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

(Ron) #1

with A (G); the fragments on lithika from Pliny are assigned to this
work (37.46, 95, 104, 107). But as D’ source was De ̄me ̄trios of Magnesia, fl. 50
BCE, this identification too must be rejected. Perhaps the most economical hypothesis is to
make one person of the geographer, Pliny’s writer on stones, the Arkhelaos of S
52.18 (on India), and A (L).


RE 2.1 (1895) 451–452 (#15), U. Wilcken and H. Berger; FGrHist 123; OCD3 144, S. Harrison.
Philip Thibodeau


Arkhelaos of Khersone ̄sos (270? – 180? BCE)


Mysterious Egyptian author (A, Mir. 19) of Special Natural Phenomena (Idiophue ̄, cf.
Ath. Deipn., 9 [409c]; D L 2.17). He seemingly transposed into elegiacs a
prose collection of marvels (Antigonos, Mir. 89) for Ptolemy III. Arkhelaos was more poet
and paradoxographer (A, NA 2.7) than phusikos. His only preserved epigram tells
how some animals arise from corpses of other animals, following the principle of sym-
pathy or similitude: scorpion from crocodile, wasp from horse, snake from human spinal
column (Antigonos, Mir. 19).


GGLA 1 (1891) 465–467; RE 2.1 (1895) 453–454 (#34), R. Reitzenstein.
Arnaud Zucker


Arkhestratos (250 – 150 BCE)


Musical theorist, quoted by P on the authority of D’ writings and
recalled by P as a scholar whose approach to harmonics was based more on
reason than perception, hence not Aristoxenian. According to Athe ̄naios (Deipn. 14 [634d]),
he wrote On Aulos Players.


RE 2.1 (1895) 459 (#13, 14), C. von Jan; BNP 1 (2002) 984–985 (#3), F. Zaminer; A.D. Barker,
“Diogenes of Babylon and Hellenistic Musical Theory,” in C. Auvray-Assayas and D. Delattre,
Cicéron et Philodème. La polemique en philosophie (2001) 353–370.
E. Rocconi


A ⇒ M


Arkhibios (50 – 75 CE)


Empiricist physician, lived after A  B (he knows a pharmaceutic
remedy by him: G CMGen 13.849 K.) and before A P. (from whom
Gale ̄n Antid. 14.159–160 K. derives an antidote by Arkhibios). Besides being a pharmacolo-
gist, he was a surgeon: his activity is documented by the surgical procedure in O
Coll. 46.11.31 (CMG 6.2.1 p. 222: from H) and P. Berol. 9764 (Pack^2 #2354) on
the teaching of surgery, against Dogmatic medicine (perhaps also a commentary on
H C, A 1.1). The name of Arkhibios is mentioned amongst
the sources of Book 18 of P, but what Pliny says about him at 18.294 is surprising:
Arkhibios suggested to one king Antiokhos of Syria that to avert bad weather, one buries in
a field a pot with a stolen frog inside. It is not certain that the physician Arkhibios in Lucian
Gall. 10 alludes to this Arkhibios.


Ed.: Deichgräber (1930) 21, 209–210, 407 (fragments).


ARKHIBIOS
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