horse tongue administered in wine) from barbari (Pliny 28.200). His identification with
C M is uncertain.
Fabricius (1726) 103.
GLIM
Bio ̄n of Abde ̄ra (330 – 270 BCE?)
Hypothesized six-month days and six-month nights in polar regions (thus likely not long
after P), according to De ̄me ̄trios of Magnesia in D L 4.58, who
identifies him as a mathe ̄matikos (sc. “astrologer”), and seems to place him before B
S. According to P (fr.137 E–K in S 1.2.21), Bio ̄n the astrologos,
along with A and T, hypothesized a richer wind-rose than H.
DK 77.
PTK
Bio ̄n of Soloi (325 – 250 BCE)
Bio ̄n the agronomist is most likely identical to the historian of the same name whose multi-
book account of the geography and ethnography of “Ethiopia” was based on first-hand
travels. His agricultural interests – whether recorded in a separate treatise, it is unclear –
included cereals, livestock, poultry, viticulture, and arboriculture (V, RR 1.1.8, P
1.ind.8, 10, 14–15, 17–18). A title in Pliny, 1.ind.28, implies that he also wrote about the
properties of drugs made from animal products. His travels probably postdate Alexander’s
conquest of Egypt, but as his figures for the dimensions of “Ethiopia” are cruder than
E’, he presumably precedes him.
Ed.: FGrHist 668.
RE 3.1 (1897) 483 (#9), E. Schwartz.
Philip Thibodeau
Bithus of Durrakhion (80 BCE? – 75 CE)
Although P 28.82 only records Bithus’ magical claims about mirrors and menstru-
ation, Bithus appears in his index (1.ind.28) among Latin medical writers. A,
in G CMGen 5.12 (13.836–837 K.), records the trokhiskos which Bithunos made
in Sicily, containing pomegranate-peel, calamine, birthwort, frankincense, Illyrian iris,
oak-galls, khalkanthon, khalkitis, misu, etc. (prepared when Sirius shines); Gale ̄n
himself approves it, Simples 10.2.13 (12.276 K.). The trokhiskos is prescribed, with wine,
by A A 4.12 (CMG 8.1, p. 365), and for auricular phlegm by P
A, 7.12.28 (CMG 9.2, p. 319), slightly altered. The name is Thrakian, cf. P,
Aratos 34.1; CIL 3.703, 12391, 12395 and LGPN (esp. v.4).
(*)
PTK
Bito ̄n (170 – 160 BCE?)
Wrote a treatise on catapults and siege devices, The Construction of War Machines and Artillery,
dedicated to King Attalos, so it must be dated in the reigns of Attalos I–III, i.e. 241– 133
BITO ̄N