Mediterranean) in three books (GGM 1.563–573), of which only fragments are extant. His
Periplous te ̄s exo ̄ thalasse ̄s, however, is preserved almost completely (GGM 1.515–562). After
a prooimion with some general deliberations about the structure of the world and references
to P and P (G.), his primary sources, a first book describes the
world from the Gulf of Aqaba (Arabios kolpos) to the Indian Ocean, from the Persian Gulf
to the “Gulf of the Chinese” (kolpos to ̄n Sino ̄n). A second book describes the coasts of the
Atlantic Ocean from Spain to Britain.
RE S.6 (1935) 271–281, F. Gisinger; RE S.10 (1965) 772–789, E. Polaschek; PLRE 1 (1971) 555; HLB
1.528; ODB 1302, A. Kazhdan.
Andreas Kuelzer
M ⇒ M
Marcomir (500 – 600 CE)
Wrote in Gothic a geography of Europe, covering Denmark to Spain, giving data
about tribes unknown to earlier geographers, and cited extensively by the R
C, Book 4. See also A and H.
Staab (1976); DPA 4 (2005) 268–269, R. Goulet.
PTK
Maria (100 BCE – 250 CE?)
Jewish, among the earliest alchemists in Hellenistic Egypt, highly regarded by later alchem-
ists for descriptions of furnaces and other apparatus, many of which are thought to be
her own inventions, given in her Descriptions of Furnaces, first mentioned by Z
P (CAAG 2.240; see Festugière 1950: 365) and perhaps identical with On Furnaces
and Apparatus (Mertens 1995, §1.2). Presumably in this work Maria gave her instructions,
often quoted by later alchemical authors, for making and using various chemical equip-
ment including stills, the ke ̄rotakis reflux device, furnaces and baths for slow, constant
heating (CAAG 2.224–227). A hot water bath in culinary use today, the bain-marie, bears
testament to her. Zo ̄simos also attributes to her the Procedures for the Making of a Little
Image (CAAG 2.157). None of her works survives in the original Greek, but a few short
and possibly apocryphal treatises and fragments exist in Arabic (Ullmann 1972: 181–183)
one of which, The Crown and the Nature of Creation, was thought by its modern translator
(Holmyard 1927: 162) to be a genuine translation from the Greek, if not an authentic work
of Maria.
E.J. Holmyard, “An Alchemical Tract Ascribed to Mary the Copt,” Archeion 8 (1927) 161–167;
R. Patai, “Maria,” Ambix 29 (1982) 177–197.
Bink Hallum
Marianus (490 – 520 CE)
Erudite poet, perhaps an epigrammatist (if identifiable with Marianus Skholastikos, Anth.
Graec., 9.668–669, etc.), of Roman patrician origin, lived under Anastasios (491–518).
He metrically paraphrased numerous Alexandrine poems, including epics (Apollo ̄nios of
Rhodes, K, and Theokritos: Souda M-194) and transposed various didactic,
MARIANUS