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PROBABLE NEW FRAGMENTS AND A TESTIMONIUM FROM GALEN'S COMMENTARY ON PLATO'S TIMAEVS

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 September 2019

Aileen R. Das
Aileen R. Das*
Affiliation:
University of Michigan
*
ardas@umich.edu
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Extract

As his writings tend to prioritize the incorporeal over the corporeal, Plato seems an unlikely authority on medicine. He does not appear to have engaged in any systematic investigation of the body through direct examination of animal anatomy, like his pupil Aristotle. Notwithstanding Plato's apparent lack of interest in anatomical research, modern scholars view his dialogues as valuable witnesses for earlier and contemporary theories about the body. Famously, the Phaedrus (270c–e) mentions Hippocrates’ holistic approach to studying the body. Out of all his dialogues, the Timaeus offers the most extensive comments about the nature of the body and its functions. Many of its physiological ideas, however, seem to derive from earlier medical and philosophical authorities such as Alcmaeon of Croton (fifth century), Empedocles (fifth century) and Philistion of Locri (fourth century) rather than from Plato himself.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 69 , Issue 1 , May 2019 , pp. 384 - 401
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 2019 

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Footnotes

The author wishes to thank Samer Ali, Cameron Cross, Pauline Koetschet, Glen M. Cooper and Peter E. Pormann for their helpful comments on the editions and translations of the Arabic material in this article. This paper has also benefited from the input of Richard Janko and the anonymous reader.

References

1 For Aristotle's comparative anatomical research, see Hist. an., Part. an., De motu an., Gen. an. and IA. On Aristotle's interest in medical subjects, see e.g. Longrigg, J., Greek Rational Medicine: Philosophy and Medicine from Alcmaeon to the Alexandrians (London, 1993), 149–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar; van der Eijk, P., ‘Aristotle on melancholy’, in id., Medicine and Philosophy in Classical Antiquity: Doctors and Philosophers on Nature, Soul, Health and Disease (Cambridge, 2005), 139–278CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Connell, S., Aristotle on Female Animals: A Study of the Generation of Animals (Cambridge, 2016)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 Some scholars have used this reference to argue for the ascription of certain Hippocratic treatises to the historical Hippocrates. See Steckerl, F., ‘Plato, Hippocrates, and the Menon papyrus’, CPh 40 (1945), 166–80Google Scholar; Joly, R., ‘La question hippocratique et le témoignage du Phèdre’, REG 74 (1961), 69–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Flashar, H., Antike Medizin (Darmstadt, 1971), 52–81Google Scholar; Lloyd, G.E.R., ‘The Hippocratic question’, CQ 25 (1975), 171–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Herter, H., ‘The problematic mention of Hippocrates in Plato's Phaedrus’, ICS 1 (1976), 22–42Google ScholarPubMed; and Mansfeld, J., ‘Plato and the method of Hippocrates’, GRBS 21 (1980), 341–62Google ScholarPubMed.

3 See especially Ti. 69d–81e.

4 On the influence of these earlier thinkers on the dialogue's discussion of the human body, see Cornford, F., Plato's Cosmology (Indianapolis and Cambridge, 1935), 283–4, 334, 343, 345, 375Google Scholar and Longrigg (n. 1), 49–53. See also Miller, H.W., ‘The aetiology of disease in Plato's Timaeus’, TAPA 42 (1962), 175–87Google Scholar and Grams, L., ‘Medical theory in Plato's Timaeus’, Rhizai 6 (2009), 161–92Google Scholar, who argue that Plato included some of his own medical ideas in the Timaeus.

5 In addition to the Timaeus, Galen refers to several Platonic dialogues in his texts, including, for example, the Republic (e.g. On the Doctrines of Hippocrates and Plato [= PHP] 9.2.5), Theaetetus (PHP 7.6.12–21), Phaedrus (On Hippocrates’ On the Nature of Man 15.12K) and the Sophist (PHP 5.2.39). Galen cites two other writers with the name of Plato in his corpus: the comic playwright Plato (On Hippocrates’ Aphorisms 18a.149K) and a physician called Plato (On the Composition of Drugs according to Places 13.60K), who seems to have composed a work on cauterization and hair (see Ullmann, M., Die Medizin im Islam [Leiden, 1970], 78–9Google Scholar and Kahl, O., ‘The pharmacological tables of Rhazes’, Journal of Semitic Studies 56 [2011], 367–99, at 384CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed). Besides Galen, no other extant ancient source mentions this second Plato. Drawing on the lost Chronology of the Physicians of Yaḥyā al-Naḥwī, Isḥāq ibn Ḥunayn, the son of the famous translator Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq, writes that this Plato is the fifth of the eight great physicians of antiquity. This Plato seems to have advocated an integrated approach to medicine that combines the Rationalist sect's emphasis on theory and the Empiricists’ emphasis on experience. See Rosenthal, F., ‘Isḥāq ibn Ḥunayn's Taʾrīḫ al-aṭibbāʾ’, Oriens 7 (1954), 55–80, at 65, 67, 75 and 77Google Scholar.

