p. 303). Gale ̄n (ibid. p. 287) preserves his interpretation of Epidemics 6.5.15 (5.320 Littré), that
the humor black bile indeed tracks the outbreak of hemorrhoids, and describes how he
diagnosed an excess of black bile in the blood extracted during phlebotomy, and cured
the patient with black-bile-expelling drugs and a balanced diet: Atra Bile 4.12 (CMG 5.4.1.1,
p. 78, repeated by O, Coll. 45.20.3, CMG 6.2.1, pp. 176–177).
RE 4A.1 (1931) 327 (#3), F.E. Kind.
PTK
Stuppax of Cyprus (460 – 430 BCE)
Inventor of a starting-gate at Olympia, according to P. Berol. P-13044, col.8 (anethnic).
Lippold identified him with the sculptor Stuppax of P 22.44, 34.81, whose “Entrail-
Roaster” bronze depicted a favorite slave of Perikle ̄s. The name seems otherwise unattested.
RE 4A.1 (1931) 454–455, A. Lippold.
PTK
Sudine ̄s (fl. ca 240 BCE)
Although Sudine ̄s is mentioned by S (16.1.6) as a Babylonian mathe ̄matikos, together
with K and N, no cuneiform evidence for his existence is extant. The
Babylonian equivalent of the name is also a puzzle, although an Akkadian name with the
common ending -iddin “he has given” is possible. A Sudine ̄s was named as a diviner (ba ̄ru ̄) by
Polyaenus 4.20: the ba ̄ru ̄ interpreted omens from extispicy, as Sudine ̄s supposedly did for
King Attalos I of Pergamon before fighting and defeating the Gauls ca 235 BCE. While
Babylonian astronomers were frequently also celestial diviners and experts on ritual and
magic, the combination of astronomy and extispicy is not so common. Evidence that
Sudine ̄s wrote on the properties of stones comes exclusively from Pliny, whose information
is limited to Sudine ̄s’ alleged knowledge of the provenance of onyx (36.59), rock-crystal
(37.25), amber (37.34), nilios (37.114), and comments on the color of pearls (9.115), onyx
(37.90) and astrion (37.133).
Pliny also mentions Sudine ̄s (9.115; 36.59; 37.25, 34, 90, 114, 153) as a “Khaldaean
astrologer.” Consistent with this designation is the papyrus fragment written in the
3rd c. CE, purportedly summarizing a commentary on P’s Timaeus by the Stoic
P (P. Gen. inv. 203). Here the influences of the five planets, Sun and Moon are
enumerated in terms of Aristotelian qualities (warm, moist, dry) and further indications are
given for the planets Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, and Venus as the “destroyers” of men and
women, young and old. Venus is the destroyer of women “according to Sudine ̄s.”
V V lists parameters for the length of the year according to Greek and
Babylonian astronomy (9.11). There Sudine ̄s is associated with year length of 365 ¼ +^1 / 3 +
(^1) / 5 days, which makes neither numerical nor astronomical sense. Valens adds that he used
Sudine ̄s (and Kide ̄nas and A P) to compute lunar eclipses and that he
normed the equinoxes and solstices at 8 ̊ of their signs (9.12.10). This originally Babylonian
norm for the cardinal points of the year was established perhaps ca 300 BCE for a zodiac in
which degrees were not counted from the vernal point, however, but from the sidereally
fixed zodiacal signs beginning with Aries (“The Hired Man” in the Babylonian zodiac). The
8 ̊ of Aries as the vernal point underlies much of Hellenistic astrological texts and continued
in use throughout late antiquity.
SUDINE ̄S