30 armin d. baum
these men had not yet treated the inscriptions dishonestly, but when each
book displayed its particular author in a clear statement.
Galen, In hippocratis de natura hominis commentarium 2 pr.
galen regarded the first part of On the Nature of Man as the work of
hippocrates but ascribed its second part to a hellenistic compiler and
thought that the third part had been written by Polybus, a pupil and son-
in-law of hippocrates. In this context galen also offers a short explanation
of the origin of pseudepigraphical books.35
I have expounded on the book itself “on the nature of Man” in the first part
of this work.
now I will turn to those things which have been incorrectly attached
to it, added while the book was being assembled. for the added work is a
single short book, in which the regimen of healthy people is discussed, and
it seems to be the writing of Polybus, the student of hippocrates.
In addition, between this and the “on the nature of Man,” something
else has been compiled, and appended by the one who first joined these
two short books into the same one, i.e. the “on the nature of Man” of
hippocrates himself and the “regimen of health” of Polybus.
for at the time when the attalid and Ptolemaic kings were vying with
each other in the acquisition of books, a recklessness began to arise with
respect to the attribution and preparation of books on the part of those who,
for money, brought back to the kings the writings of well-known men.
for since both of these books are short, the “on the nature of Man” and
the “regimen of health,” some person, considering each of them to be neg-
ligible on account of their shortness, placed them both together in the same
book. and perhaps some other person, or perhaps the same person who
first joined them, inserted some material between the two, which we will
now discuss.
Galen of Pergamum, In hippocratis prorrheticum I commentarium 2.17
In his Commentary on Hippocrates’ Prorrheticus I, galen speculated about
the actual author of the first volume of the Prorrheticus.36
What I have often said before I say now again. the one who wrote this book
appears to have had the same profession as the great hippocrates, but he
stays very much behind him. and therefore some have thought that this
writing was by dracon, hippocrates’ son, others that it was by thessalus.
35 trans. by W. J. lewis, online: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/~ucgajpd/medicina antiqua/tr_gnathom
.html.
36 My translation of h. diels (ed.), Galeni In Hippocratis Prorrheticum I commentaria III
(leipzig: teubner, 1915), 67,29–68,8.