6 On the Powers [and Mixtures] of Simple Drugs ( = SMT) 11.445–54K and PHP passim.

7 For the Arabic text of Galen's Synopsis of Plato's Timaeus, see Kraus, P. and Walzer, R. (edd.), Galeni Compendium Timaei Platonis (London, 1951), 3–34Google Scholar. According to Rashed, M. (‘Le Prologue perdu de l'abrégé du Timée de Galien dans un texte de magie noire’, Antiquorum Philosophia 3 [2009], 89–100)Google Scholar, the prologue of this Galenic synopsis appears to be preserved in the Arabo-Latin magical treatise Book of the Laws (Liber aneguemis). Fragments from Books 1 to 3 of Galen's On the Medical Statements in Plato's Timaeus survive in Greek. Daremberg, C. (Fragments du Commentaire de Galien sur le Timée de Platon en grec et en français [Paris and Leipzig, 1848])Google Scholar first published the Greek fragments of Book 3, which were later re-edited by Schröder, H.O. (Galeni in Platonis Timaeum commentarii fragmenta [CMG Suppl. 1] [Leipzig and Berlin, 1934])Google Scholar. P. Kahle added to Schröder's 1934 edition an appendix of Arabic fragments from Books 1, 2 and 4. Since the publication of Schröder's text, Moraux, P. (‘Unbekannte Galen-Scholien’, ZPE 27 [1977], 1–66, at 44, 49–50)Google Scholar, Larrain, C.J. (‘Ein unbekanntes Exzerpt aus Galens Timaioskommentar: Γαληνοῦ περὶ τῶν ἐν τῷ Πλάτωνος Τιμαίῳ ἰατρικῶς εἰρημένων. ὑπόμνημα πρῶτον καὶ δεύτερον’, ZPE 85 [1991], 9–30Google Scholar; id., Galens Kommentar zu Platons Timaios [Stuttgart, 1992]Google Scholar) and Loruso, V. (‘Nuovi frammenti di Galeno [In Hp. Epid. VI Comm. VII; In Plat. Tim. Comm.]’, ZPE 152 [2005], 43–56, at 51–2)Google Scholar have uncovered additional Greek fragments. On the authenticity of Larrain's fragments, see Nickel, D., ‘On the authenticity of an “excerpt” from Galen's Commentary on the Timaeus’, in Nutton, V. (ed.), The Unknown Galen (BICS Supplement 77) (London, 2002), 73–8Google Scholar; cf. Das, A.R., ‘Re-evaluating the authenticity of the fragments from Galen's On the Medical Statements in Plato's Timaeus (Scorialensis Graec. Φ-III-11, ff. 123r–126v)’, ZPE 192 (2014), 93–103Google Scholar.

8 Rashed (n. 7), 92.

9 On the relationship between the Arabo-Latin and the lost Greek version of Galen's proemium to his synopsis of the Timaeus, see Rashed (n. 7), 94–5.

10 The only non-medical author (to my knowledge) that cites Plat. Tim. in Arabic is the polymath al-Bīrūnī, who incorporates citations from it in his India; see Sachau, E. (ed.), Kitāb al-Bīrūnī fī taḥqīq mā li-l-Hind min maqūla maqbūla fī-l-ʿaql aw mardhūla (London, 1887), 17, 21 and 164Google Scholar. See Larrain (n. 7 [1992]), 184–216 for Latin, German and English translations of the Arabic material of Plat. Tim., which has been discovered heretofore. When surveying the Arabic fragments and testimonia of Plat. Tim., Larrain appears to have relied heavily on early modern Latin editions of medieval Arabic medical anthologies such as Abū Bakr al-Rāzī’s Comprehensive Book (al-Kitāb al-Ḥāwī). Owing to errors in these Latin translations and his own disregard of the context of certain passages, Larrain misattributes two citations in the Comprehensive Book to Plat. Tim. See A.R. Das, ‘Galen and the Arabic Tradition of Plato's Timaeus’ (Diss., University of Warwick, 2013), 111–19.

