So ̄krate ̄s (Med.) (10 BCE – 100 CE)
G, Eupor. 3 (14.501 K.), cites his “famous pill” for headaches and migraines, contain-
ing thapsia juice, euphorbia (cf. I), ginger, opium, and opopanax, in vinegar, the
patient to be rubbed on the forehead or fumigated therewith. S (?) in C
A, Chron. 3.151 (CML 6.1.2, p. 770), listing him with A B
and T, describes his dropsy-cure: multiple incisions are cauterized to induce
spasm. Diels 2 (1907) 92 lists a Paris MS, BNF 1202 (13th c.), f.16, containing excerpts.
RE 3A.1 (1927) 893 (#11), F.E. Kind.
PTK
So ̄krate ̄s of Argos (300 – 50 BCE)
Wrote a perie ̄ge ̄sis of Argos (D L 2.47), possibly geographical, although
the sole secure fragment (FGrHist 310 F1) concerns religion; other fragments trace geneal-
ogies, treat religious and funerary practices, and mythology (F3–6, from P, concern
Argos). This man, or a homonymous grammarian from Ko ̄s, wrote on religious topics. The
So ̄krate ̄s credited with On Boundaries, Places, Fires and Stones, is probably S (L.).
RE 3A.1 (1927) 804–810, esp. 806 (#3), A. Gudeman; NP 11.687 (#7), A.A. Donohue.
PTK and GLIM
So ̄kratio ̄n (250 BCE – 110 CE)
K records, in G CMLoc 5.3 (12.835–6 K.), his refined lotion for leikhe ̄n, com-
pounded from asphodel and alkuoneion, reduced in vinegar, in which are dissolved
ammo ̄niakon incense, myrrh, frankincense, olive oil, salted meal, raw sulfur, misu, khal-
kitis, Kimolian earth, alum, and aphronitron. So ̄krate ̄s and its variations (So ̄kratida ̄s,
So ̄kratide ̄s) are not uncommon; for So ̄kratio ̄n cf. Catullus 47.1.
RE 3A.1 (1927) 901 (#2), F.E. Kind.
GLIM
S ⇒ I S
Solo ̄n of Smurna (250 BCE – 75 CE)
Listed by P 1.ind. 20 – 27 as an authority on botanical medicines, cited on orache (hard
to grow in Italy: 20.220) and on the unidentified plant bulapathum ( prescribed in wine for
dysentery: 20.235). A, in G CMLoc 3.1 (12.630 K.), calling him a diet-
ician, cites his ear-medicine: reduce alum, castoreum, saffron, frankincense, myrrh, and
opium in honeyed wine to honey-like viscosity.
RE 3A.1 (1927) 979 (#7), F.E. Kind.
PTK
Sophar/So ̄phar the Persian (before 8th/9th c. CE)
Alchemist, pseudonymous if not entirely fictitious. The A A
P claims that Sophar was discussed in a lost work attributed to O
(CAAG 2.120–121; Bidez and Cumont 1938: 329).
(*)
Bink Hallum
SO ̄KRATE ̄S (MED.)