offers the same preparation for use as a hair remover; Sex-
tius had stated that the salamander did not quench fire, a
“fact” replicated by both Pliny and Dioskouride ̄s.
C A, Acute 3.134 (Drabkin, p. 386;
CML 6.1.1, p. 372), notes Sextius was a “friend” (amicus)
of a “Tullius” Bassus, probably the I B also
mentioned by Dioskouride ̄s (MM Pr.2), and G
(Simples 11.797 K.) lists Sextius Niger alongside Dioskou-
ride ̄s, H T, and K, as
essential reading for the pharmacologist-in-training. If
Pliny’s excerpts are representative, Sextius Niger special-
ized in harsh and dangerous drugs made from minerals
and various animals (e.g. the kantharides [blister beetles]:
NH 29.93–96, and MM 2.61) employed as aphrodisiacs,
depilatories, and slowly-acting poisons. Wellmann’s
collected fragments are all that remain from Sextius
Niger’s writing (cross-quotations in Pliny, E,
E, Dioskouride ̄s, and Gale ̄n).Ed.: M. Wellmann, “II. Sextius Niger, A. Testimonia vitae doctrinae” in Pedanii Dioscuridis Anazarbei De
materia medica, v.3 (1914) 146–148.
M. Wellmann, “Sextius Niger. Eine Quellenuntersuchungen zu Dioskorides,” Hermes 24 (1889)
530 – 569; John Scarborough, “Some Beetles in Pliny’s Natural History,” Coleopterists Bulletin 31 (1977)
293 – 296; Idem, “Remedies: The Blister Beetles” in “Nicander’s Toxicology II: Spiders, Scorpions,
Insects and Myriapods, pt. 2,” PhH 21 (1979) 73–80; Idem (1982); Idem and Nutton (1982) 206
[Sextius Niger] and 210–212 [aloe]; M. Davies and J. Kithirithamby, Greek Insects (1986) 91– 94
(bouprestis and kantharis); Beavis (1988) 168–175 (kantharis and bouprestis).
John Scarborough
Sextus Empiricus (ca 100 – 200 CE)
The only ancient Greek skeptic of whom complete works survive. Virtually the only thing
known about him is that he was a doctor. D L 9.116, and others, refer to
him as a member of the Empiric school, as his name suggests. In one puzzling passage
Sextus expresses a preference for the Methodic school over the Empiric; but his criticism
may be only of one particular form of Empiricism. Sextus belonged to the Pyrrhonist
skeptical tradition, whose method, as he explains it, was as follows.
The skeptic assembles opposing arguments and impressions on any given topic. These
arguments and impressions are found to exhibit isostheneia, “equal strength”; each of them
appears no more or less persuasive than any of the others. Given this situation, the skeptic
suspends judgment. And this suspension in turn is supposed to yield ataraxia, “freedom from
worry.” The Pyrrhonist skeptic does not claim that knowledge of things is impossible; that too
is a topic about which he suspends judgment. Rather, the skeptic refrains from all pretensions
to knowledge – or even to belief – about how things really are. There is considerable dispute
about what falls under the heading of “how things really are.” But it is at least clear that the
findings of natural science are among the matters on which the skeptic suspends judgment.
Sextus applied this method, unrestricted as to subject-matter and clearly intended to be
employed globally, to the central topics of ancient physics in Against the Physicists ( part of a
Sextius Niger (Vind. Med. Gr. l,
f.2V) © Österreichische National-
bibliothek
SEXTUS EMPIRICUS