11 See e.g. Bayṭār, Ibn, Kitāb al-Jāmiʿ li-mufradāt al-adwiya wa-l-aghdhiya (Compendium of Simple Medicines) (Bulāq, 1874), 2.66Google Scholar lines 27–9.

12 See e.g. al-Rāzī, Abū Bakr, al-Kitāb al-Ḥāwī (Hyderabad, 1955–70), 9.67 lines 13–14Google Scholar.

13 See e.g. id., Channing, J. (ed.), K. al-Judarī wa-l-ḥaṣba (On Smallpox and Measles) (London, 1766), 12 line 10Google Scholar. In his famous Epistle (Risāla) to the courtier Yaḥyā ibn al-Munajjim (b. 815–16), Ḥunayn identifies Galen's commentary by the title On What Plato Mentioned in his Book Known as Timaeus on Medical Science (fīmā dhakarahū Aflāṭūn fī kitābihi al-maʿrūf bi-Ṭīmāwus min ʿilm al-ṭibb); see Bergsträsser, G. (ed.), Hunain Ibn Ishaq: über die syrischen und arabischen Galen-Übersetzungen (Leipzig, 1925), 50 lines 3–7Google Scholar.

14 In his Book of Notification and Review (K. al-Tanbīh wa-l-ishrāf), the historian al-Masʿūdī (d. 956) not only attributes Plat. Tim. to Plato but also conflates it with Galen's Synopsis of Plato's Timaeus. See de Goeje, M.J. (ed.), Kitāb at-tanbīh waʾl-ischrāf, auctore al-Masūdī (Leiden, 1894), 162 line 15–163 line 5Google Scholar for the Arabic text and Zimmermann, F. (‘The origins of the so-called Theology of Aristotle’, in Kraye, J. [ed.], Warburg Institute Surveys and Texts XI: Pseudo-Aristotle in the Middle Ages [London, 1986], 110–240, at 150)Google Scholar for an English translation of the passage. On medieval Arabic readers’ knowledge of Plato's Timaeus, see Arnzen, R., ‘Plato's Timaeus in the Arabic tradition: legends-testimonies-fragments’, in Celia, F. and Ulacco, A. (edd.), Il Timeo: Esegesi greche, arabe, latine (Pisa, 2012), 133–80Google Scholar.

15 Of the surviving Arabic excerpts of Plat. Tim., only al-Rāzī, Comprehensive Book, (n. 10), 10.303 lines 3–6 preserves the lemmatic structure of Galen's original text.

16 In his Treatise on the Secret of the Art of Medicine (Escorial MS árabe 833, fol. 130r), al-Rāzī introduces his quotation from Plat. Tim. with the phrase ‘Plato in the Medical Timaeus’ (Aflāṭūn fī Ṭīmāwus al-ṭibbī). On the passage, see Das (n. 7), 99–100.

17 See Larrain (n. 7 [1992]), 192. For the Arabic text of al-Bīrūnī’s quotation, see Sachau (n. 10), 21 lines 18–19.

18 Apart from his composition of the aforementioned pharmacological work, which I will hereafter call Compendium of Simple Drugs, little else is known about Ibn Samajūn (sometimes Ibn Samjūn). For these scant biographical details, see Ullmann, M., Die Medizin im Islam (Leiden and Köln, 1970), 267Google Scholar and J. Vernet, ‘Ibn Samdjūn’, in Encyclopedia of Islam, Second Edition [accessed online].

19 The abjad alphabet orders the twenty-eight letters of the Arabic alphabet according to their numerical value. Instead of the initial sequence alif, bāʾ, tāʾ, thāʾ, the abjad alphabet has alif, bāʾ, jīm and dāl, which have the values 1, 2, 3 and 4, as its first four letters. On the abjad system, see Gacek, A., Arabic Manuscripts: A Vademecum for Readers (Leiden, 2009), 11–13CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

20 Sezgin, F. et al. (edd.), Jāmiʿ al-adwiya al-mufrada = Compendium of Simple Drugs (Frankfurt, 1992)Google Scholar. On the Huntington and Bruce MSS, see Savage-Smith, E., A New Catalogue of Arabic Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, University of Oxford; Volume I: Medicine (Oxford, 2011), 622–4, 626–7Google Scholar.

