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TEXTUAL NOTES ON PS.-DIOSCORIDES, ON SIMPLES

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 March 2021

John G. Fitch
John G. Fitch*
Affiliation:
University of Victoria
*
jfitch@uvic.ca
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Abstract

This article discusses the text of the work On Simples attributed to Dioscorides. It argues that in fifteen places the transmitted text is faulty, and it proposes emendations. It also studies certain types of insertions made in the text by its most recent editor, Max Wellmann, and concludes that they are unnecessary. Finally, it discusses two points where On Simples sheds light on Dioscorides’ De materia medica.

Keywords

DioscoridesWellmanntextinsertionστυπτηρίαἄλευρονπτερύγια
Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 71 , Issue 1 , May 2021 , pp. 285 - 291
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical Association

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Footnotes

My thanks to James Diggle for a most helpful critique of this paper; one of his suggestions is recorded below on Simp. 1.115.2.

References

1 Pedanii Dioscoridis Anazarbei de materia medica libri quinque, edidit Max Wellmann, 3 vols. (Berlin, 1907–14). Simp. is in vol. 3, which is online at https://archive.org/details/b21459162_0003/page/n5. Earlier editors had published Simp. under the title Περὶ εὐποριστῶν; hence it is cited in LSJ as ‘Dsc. Eup.’

2 On the medical meanings of πτερύγιον, see the final note in this paper.

3 Saracenus perceives this and translates as though his text read ἐπιτιθέμενα rather than ἐπιτιθεμένων: ‘caricae cum malicorio et melle coctae, additis chalcitide et squama aeris, ad emplastri compagem reductae et impositae’.

4 In place of προεσχηματισμένῳ Oribasius has παρεσχηματισμένον, from which I cannot extract any sense (Syn. 9.17.18 = 5.287 Raeder). The fact that Oribasius does not use γάρ to link the following explanatory sentence makes one question whether Wellmann was right to accept Moibanus's insertion of it in Simp.

5 Gesner thought that the missing word was ῥίζα, but that was because he confused the plant of M.M. 4.145, whose root Dioscorides does use for strangury, with the plant of M.M. 4.147.