Dioskouride ̄s of Anazarbos (ca 40 – 80 CE)
The De materia medica (Greek: Peri hule ̄s iatrike ̄s) is one of
the most influential works of its kind, but its gifted and
energetic author is almost unknown, biographically.
Dioskouride ̄s’ birthplace was the small city of Anazar-
bos, about 100 km east north-east from Tarsos on a
major highway in the Roman province of Cilicia. Com-
paring passages in P’ Natural History with similar
extracts in the De materia medica reveals both quoting
independently from S N, so probably
Dioskouride ̄s was born sometime in the reign of
Tiberius or Caligula, and set down his observations in
the same decade as Pliny composed his encyclopedia. In
the Preface to the De materia medica, Dioskouride ̄s intimates
he studied herbal pharmacology at Tarsos, and that here
were teachers of medical botany, and medicaments fab-
ricated from animal products and minerals; an early and
respected instructor was A T, to whom
Dioskouride ̄s dedicates the De materia medica. G
notes that Areios was a famous teacher in Tarsos in
the right decade, and the De materia medica and other texts reflect teaching centers in
the eastern half of the Roman Empire, cities with reputations for given subjects avail-
able for instruction. Alexandria in Egypt long remained a center for medical learning, and
other urban clusters of medical education existed in Laodikeia, Ephesos, and probably
Smurna.
Dioskouride ̄s traveled widely in the Greek-speaking parts of the empire: prominent are
his citations of herbal lore and pharmacology in Egypt, Syria, Palestine, various provinces
in Asia Minor, Greece and the Islands, and he visited Greek communities in Sicily, southern
Italy, and southern Gaul. He was not part of his contemporary elite, although Areios’
connections with the consular Bassus suggest intermittent if occasionally important con-
tacts. Preface 4 (oistha gar he ̄min stratio ̄tikon ton bion) does not mean that Dioskouride ̄s was a
military physician, but perhaps he had served in an eastern legion for short periods as a
civilian doctor, a common custom in the western legions. “My soldier’s life” likely says that
Dioskouride ̄s lived as a soldier as he journeyed from region to region, listening to the
inhabitants and surviving on the minimum of food, drink, and clothing. Perhaps he made
his living as an itinerant physician in the manner of the medical travelers recorded in
the works under the name of H.
Dioskouride ̄s arranges his material into five books, writing in the Preface that his way of
organization is superior to previous compilations of drugstuffs, but he never explicitly
explains his new scheme. Clues are the linking of “similars” in each book, or as he writes in
Preface 3, “... [not] using the alphabetical arrangement which splits materia medica and their
properties from those which they are closely related.” Drugs will be classed according to the
dunameis (almost always “properties” to Dioskouride ̄s) they evince as pharmaceuticals, as
they “act” in or on the body of a patient. Sense-perceptions (quite probably adapted from
T) are central: smells linked with tastes identify drugs in Book 1 (aromatic
oils, salves, trees, and shrubs, and the strongly fragrant liquids, gums, and fruits produced by
Dioskouride ̄s of Anazarbos
(Vind. Med. Gr. l, f.3V) © Österreich-
ische Nationalbibliothek
DIOSKOURIDE ̄S OF ANAZARBOS