Abstract Coptic pharmacological texts offer a multitude of medical prescriptions concerning various afflictions, such as eye or skin irritations, affections of the viscera, or even psychological complaints. The content of these texts is medical, and in most cases bereft of any magical or religious ideas. They usually compile prescriptions according to symptoms and/or afflictions, without any further organising principle. Only a handful of texts are grouped according to the illness or to the medicinal plants used. Almost every prescription follows a pattern, with four formal elements: 1) the medical indication (or purpose), 2) the (basic) ingredients, 3) the procedure and application, and 4) the effects and/or the effectiveness of a remedy, or further information. In this article, I give an overview of the entire corpus of Coptic medical prescriptions, explore the four main elements, and especially the discussions of efficacy. I also examine the material in light of placebo research, to see whether something like a placebo effect may have influenced how the pharmacological texts were formulated.
{"title":"The Question of the Effectiveness of Coptic Pharmacological Prescriptions","authors":"Anne Grons","doi":"10.1515/tc-2021-0005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/tc-2021-0005","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Coptic pharmacological texts offer a multitude of medical prescriptions concerning various afflictions, such as eye or skin irritations, affections of the viscera, or even psychological complaints. The content of these texts is medical, and in most cases bereft of any magical or religious ideas. They usually compile prescriptions according to symptoms and/or afflictions, without any further organising principle. Only a handful of texts are grouped according to the illness or to the medicinal plants used. Almost every prescription follows a pattern, with four formal elements: 1) the medical indication (or purpose), 2) the (basic) ingredients, 3) the procedure and application, and 4) the effects and/or the effectiveness of a remedy, or further information. In this article, I give an overview of the entire corpus of Coptic medical prescriptions, explore the four main elements, and especially the discussions of efficacy. I also examine the material in light of placebo research, to see whether something like a placebo effect may have influenced how the pharmacological texts were formulated.","PeriodicalId":41704,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Classics","volume":"13 1","pages":"122 - 153"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46184884","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"List of Contributors","authors":"","doi":"10.1515/tc-2021-0010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/tc-2021-0010","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":41704,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Classics","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1515/tc-2021-0010","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48556008","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract Health and healing were of constant interest for Christian communities in late antique Egypt. Accordingly, a broad range of therapeutic rituals were on offer by the clergy, by monks, and in martyr shrines. Of all these, this paper explores prayers and gestures performed and substances consecrated in a liturgical context as well as some related practices, with a focus on the fourth and fifth centuries, from which most relevant sources hail. Besides reconstructing the rites themselves as far as the evidence allows – including intercessions for the sick, prayers for laying on of hands, and the consecration of oil (and water and bread) and the anointing of the sick in various liturgical contexts –, I also consider them as interpersonal therapeutic rituals and attempt to evaluate them through the lens of medical and anthropological placebo theories. With due attention to the methodological difficulties, I argue that the decline and transformation of liturgical healing rites after the fifth century may partially be explained with their modest ‘placebogenic potential’ compared to other rites on offer in the late antique ‘market of healing’.
{"title":"Healing in Christian Liturgy in Late Antique Egypt: Sources and Perspectives","authors":"Ágnes T. Mihálykó","doi":"10.1515/tc-2021-0006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/tc-2021-0006","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Health and healing were of constant interest for Christian communities in late antique Egypt. Accordingly, a broad range of therapeutic rituals were on offer by the clergy, by monks, and in martyr shrines. Of all these, this paper explores prayers and gestures performed and substances consecrated in a liturgical context as well as some related practices, with a focus on the fourth and fifth centuries, from which most relevant sources hail. Besides reconstructing the rites themselves as far as the evidence allows – including intercessions for the sick, prayers for laying on of hands, and the consecration of oil (and water and bread) and the anointing of the sick in various liturgical contexts –, I also consider them as interpersonal therapeutic rituals and attempt to evaluate them through the lens of medical and anthropological placebo theories. With due attention to the methodological difficulties, I argue that the decline and transformation of liturgical healing rites after the fifth century may partially be explained with their modest ‘placebogenic potential’ compared to other rites on offer in the late antique ‘market of healing’.","PeriodicalId":41704,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Classics","volume":"13 1","pages":"154 - 194"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1515/tc-2021-0006","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42947694","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract Amid the corpus of Greek papyri discovered in the sands of Egypt, some fifty letters dated from the end of the 3rd century CE to the 7th century refer to a disease which afflicts an animal or a private individual – either the sender or the recipient of the letter, or to a third party. Seventeen of these also provide details on care and healing. How do these seventeen letters, which ostensibly do not derive from the medical world, describe the evolution of a disease, and especially its outcome when it is fortunate for the sick person? What are the healing strategies implemented by these individuals? These are the questions that I try to answer, while emphasising the contribution of these documents to the history of health and disease in Byzantine Egypt.