21 Sezgin (n. 20), 2.126 lines 19–20. Unless otherwise noted, all translations of the following Arabic texts are my own. For the Arabic, see text A in the Appendix.

22 In his pharmacological compendium Collection of Simple Drugs and Nutritive Substances (al-Kitāb al-Jāmiʿ li-mufradāt al-adwiya wa-l-aghdhiya), Ibn al-Bayṭār (d. 1248) cites Plat. Tim. twice, and these excerpts, which discuss vinegar and bran, appear to be taken from al-Rāzī’s Comprehensive Book. Cf. Ibn al-Bayṭār (n. 11), 2.66 lines 27–9 and 4.178 line 25, and al-Rāzī (n. 12), 20.450 line 18–451 line 7 and 297 line 11.

23 See p. 389 below.

24 See SMT 12.131K. See also On the Composition of Drugs according to Place 13.231K, where Galen lists sneezewort as an ingredient of a compound remedy for jaundice.

25 Cf. Dioscorides, Materia Medica 2.163.

26 Cf. Galen's Synopsis of Plato's Timaeus (n. 7), 7 lines 10–12. In this passage, the Arabic translator, either Ḥunayn or his associate ʿĪsā ibn Yaḥyā, glosses Plato's comparison of the World Soul to the letter chi at Ti. 36b8. In consideration of an Arabic reader's unfamiliarity with the Greek alphabet, the translator writes that the World Soul resembled ‘the shīn in the writing of the Greeks’ (al-shīn fī kitābi l-yūnānīyīni). The Arabic letter shin does not have the same shape as the Greek chi, but the translator may have equated the letters on the basis of their similar pronunciation. On the relationship between chi and shīn, see Daiber, H., Aetius Arabus: die Vorsokratiker in arabischen Überlieferung (Wiesbaden, 1980), 41–2Google Scholar and Zimmerman (n. 14), 114.

27 See Overwein, O., ‘The art of the translator, or: how did Ḥunayn ibn ʾIsḥāq and his school translate?’, in Pormann, P.E. (ed.), Epidemics in Context (Berlin, 2012), 151–69Google Scholar and Cooper, G., ‘Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq's Galen translations and Greco-Arabic philology: some observations from the Crises (De crisibus) and the Critical Days (De diebus decretoriis)’, Oriens 44 (2016), 1–43CrossRefGoogle Scholar, who discuss the ways in which Ḥunayn and his associates tailored their translations.

28 Ullmann, M., Untersuchungen zur arabischen Überlieferung der Materia Medica des Dioskurides (Wiesbaden, 2009), 59–62Google Scholar. See also e.g. the entry on sneezewort in the late twelfth-century anonymous commentary on Disocorides’ Materia Medica, Dietrich, A. (ed.), Dioscurides triumphans: ein anonymer arabischer Kommentar (Ende 12. Jahrh. n. Chr.) zur Materia Medica: arabischer Text nebst kommentierter deutscher Übersetzungen (Göttingen, 1988)Google Scholar, 1.62, entry 147, lines 3–7. The author not only gives the Greek and Arabic names for sneezewort (i.e. strouthion and kundus) but also its designation in Andalusian Arabic (qūlāla) and Amazigh (tāghīghāsht [?]).

29 For the references to the citations on vinegar and bran, see n. 22 above. For the fragment on the evacuative power of red and white frankincense, see al-Rāzī (n. 12), 21.318 lines 3–5. Serapion junior cites the same passage on red and white frankincense in his pharmacological work, which derives from the Spanish Ibn Wāfid's (d. 1067) Kitāb al-Adwiya al-mufrada; see Schröder (n. 7), 5.

30 Larrain (n. 7 [1992]), 205–6.

31 At SMT 12.131K, Galen relates that the medicinal value of sneezewort lies in the roots which are dried and made into a powder. He does not specify whether this powder should be inhaled, but the fact that it provokes a fit of sneezing when taken suggests that it was snuffed. Cf. eighteenth-century and nineteenth-century medical vademecums and herbals such as Tissot, S.A.D. et al. , The Universal Family Physician and Surgeon: Containing a Familiar and Accurate Description of the Symptoms of Every Disorder Incident to Mankind (Blackburn, 1798), 704Google Scholar, which explicitly advise that powdered sneezewort be taken as snuff.

32 Schröder (n. 7), 3–8 uses fragments from the medical works of al-Rāzī and Maimonides to reconstruct the scope of Book 2 of Plat. Tim.

