Moskhio ̄n or Moskhos (220 – 180 BCE)
Moskhio ̄n’s treatise Me ̄khanika described every aspect of the construction of H II’s
massive ship Surakousia overseen by Arkhias, A, and Phileas of Tauromenion:
sources and preparation of materials, workmen and workmanship, adornments, including
artwork and a private library, launching the ship, battlements, siege engines, defensive lea-
ther “shields,” masts, and a screw for pumping out bilge water (Ath., Deipn. 5 [206d-209e]).
Moskhio ̄n also described the invention of the sambuke ̄ by H T (idem,
14 [634b]).
RE 16.1 (1933) 356 (#7), K. Orinsky.
GLIM
Moskhio ̄n (Pharm.) (90 BCE – 80 CE)
Within a seriatim listing of pharmaceutical recipes culled from A P.,
G inserts a formula from the books of the “very familiar” or “celebrated” (gno ̄rimos)
Moskhio ̄n, an always-reliable compound that removed calluses and heavy scar-tissue (CMGen
2.14 [13.528–529 K.]), made from notably caustic simples, including litharge, psimuth-
ion, and quicklime (asbestos), fashioned into a plaster using deer marrow, beeswax, and
myrtle oil (cf. K, ibid. 5.3 [13.787–794]); such ingredients were typical in the pharma-
ceutical cosmetics of the day, and one notes similar substances especially in the treatment
of alo ̄pekia (cf. Moskhio ̄n [emended from Moskhos] in Gale ̄n, CMLoc 1.2. [12.401 K.]: sea
urchins + ashed shells, and ibid., [12.416 K.] cat or crocodile dung, bear fat, ashed frog,
sharp vinegar, white hellebore, among several). Gale ̄n there indicates that Moskhio ̄n was
one of a group of pharmacologists whose collection of recipes he has consulted, including
also Askle ̄piade ̄s “the Pharmacist” and H T. Gale ̄n’s excerpts from
this handbook show Moskhio ̄n and others specializing in wound treatments, the manu-
facture of collyria, and arte ̄riakai. Moskhio ̄n understood the narcotic properties of opium
latex and mandrake, illustrated by a collyrium-formula, also noted as invented by Moskhio ̄n
gno ̄rimos (Gale ̄n, CMLoc 4.8 [12.745 K.]). Moskhio ̄n’s styptic wound-clotter (Askle ̄piade ̄s
Pharm. in CMGen 2.17 [13.537–539 K.; cf. 13.528 and 646–647]), good for fractures,
hemorrhoids, and other bleeding skin-lesions, is a complex, 14–ingredient, multi-staged
preparation, altered somewhat as “fashioned by our mentor L (ho he ̄meteros kathe ̄ge ̄te ̄s
Leukios),” and includes litharge, decocted pine-pitch, frankincense, beeswax, and fig-juice,
to be applied with wine and sharp vinegar. Moskhio ̄n followed A B
on pulsation as arising from the heart, veins, arteries, and the brain, to emerge as a single
pulsation via the meninges (Gale ̄n, Puls. Diff. 16 [8.758–759 K.]), and is thereby grouped
with those called Askle ̄piadeans, even though Gale ̄n is unusually mild with his criticism
in these passages. A (known to A) followed Moskhio ̄n’s work,
providing the terminus ante of 80 CE; if we emend the MOSCHI of C 5.18B.10 to
MOSCHIONIS, his terminus ante could even be 40 CE. In either case, he is probably the man
cited by P 19.87, for a book on the radish.
RE 16.1 (1933) 349–350 (#9), K. Deichgräber; BNP 9 (2006) 227 (#4), V. Nutton.
John Scarborough
MOSKHIO ̄N (PHARM.)