immoderately enriched the Roman Republic. Like contemporary kings (A,
A, and N), he practiced pharmacy, with the legendary intent of immun-
izing himself against all poisons, by often sampling each: P 25.5–7; G Antid. 1.1
(14.2–5 K.). P L translated his Greek into Latin, and numerous pharma-
cists of the 1st c. CE record antidotes alleged to be his, from a simple one, “in his own
hand,” of walnuts, figs, and rue (Pliny 23.49; cf. Pliny Jr. 3.33.4, Gellius 17.16), through
the earliest known, of 37 ingredients, C 5.23.3, to one of 54 ingredients, Pliny
29.24 (no recipe). The more complex recipes all include cinnamon (usually with cassia),
kostos, myrrh, pepper, and saffron, and most add frankincense, parsley, and skordion:
A and K in Gale ̄n, Antid. 2.1 (14.108), Celsus, D ibid.
2.2 (14.115–117), X ibid. 2.10 (14.164–165), A, ibid. 2.1 (14.107),
2.7 (14.148), and 2.9 (14.152–155), and A P. in Gale ̄n CMLoc 10.1
(13.329–330 K.). The last two pharmacists also credit him with throat-remedies, in Gale ̄n
CMLoc 7.2 (13.23–25, 52–56), all containing cinnamon, cassia, frankincense, myrrh, and
saffron. K named a plant mithradatia (Pliny 25.62), and agrimony was known as
eupatoria in his honor (25.65; cf. D 4.41). He was the subject of a play by
Racine (1673), an Italian opera by Mozart (1770), a poem by Housman (1896), and several
20th/21st c. English novels.
Fr. de Callataÿ, L’histoire des guerres mithridatiques vue par les monnaies (1997) 235–388.
PTK
Mnaseas (Method.) (54 – 68 CE)
Physician listed among the Methodists; S accepts him as one of “his” sect:
“Mnaseas says that some [women] are by nature healthy, but others are by nature less than
healthy, and among those who are less than healthy some are more constricted (stegnoteron)
than not, some are more ‘flowing’ (rhoo ̄desteron, i.e. ‘lax’ or ‘unconstricted’) than not” (Gyn.
1.6.29 [CMG 4, p. 19; CUF v. 1, p. 24]). Similarly Methodist is Mnaseas’ bipartite diag-
nosis of lethargy: one kind is from a state of stricture, another kind from a state of laxity
(solutio: C A, Acut. 2.24 [Drabkin, p. 134; CML 6.1.1, p. 144]); and he
thinks that paralysis is caused by contraction (paraleipsis) saying that sometimes paralysis is a
constriction (here extentio) and sometimes a loosening (solutio; Chron. 2.16 [Drabkin, p. 574;
CML 6.1.2, p. 554]). Later, -G, I 4, lists him among the Meth-
odists: “after T T, then Mnaseas, D, P, A-
” (14.684 K.). Once, So ̄ranos compares (or contrasts?) him with H:
“He ̄rophilos and Mnaseas – although basing their opinions on differing doctrines – both
state that in some women, menstruation is health-producing, in others it is not” (Gyn. 1.6.27
[CMG 4, p. 17; CUF v. 1, p. 22]). Nevertheless, perhaps because S E,
Pyrrh. 1.34 (esp. 1.34.236–237), describes a physician who combined Methodism with
Skepticism, some modern scholars have ranked Mnaseas with the Skeptics (Deichgräber
1930/1965: 267, n.2; cf. Tecusan, pp. 60–61). Mnaseas is typical of Methodists, who were
rarely rigidly sectarian.
Mnaseas’ effective and simple plaster is recommended by several authorities, Methodist
and not. P A, 7.27.21 (CMG 9.2, p. 353), gives its basic recipe of five
common and easily compounded ingredients: one litra each of beeswax and pig’s fat
(“lard”), six ounces of scammony-resin (Convolvulus scammonia L.), two litrai of litharge,
mixed with four litrai of good wine. As Paul says, this is an excellent “diaphoretic,” i.e., a
MNASEAS (METHOD.)