33 On this MS, see Savage-Smith (n. 20), 539–44. For the sake of brevity, I will refer to this tract hereafter as Regarding Cough.

34 For two medieval lists of Ibn al-Jazzār's writings, see Juljul, Ibn, Ṭabaqāt al-aṭibbāʾ wa-l-ḥukamāʾ (Classes of Physicians and Wise Men), edited by M.K. Imām (Tehran, 1979), 168–70Google Scholar [in Persian] and Ibn Uṣaybiʿa, Abī, ʿUyūn al-anbāʾ fī ṭabaqāt al-aṭibbāʾ (The Best Accounts of the Classes of Physicians) (Beirut, 1965), 482 lines 6–18Google Scholar. See Bos, G. (Ibn al-Jazzar on Sexual Diseases: A Critical Edition, English Translation and Introduction of Zād al-musāfir wa-qūt al-ḥāḍir = Provisions for the Traveller and Nourishment of the Settled, Book 6 [London, 1997]Google Scholar; Ibn al-Jazzar on Fevers: A Critical Edition of Zād al-musāfir wa-qūt al-ḥāḍir = Provisions for the Traveller and Nourishment for the Sedentary, Book 7, Chapters 1–6 [London, 2000]Google Scholar), who has edited and translated into English parts of the Provisions for the Traveller and Nourishment for the Sedentary.

35 Suwaysī, M. (ed.), Provisions for the Traveller and Nourishment for the Sedentary (Zād al-musāfir wa-qūt al-ḥāḍir [Tunis, 1999], 1.317 lines 9–11Google Scholar) cites ‘Plato’ on the topic of fever types, but there are reasons to doubt that Ibn al-Jazzār's source here is Galen's Plat. Tim. The quotation describes two kinds of fever, ‘general’ (ʿāmma) and ‘specific’ (khāṣṣa). Although fragments in al-Rāzī ([n. 12], 15.111 lines 10–14 and 16.101 line 15–102 line 8) show that Plat. Tim. discussed tertian, burning and quartan fevers, Galen does not recognize in his extant corpus the fever categories ‘general’ and ‘specific’. For Galen's most extensive explanation of fevers, see On the Differences of Fevers (7.273–405K). Moreover, Plato does not mention these types of fever at Ti. 86a, where he describes quotidian, tertian and quartan fevers. Of course, it is possible that Ibn al-Jazzār, or his source text, has loosely paraphrased Galen's commentary. None the less, as the citation does not contain any distinctively Galenic material, I have not included it in this article.

36 Cf. Helmreich, G. (ed.), Peri chreias moriōn (Leipzig, 1907), 1.302–3Google Scholar.

37 MS Marsh 215, fol. 37v–38r. For the Arabic, see text B in the Appendix.

38 Ninth-century Graeco-Arabic translations do not render the Greek ἐπιγλωσσίς (or ἐπιγλωττίς) with a one-word Arabic equivalent. As Ullmann, M., Wörterbuch zu den griechisch-arabischen Übersetzungen des 9 Jahrhunderts: Supplement, Band I: A–O (Wiesbaden, 2006), 378Google Scholar records, in Ibn al-Biṭrīq's Arabic translation of Aristotle's Historia animalium (492b34, 504b3), the term is translated by two periphrases: ‘the part of the body at the root [of the tongue]’ (al-ʿuḍw allādhī yakūnu ʿalā aṣlihi) and ‘[the part of the body] which is at the root of the tongue and covers the head of the path of the trachea’ (allādhī yakūnu ʿalā aṣl al-lisān wa yughaṭṭī bi-raʾs sabīl qaṣabat al-riʾa).

39 I have modified the translations of Cornford (n. 4), 283–4 and Zeyl, D., Timaeus (Indianapolis, 2000), 64Google Scholar.

40 Cornford (n. 4), 284 n. 1. On this controversy, see Repici, L., ‘L'epiglottide nell'antichità tra medicina e filosofia’, History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 12 (1990), 67–104Google Scholar.

41 See PA 664b4–19. Gotthelf, A., Teleology, First Principles, and Scientific Method in Aristotle's Biology (Oxford, 2012), 386 n. 28CrossRefGoogle Scholar remarks that, although he does not mention Plato's name in PA, Aristotle is probably targeting the position in the Timaeus.

