building for musical performances called O ̄deion. He was ostracized around 440 BCE
(four ostraka were found with his name) and then, ten years later, came back to Athens
for teaching. The hypothesis that he delivered a speech in front of the Council titled Areopag-
iticus has recently been set aside as erroneous: echoes of his writings survive through
secondary sources, the most important of which are Plato, P and A
Q.
Damo ̄n’s main theoretical interests were the ethical effects of music which – as reported
by Plato Republic Book 3 – he seems to have categorized according to affinities between
musical structures (rhythms and harmoniai) and types of characters: hence the political and
social relevance of music, basic for the formation of citizens’ character. He also described
music and dance as the product of a special kind of movement in the soul, and seemed to
base the intimate relation between characters and musical forms on “qualitative” features –
in terms of male-female dichotomy – inherent in the elements out of which scales were
built (according to Aristeide ̄s Quintilianus, who cites Damo ̄n but may have added other
material).
Ed.: DK 37; F. Lasserre, Plutarque. De la Musique (1954) 53–79.
Barker (1984) 168–169; R. Wallace, “Damone di Oa ed i suoi successsori: un’analisi delle fonti,” in
R. Wallace and B. MacLachlan, edd., Harmonia mundi: musica e filosofia nell’antichità (1991) 30–53; BNP
4 (2004) 65–66 (#3), R. Harmon; Z. Ritoók, “Damon. Sein Platz in der Geschichte des ästhetischen
Denkens,” WSt 114 (2001) 59–68.
E. Rocconi
Damo ̄n of Kure ̄ne ̄ (225 – 185 BCE)
D L 1.40 cites his On the Philosophers, which criticized all the wise men (cf.
H), especially the Seven (T et al.). According to a Herculaneum papyrus
(Classen 179–180), he was a student of L.
C.J. Classen, “Bemerkungen zu zwei griechischen, Philosophiehistorikern’,” Philologus 109 (1965)
175 – 181.
PTK
Damonikos, Claudius (40 – 60 CE?)
Nestled among numerous sources and authorities in the “drug books” of A
P., as quoted by G, are two recipes by a “Damonikos,” with the second
as Claudius Damonikos, probably the same. Perhaps a specialist in compounding drugs
to heal inveterate and macrobiotic wounds and ailments, Claudius Damonikos formulates
pharmaceuticals to soften long-hardened fistulas (suringai) and leathery sores known as
phagedainika (Gale ̄n, CMGen., 4.13 [13.739–740 K.]), and to alleviate long-standing ear-
purulency (Gale ̄n, CMLoc., 3.1 [12.637 K.]). Ingredients are sensible and appropriate,
including beeswax, propolis (“bee-glue”), bitumen (asphaltos), boiled olive oil combined
with hot pine-pitch, terebinth-resin, heated fissile alum and litharge combined with
just-liquified aloe-sap and galbanum – cooled before application – to treat hardened
fistulas and phagedainika. For long-standing purulence oozing from the ears, Claudius
fashions a compound from saffron oil, myrrh, fissile alum, frankincense, Syrian spikenard,
Egyptian natron, and the pounded-smooth and purified “meat” of 30 walnuts, all mixed
in sharp vinegar; one “drips” this into the ear as further diluted in more vinegar; the
DAMONIKOS, CLAUDIUS