{"title":"The vocabulary of care and healing in the Greek private letters of Byzantine Egypt","authors":"Antonio Ricciardetto","doi":"10.1515/tc-2021-0008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/tc-2021-0008","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Amid the corpus of Greek papyri discovered in the sands of Egypt, some fifty letters dated from the end of the 3rd century CE to the 7th century refer to a disease which afflicts an animal or a private individual – either the sender or the recipient of the letter, or to a third party. Seventeen of these also provide details on care and healing. How do these seventeen letters, which ostensibly do not derive from the medical world, describe the evolution of a disease, and especially its outcome when it is fortunate for the sick person? What are the healing strategies implemented by these individuals? These are the questions that I try to answer, while emphasising the contribution of these documents to the history of health and disease in Byzantine Egypt.","PeriodicalId":41704,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Classics","volume":"13 1","pages":"227 - 253"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49491861","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract This note argues, against a recent article published in this journal, that the traditional Hellenistic dates of anon. 155 FGE, an experimental anonymous epigram composed of eccentric compounds, and accordingly of Hegesander of Delphi, who is Athenaeus’ source for this epigram, are correct, since an allusion to this poem is found in the early Roman poet Laevius. Anon. 155 FGE is an attack not on Cynics, but philosophers in general.
{"title":"An Odd Latin Word and the Date of anon. 155 FGE","authors":"J. Kwapisz","doi":"10.1515/tc-2020-0021","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/tc-2020-0021","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This note argues, against a recent article published in this journal, that the traditional Hellenistic dates of anon. 155 FGE, an experimental anonymous epigram composed of eccentric compounds, and accordingly of Hegesander of Delphi, who is Athenaeus’ source for this epigram, are correct, since an allusion to this poem is found in the early Roman poet Laevius. Anon. 155 FGE is an attack not on Cynics, but philosophers in general.","PeriodicalId":41704,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Classics","volume":"12 1","pages":"359 - 361"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2020-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1515/tc-2020-0021","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42255696","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract Even though Hippon is a minor figure among the so-called Presocratics, a new analysis of some of his fragments confirms that he was a famous and valuable scientist, who explored nature, starting from the vegetal world (botany). He assumed it as a model also for animal and human physiology. The passages examined do him justice against the contempt expressed by Aristotle.
{"title":"Hippon of Croton (or Samos) from Aristotle to the Anonymus Londiniensis: medicine and research on nature","authors":"D. Manetti","doi":"10.1515/tc-2020-0018","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/tc-2020-0018","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Even though Hippon is a minor figure among the so-called Presocratics, a new analysis of some of his fragments confirms that he was a famous and valuable scientist, who explored nature, starting from the vegetal world (botany). He assumed it as a model also for animal and human physiology. The passages examined do him justice against the contempt expressed by Aristotle.","PeriodicalId":41704,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Classics","volume":"12 1","pages":"297 - 311"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2020-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1515/tc-2020-0018","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43330312","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract Pollux uses the technical term ‘amphibolon’ in different contexts and with relatively different functions. This paper documents in detail these functions, categorizes them in 5 different categories (marking of polysemous lexemes; marking of polysemous lexemes in specific passages; highlighting dubious readings in specific passages; marking of a doubtful categorization of a thing; marking lexemes which are dubious regarding their canonicity) and discusses their relation with lexicographic features and intentions of the Onomasticon. It contributes contributes, thus, to the disambiguation of the term in the Onomasticon and adds some insights about its uses in the ancient Greek grammatical and lexicogrpahical tradition.
{"title":"The technical term ‘amphibolon’ in Pollux’s Onomasticon","authors":"Stylianos Chronopoulos","doi":"10.1515/tc-2020-0022","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/tc-2020-0022","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Pollux uses the technical term ‘amphibolon’ in different contexts and with relatively different functions. This paper documents in detail these functions, categorizes them in 5 different categories (marking of polysemous lexemes; marking of polysemous lexemes in specific passages; highlighting dubious readings in specific passages; marking of a doubtful categorization of a thing; marking lexemes which are dubious regarding their canonicity) and discusses their relation with lexicographic features and intentions of the Onomasticon. It contributes contributes, thus, to the disambiguation of the term in the Onomasticon and adds some insights about its uses in the ancient Greek grammatical and lexicogrpahical tradition.","PeriodicalId":41704,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Classics","volume":"12 1","pages":"362 - 397"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2020-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1515/tc-2020-0022","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44713216","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract After preparing a detailed new edition of Sappho’s frr. 95 and 96 V., continuously transmitted in the parchment codex P. Berol. 9722, the author proposes that they constitute a ‘cycle’ of three homometric poems with a common theme articulated in successive episodes (i. 95, ii. 96.1–20, iii. 96.21–36). In the first, Sappho conveys her despair for her separation from her beloved pupils, Arignota being one of them. In the second, Arignota is presented in Sardis, where she excels among the Lydian women. She expresses a strong feeling of nostalgia for her stay in Lesbos with Sappho and for her beloved friend there, Atthis. In the third, Sappho addresses Atthis and, employing the mythological exemplum of Aphrodite’s love to Adonis and their distant meetings, declares that they will sail to the port of Geraistion in Asia Minor’s Aegean coast, whence they will travel to Sardis for meeting their old friend. The author also meditates on the possibility that the name Ἀριγνώτα (= ‘One-easy-to-be-known, Easy-to-identify’), is a renaming by Sappho of Ἀρύηνιc, the daughter of the Lydian king Alyattes, who is yearning to see her old teacher and her childhood girlfriend before her marriage to Astyages, son of Kyaxares, king of the Medes. The marriage was negotiated for ending a many years war between the two nations, a peace that coincided with the eclipse of the sun, usually dated on May 28, 585 BC.