42 For the dating of these texts (which range from the late fifth century to the middle of the third centuries b.c.e.), see Craik, E., The ‘Hippocratic’ Corpus: Content and Context (London, 2015), 56, 190 and 229Google Scholar.

43 In Hist. an. (see n. 38 above), Aristotle comments on the epiglottis’ function of keeping out food and liquid from the lungs. The author of Diseases IV (§ 25.9) is also aware of this valve; however, he does not appear to know a technical name for it and instead uses the periphrasis ‘a structure like an ivy leaf which is set on the pipe to the lungs’ (ἐπίκειται τῇ σύριγγι τοῦ πλεύμονος, ὥσπερ κισσοῦ φύλλον). Heart § 2 attributes the coughing fit to the incoming liquid colliding with the breath coming out (ἀλλὰ πῶς ὕδωρ ἀναιδὲς ἐνοροῦνον ὄχλον καὶ βῆχα παρέχει πολλήν; οὕνεκα, φημί, ἀπάντικρυ τῆς ἀναπνοῆς φέρεται).

44 See PHP 8.9.8 = De Lacy, P. (ed.), Galeni De placitis Hippocratis et Platonis (Berlin, 1978–84), 534 lines 21–2Google Scholar.

45 PHP 8.9.5 = De Lacy (n. 44), 534 lines 6–9.

46 PHP 8.9.9–20 = De Lacy (n. 44), 534 line 26–536 line 30. De Lacy (n. 44), 695 observes that Galen ignores Ti. 91a4–5, which recounts how liquid travels into the lungs through a tube (i.e. trachea) that terminates in the bladder.

47 PHP 8.9.21–3 = De Lacy (n. 44), 536 line 31–538 line 1. I prefer ‘mouth’ instead of ‘opening’ for στόμιον, because Galen writes in PHP that this structure can open and close by will.

48 See PHP 8.9.24 = De Lacy (n. 44), 538 lines 4–6.

49 See SMT 11.806, 12.33, 12.201, 12.215, 12.333 and 12.359K.

50 See Schröder (n. 7), 14–26.

51 Cf. the lemmata in Ḥunayn's Arabic translation of Galen's Commentary on Hippocrates ‘Epidemics’, Book Two (Vagelpohl, U. [ed.], Galeni In Hippocratis Epidemiarum librum II, Commentariorum I–III versio Arabica [Berlin, 2016], 76Google ScholarPubMed).

52 See p. 386 above.

53 Schröder (n. 7), 8–9. For the Arabic text and an English translation of this citation in Maimonides’ Medical Aphorisms, see Bos, G. (ed.), Medical Aphorisms, Treatises 6–9 (Provo, 2007), 22Google Scholar; on this excerpt, see also Das (n. 7), 100. I mean by ‘lesser’ those organs that are not responsible for housing or carrying out directly the commands of the immortal and mortal parts of the soul.

54 On this text, see Arnzen, R., ‘On the contents, sources, and composition of two Arabic pseudo-Platonica: “Multaqaṭāt Aflāṭūn al-ilāhī” and “Fiqar ultuqiṭat wa-jumiʿat ʿan Aflāṭūn”’, Oriens 37 (2009), 7–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

55 Badawī, A.R. (ed.), Aflāṭūn fī al-islām (Tehran, 1974), 279 lines 3–6Google Scholar.

56 Arnzen (n. 54), 19.

57 Arnzen (n. 54), 21 gives a terminus ante quem of the late eleventh or early twelfth century for Gleanings of the Divine Plato.

58 On Ibn al-Burqumānī, see Steinschneider, M., Allgemeine Einleitung in die jüdische Literatur des Mittelalters (London, 1902), 233 § 172Google Scholar and Ullmann (n. 5), 191. Below, I refer to his text as The Treatise for Muḥsinī.

59 Al-Muḥsinī’s birth and death dates are unknown. On his career, see Kahil, A., The Sultan Ḥasan Complex in Cairo 1357–1364: A Case Study in the Formation of Mamluk Style (Beirut, 2008), 172–81Google Scholar.

60 On this and the other MSS of The Treatise for Muḥsinī, see Savage-Smith (n. 20), 579–82.

61 See Boudon, V. (ed.), Galien: Exhortation à l’étude de la médecine, Art medical (Paris, 2002), 346Google Scholar line 10–347 line 11. Kollesch, J., ‘Anschauungen von den Arkhai in der Ars Medica und die Seelenlehre Galens’, in Manuli, P. and Vegetti, M. (edd.), Le Opere Psicologiche di Galeno (Naples, 1988), 215–19Google Scholar raised doubts about the ascription of this work to Galen, but Boudon-Millot, V., ‘L'Ars medica de Galien, est-il un traité authentique’, REG 109 (1996), 111–56CrossRefGoogle Scholar has robustly defended its authenticity.

