Neilos (ca 250 – 300 CE)
Alchemist and member of T’s alchemical milieu. Z P,
addressing Theosebeia, calls Neilos “your priest” (CAAG 2.191) and urges her to disassoci-
ate from him. Elsewhere Zo ̄simos refers to “the pseudo-prophet of yours” (Festugière
1950: 367), almost certainly an allusion to Neilos, in connection with an astrological/
alchemical doctrine employing astral daimones in alchemical procedures which Zo ̄simos
considers dangerous. Zo ̄simos’ diatribe against reliance on the use of astrologically oppor-
tune moments in alchemy (Mertens 1995, §1) should also be read as tacitly directed against
Neilos. Although none of Neilos’ writings survives, Chapters of Neilos, now lost, are
announced in the index of the alchemical miscellany, codex Marcianus gr. 299 (CMAG 2.21).
D. Stolzenberg, “Unpropitious Tinctures. Alchemy, Astrology & Gnosis According to Zosimos of
Panopolis,” AIHS 49 (1999) 3–31; K.A. Frazer, “Zosimos of Panopolis and the Book of Enoch:
Alchemy as Forbidden Knowledge,” Aries 4.2 (2004) 125–147.
Bink Hallum
N ⇒ P
Nemesianus, M. Aurelius Olympius, of Carthage (fl. 284 CE)
Wrote three didactic poems in Latin on hunting and fishing: Halieutica, Cynegetica, Nautica
( perhaps rather: Ixeutica?), and five pastoral eclogues. Only 325 lines of the Cynegetica remain,
discussing rearing dogs (103–238), training horses (238–298) and nets and traps (299–320).
Nemesianus also alludes, mimetically and conventionally, to different hound breeds and
their main diseases (scabies and rabies). The truncated hexameter poem, inspired by
V and probably by G and O, ends before the description of the
hunt. Two fragments on bird-catching (de aucupio vel Ixeutica) in 28 hexameters (the woodcock
and the little bustard) are spurious.
KP 4.47–48, R. Herzog; OCD3 1033 – 1034, J.H.D. Scourfield.
Arnaud Zucker
Nemesios of Emesa (ca 360 – 430 CE)
Bishop of Emesa in Syria, brilliant author of the philosophical and scientific On the Nature
of Man (Peri phuseo ̄s anthro ̄pou), whose title is borrowed from the H C,
wherein Nemesios contributes to establishing Christian anthropology (following Origen,
and G N’s On the Creation of man). Based on pagan scientific tradition rather
than Christian literature, this text, probably unfinished, tries to reconcile Christianity and
neo-Platonism. Asserting the eternity of the world, the pre-existence of the soul, and a
subtle union (without blending) between soul and body, in the manner of P,
Nemesios assumes the body’s natural limitations condition man’s spiritual life. Although he
never mentions a personal practice, Nemesios’ exceptional medical education and current
physiological knowledge permitted him to discuss and even refute G (on the anatomy
of the tongue: §30; on female semen: §42). He was apparently aware of the circulatory
system and the functions of bile (§§24, 28). He is, in fact, especially renowned for a “ventricular
theory” of the mind (§§ 6 – 13). Gale ̄n asserted that reasoning is localized in ventricles (Loc. Aff.
4.3 [8.232 K.]) and Gregory claimed that “the cerebral membrane... forms a foundation
NEILOS