oil, spikenard, sturax-gum, terebinth, and absinthe wormwood, in honey and Falernian
wine. The archaic name (cf. LGPN 3B.145) was seeing a late-antique revival: cf. LGPN
1.283–284, 2.401–402.
(*)
PTK
Esdras (100 – 500 CE?)
Greek physician of dubious historicity as he is identified in the MSS as a “great prophet”
(below) and a “teacher.” Whatever the case, the formulas for medicines with which he is
credited are of the same type as many antidotes from the 1st to 4th cc. CE. They might thus
date back to this period, and have been attributed to a possibly mythical Esdras at a later
period. So far, two formulas for compound medicines are known under his name: a
40 ingredient antidote made mainly of vegetals, with also brimstone, and used for the
treatment of a wide range of pathologies, from venoms and poisons to difficult childbirth,
headache, delirium, cough, fever, swellings, edema, gout and sciatica, for example (three
Greek MSS: Bologna, Biblioteca Universitaria, 1808, early 14th c.; Oxford, Bodleian
Library, Baroccianus 150, 15th c., and Roe 14, 15th c.; and one Latin: Monte Cassino,
Archivio della Badia, V.225, 11th c. [Beccaria 1956: 304], ascribed to Esdre). The other
medicine, which is a shorter version of the prior, was made of 27 ingredients, mostly
vegetals but plus also castoreum and dog’s flesh, and was prescribed against dropsy and
cold diseases (MSS: München, graecus 72, 16th c.; Roma, Biblioteca Angelica, 4, 15th c.;
Wien, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, med. gr. 31, 16th c., and 41, 14th c.).
Esdras prophe ̄te ̄s is cited in astrological texts (CCAG 8.3 [1912] 13, 26–27, 34, 64–65, 76,
88; CCAG 6 [1903] 51, 56), and in Venezia, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, appendix graeca
IV.46 (E. Mioni, Codices graeci manuscripti Bibliothecae Divi Marci Venetiarum I.2 [1972] 236).
Latin astrological texts circulated in the medieval West under Esdras’ name (Thorndike and
Kibre 1963: 427, 603, 739, 805, 837, 1444, 1451, 1453), but whether the medical and
astrological writers are the same man is uncertain.
Diels 2 (1907) 27, 37–38, Suppl. (1908) 50; M. Formentin, I codici greci di medicina nelle tre Venezie (1978)
50, 81.
Alain Touwaide
Euago ̄n of Thasos (325 – 90 BCE)
Authored a work on agriculture which may have treated cereals, livestock, poultry, viti-
culture, and arboriculture (cf. P, 1.ind.8, 10, 14–15, 17–18). It was used by C
D (V, RR 1.1.8–10, cf. C, 1.1.9).
RE 6.1 (1907) 820 (#2), M. Wellmann.
Philip Thibodeau
Euainetos (250 BCE – 100 CE?)
Wrote a commentary on A, entirely lost; there may have been two such men (FGrHist
1026 T19). The name is common before ca 100 CE and unattested thereafter (LGPN).
(*)
PTK
ESDRAS