62 MS Marsh 534, fols. 23v–24r. For the Arabic, see text C in the Appendix.

63 s.v. τὸ νεῦρον in Ullmann, M., Wörterbuch zu den griechisch-arabischen Übersetzungen des 9. Jahrhunderts (Wiesbaden, 2002), 434Google Scholar. Herophilus is credited with the discovery of the nerves, and Erasistratus seems to have refined his predecessor's understanding of the nervous system (see von Staden, H., Herophilus: The Art of Medicine in Early Alexandria [Cambridge, 1989], 240–1, 250Google Scholar).

64 See Plat. Tim. 3.6 (Schröder [n. 7], 15 lines 5–20), where Galen comments on Plato's ignorance of the sensory role of the nerves.

65 See PHP 8.4.10 = De Lacy (n. 44), 500 lines 12–15. The list of simple parts differs slightly at The Elements according to Hippocrates 10.4–5 (De Lacy, P. [ed.], Galeni De elementis ex Hippocratis sententia [Berlin, 1996], 140 lines 2–5Google Scholar), which gives arteries, veins, nerves, ligaments, membranes and flesh.

66 PHP 8.4.8 = De Lacy (n. 44), 500 lines 5–8.

67 Galen's most detailed treatment of the subject of mixture, or temperament, is in his work On Mixtures. For the Greek text, see Helmreich, G. (ed.), Galeni De temperamentis libri III (Leipzig, 1904)Google Scholar.

68 See Constitution of the Art of Medicine § 10 = Fortuna, S. (ed.), Galeni De constitutione artis medicae ad Patrophilum [Berlin, 1997], 84 line 17–86 line 17Google Scholar.

69 At fol. 23v, Ibn al-Burqumānī quotes a short statement from a Pythagoras (i.e. ‘concerning the mastery of the stomach, it brings all the parts of the body close to equilibrium’), and then he comments on its thematic links with the ‘Platonic’ material cited above. The transliteration of Pythagoras (Fitākhūras) in The Treatise for Muḥsinī does not follow the standard Arabic transcription for the philosopher, Fīthāghūras—as F. Rosenthal, ‘Fīṯhāghūras’, Encyclopedia of Islam, Second Edition (accessed online) observes, the spelling of the name can vary. Medieval Arabic writers knew another Pythagoras (sometimes Badīghūras or Fītāghūras), who was an Alexandrian physician and the author of works on uroscopy and substitute drugs. On this Pythagoras, see Ullmann, M., ‘Die Schrift des Badīġūrās über die Ersatzdrogen’, Der Islam 50 (1973), 230–48CrossRefGoogle Scholar with important qualifications from Kahl, O., The Sanskrit, Syriac and Persian Sources in the Comprehensive Book of Rhazes (Leiden, 2015), 49–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Notwithstanding the medical content of Ibn al-Burqumānī’s Pythagorean citation, his Pythagoras is probably Pythagoras the philosopher, who was the more famous of the two and to whom sayings on a variety of topics were attributed.

70 See e.g. Anatomical Procedures 1.2 (2.220–3K), where Galen encourages his readers to observe firsthand the human skeleton. He relates that he had the opportunity to do so when a flood disturbed some graves.

71 See al-Rāzī (n. 12), 15.111 lines 10–14 and 14.98 line 8–99 line 4.

72 For English translations of the passages in Differences of Symptoms and Causes of Symptoms, see Johnston, I., Galen On Diseases and Symptoms (Cambridge, 2006), 194, 220–3Google Scholar. For the relevant passages in the Synopsis and Plat. Tim., see Kraus and Walzer (n. 7), 19 lines 10–14 and Larrain (n. 7 [1991]), 29 = id. (n. 7 [1992]), 170–3.

73 Bar-Asher, M., ‘Quelques aspects de l’éthique d'Abū-Bakr al-Rāzī et ses origines dans l’œuvre de Galien (seconde parte)’, Studia Islamica 70 (1989), 119–47, at 133–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Adamson, P., ‘Platonic pleasures in Epicurus and al-Rāzī’, in id. (ed.), In the Age of al-Fārābī: Arabic Philosophy in the Fourth/Tenth Century (London, 2008), 71–94, at 83–5Google Scholar demonstrate how Abū Bakr al-Rāzī derives his theory of pleasure in Spiritual Medicine (al-Ṭibb al-rūḥānī) and On Pleasure (Fī al-Ladhdha) from Galen's Synopsis of Plato's Timaeus.

