O ̄ros of Mende ̄s (300 BCE – 75 CE)
P, listing him as a doctor providing drugs from animals (1.ind.29), cites his remedy for
weasel bites (37.138): crush the iritis stone (unidentified), and roast it. A P.
in G Antid. 2.7 (14.144–145 K.) names him, as younger than O, and before (?)
H A and A, as a writer of verses giving antidotes. A
A 7.35 (CMG 8.2, p. 286) refers to his collyrium against muokephalon (eye-disease char-
acterized by growths in the shape of a fly’s head), and 15.27 (Zervos 1909: 124) gives his
“nine-ingredient” wound-cream, good also as a pessary and a hedrike ̄: goose-fat, calf-fat,
beeswax, terebinth, butter, deer-marrow, rose oil, castor oil, and honey. Notwithstanding
Iliad 11.303, the name is probably Egyptian: M in Iosephus Ap. 1.96, Paus. 2.30.6.
RE 18.1 (1939) 1183 (#5, 7), W. Kroll.
PTK
Paulus Orosius (ca 385 – 420 CE)
Christian historian and theologian. His most famous work, Historiae aduersum Paganos, written
at the suggestion of A, covers the history of the world from the Creation to
approximately 416 CE. Orosius began his universal history with a long and detailed geo-
graphical description of the entire world, the earliest attested Roman historian to thus open
his history. Orosius’ geographical description conforms to the classical tradition, but his
precise sources are hard to identify. He may have used information which ultimately traces
back to a survey of the world, produced by A. Orosius began with the tripartite
division of the world into Asia, Europe, and Africa and described the provinces of the three
continents with their cities, rivers, and mountains. Orosius’ geographical survey became
very influential in the Middle Ages (more than 200 MSS survive), and was sometimes
transmitted separately from the rest of Orosius’ book. It was used by later writers, such as
I H, and by mapmakers. Orosius’ history was translated into Old English
in the 9th c. on the initiative of King Alfred the Great, and geographical information
therein was updated and complemented by contemporary accounts about northern Europe,
provided by travelers.
Ed.: M.-P. Arnaud-Lindet, Orose. Histoires: contre les paiens 3 vv. (CUF 1990 – 1991).
R.J. Deferrari, trans., The Seven Books of History Against the Pagans (1964); KP 4.350–351, B.R. Voss;
PLRE 2 (1980) 813; Y. Janvier, La géographie d’Orose (CUF 1982); OCD3 1078, E.D. Hunt; TTE
462 – 463, Z.R.W.M. von Martels; Natalia Lozovsky, “The Earth Is Our Book”: Geographical Knowledge in
the Latin West ca. 400– 1000 (2000); BNP 10 (2007) 240–242, U. Eigler.
Natalia Lozovsky
Orpheus, pseudo (Astrol.) (ca 200 BCE – 200 CE?)
Legendary poet whose syncretistic mystery cult propounded metempsychosis, was influ-
enced by Pythagoreanism, and informed Neo-Platonism and Dionysian mystery rites.
Concerned primarily with theogony, Eleusinian and Dionysian mythology, eschatology, and
ritual prescriptions, the Orphic Corpus includes also astrological, medical, and lapidary
fragments (see -O, L).
In an Argonautika, an autobiographical account of Orpheus’ participation in the Argo’s
voyage heavily influenced by Apollo ̄nios of Rhodes’ version, the poet inventories his inter-
ests and writings, including divination by birds, beasts, entrails, dreams, and stars (1.33–39:
ORPHEUS, PSEUDO (ASTROL.)