{"title":"The ‘Cycle’ of Arignota. Sappho’s frr. 95 and 96 V.","authors":"K. Tsantsanoglou","doi":"10.1515/tc-2020-0015","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/tc-2020-0015","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract After preparing a detailed new edition of Sappho’s frr. 95 and 96 V., continuously transmitted in the parchment codex P. Berol. 9722, the author proposes that they constitute a ‘cycle’ of three homometric poems with a common theme articulated in successive episodes (i. 95, ii. 96.1–20, iii. 96.21–36). In the first, Sappho conveys her despair for her separation from her beloved pupils, Arignota being one of them. In the second, Arignota is presented in Sardis, where she excels among the Lydian women. She expresses a strong feeling of nostalgia for her stay in Lesbos with Sappho and for her beloved friend there, Atthis. In the third, Sappho addresses Atthis and, employing the mythological exemplum of Aphrodite’s love to Adonis and their distant meetings, declares that they will sail to the port of Geraistion in Asia Minor’s Aegean coast, whence they will travel to Sardis for meeting their old friend. The author also meditates on the possibility that the name Ἀριγνώτα (= ‘One-easy-to-be-known, Easy-to-identify’), is a renaming by Sappho of Ἀρύηνιc, the daughter of the Lydian king Alyattes, who is yearning to see her old teacher and her childhood girlfriend before her marriage to Astyages, son of Kyaxares, king of the Medes. The marriage was negotiated for ending a many years war between the two nations, a peace that coincided with the eclipse of the sun, usually dated on May 28, 585 BC.","PeriodicalId":41704,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Classics","volume":"12 1","pages":"203 - 227"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2020-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1515/tc-2020-0015","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44693955","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract This is the first portion of a study in two parts on the lyric and elegiac poet Timocreon of Ialysos. My aim is to offer an up-to-date presentation of and running commentary on the extant fragments of his poetry, which has received less attention than it deserves. The first four fragments of Timocreon’s poetic production that are discussed in this article are those concerning his turbulent relationship with Themistocles.
{"title":"Timocreon of Ialysos, frr. 1–4 (= 727–730 PMG)","authors":"Christos C. Tsagalis","doi":"10.1515/tc-2020-0016","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/tc-2020-0016","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This is the first portion of a study in two parts on the lyric and elegiac poet Timocreon of Ialysos. My aim is to offer an up-to-date presentation of and running commentary on the extant fragments of his poetry, which has received less attention than it deserves. The first four fragments of Timocreon’s poetic production that are discussed in this article are those concerning his turbulent relationship with Themistocles.","PeriodicalId":41704,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Classics","volume":"12 1","pages":"228 - 266"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2020-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1515/tc-2020-0016","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41978332","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract The aim of the present study is to explore the pattern of the alternative future in the example of three love stories in the bucolic corpus involving three characters, namely the anonymous goatherd of Idyll 3, the Cyclops and Daphnis. The alternative future is expressed through the rhetorical means of the future tense, the optative or imperative mood, and the conditional sentences, and may be described as imagined, performed or narrated. The test cases from the bucolic corpus are analyzed according to three criteria: the subjective viewpoint of the lyric mind, the distanced perspective of the bucolic singer and the words uttered by the dramatized characters and/or the narrator.
{"title":"The Alternative Futures of the Lyric Characters: Time Imagined and Time Sung in the Bucolic Corpus","authors":"Evina Sistakou","doi":"10.1515/tc-2020-0020","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/tc-2020-0020","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The aim of the present study is to explore the pattern of the alternative future in the example of three love stories in the bucolic corpus involving three characters, namely the anonymous goatherd of Idyll 3, the Cyclops and Daphnis. The alternative future is expressed through the rhetorical means of the future tense, the optative or imperative mood, and the conditional sentences, and may be described as imagined, performed or narrated. The test cases from the bucolic corpus are analyzed according to three criteria: the subjective viewpoint of the lyric mind, the distanced perspective of the bucolic singer and the words uttered by the dramatized characters and/or the narrator.","PeriodicalId":41704,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Classics","volume":"12 1","pages":"341 - 358"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2020-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1515/tc-2020-0020","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47966589","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}