74 MS Marsh 534, fols. 65v–66r. For the Arabic, see text D in the Appendix.

75 See PHP 9.6.52–4 (= De Lacy [n. 44], 582 lines 26–33), where Galen cites the division in the Philebus of pleasure into false (i.e. corporeal) and true (i.e. intellectual) kinds.

76 Ti. 91a.

77 As King, H., ‘Once upon a text: hysteria from Hippocrates’, in ead. (ed.), Hippocrates’ Woman (London, 1998), 205–46, at 222–5Google Scholar demonstrates, ancient medical writers, including Galen, interpreted the account of the pains that an ‘unfruitful’ (ἄκαρπον) womb causes as a description of the affliction uterine suffocation.

78 On the authenticity and date of this work, see Flashar, H., Problemata physica, Aristoteles (Berlin, 1991), 303–16, 356–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For an overview of the medical content in the Problemata, see Oikonomopoulou, K., ‘The Problemata’s medical books: structural and methodological aspects’, in Mayhew, R. (ed.), The Aristotelian Problemata Physica (Leiden, 2015), 61–78Google Scholar.

79 See UP 14.1–2 = Helmreich, G. (ed.), Peri chreias moriōn (Leipzig, 1909), 2.286 lines 1–2Google Scholar. On the influence of the Timaeus on Galen's teleology, see Hankinson, R.J., ‘Galen explains the elephant’, Philosophy and Biology: Canadian Journal of Philosophy 14 (1988), 135–57, at 137–40Google Scholar and id., ‘Galen and the best of all possible worlds’, CQ 39 (1989), 206–27, at 208, 213–16Google Scholar.

80 Peri chreias = Helmreich (n. 79), 2.286 lines 9–12.

81 Translation from May, M., Galen On the Usefulness of the Parts of the Body (Ithaca, 1968), 2.621Google Scholar (modified).

82 See Character Traits 2, Kraus, P. (ed.), ‘Kitāb al-akhlāq li-Jālīnūs’, Bulletin of the Faculty of Arts of the Egyptian University 5 (1937), 1–51, at 41Google Scholar; for an English translation of the passage, see Davies, D., ‘Character traits: translation’, in Singer, P.N. (ed.), Galen: Psychological Writings (Cambridge, 2014), 135–72, at 159Google Scholar.

83 At That the Best Doctor is a Philosopher 3.4 (Boudon-Millot, V. [ed.], Galien, Tome 1: Introduction générale, Sur l'orde de ses propres livres, Sur ses propres livres, Que l'excellent médecin est aussi philosophe [Paris, 2007], 290Google Scholar lines 2–5), Galen condemns those preoccupied with sex as bestial. As I will explain below, Galen believes that sex has a therapeutic value but does not recommend that his patients rely on sex workers for sexual release. Instead, he refers favourably to the example of Diogenes the Cynic, who preferred to masturbate than to wait for a sex worker (On the Affected Parts 6.5 [8.419–20K]).

84 Boudon-Millot, V. (ed.), Galien: Exhortation (Paris, 2002), 351 lines 9–10Google Scholar. See also On the Affected Parts 6.5 (8.414–37K).

85 See Daremberg, C. and Ruelle, C.-E. (edd.), Œuvres de Rufus d’Éphèse, texte collationné sur les manuscrits, traduit pour la première fois en français, avec une introduction (Paris, 1879), 320 lines 7–9Google Scholar. For the extant fragments of On Sexual Intercourse, see Ullmann, M., ‘Die arabische Überlieferung der Schriften des Rufus von Ephesos’, ANRW 37.2 (1994), 1293–349, at 1338–9Google Scholar.

86 If Ibn al-Burqumānī utilized al-Rāzī’s book, he has not quoted it verbatim. On this text by al-Rāzī, see Pormann, P.E., ‘Al-Rāzī (d. 925) on the benefits of sex. A clinician caught between philosophy and medicine’, in Vrolijk, A. and Hogendijk, J.P. (edd.), O ye Gentlemen, Arabic Studies on Science and Literary Culture in Honour of Remke Kruk (Leiden, 2007), 115–28Google Scholar.