another school. So ̄tio ̄n obviously wanted to impose
the organization of the four Hellenistic schools in Athens on the previous philosophical trad-
ition, hence the title of his book Successions of Philosophers. The two main lines of schools were
SO ̄TIO ̄N OF ALEXANDRIA