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CLAS/HIST3051

The Hippocratic Corpus and the Hippocratic Question. CLAS/HIST3051. Organizing Books. You receive a new book, perhaps as a gift Where is it stored? What is the organizing principle? C. S. Lewis thought the card catalogue would be seen by Middle Ages as greatest invention. Ancient Libraries.

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CLAS/HIST3051

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  1. The Hippocratic Corpus and the Hippocratic Question CLAS/HIST3051

  2. Organizing Books • You receive a new book, perhaps as a gift • Where is it stored? • What is the organizing principle? • C. S. Lewis thought the card catalogue would be seen by Middle Ages as greatest invention

  3. Ancient Libraries • Only 'Villa of the Papyri' here remains • Busts of authors decorated the room • catalogues listed authors under subject headings • Public libraries began at Alexandria in late 4th c. • 500,000 scrolls

  4. Libraries Create Distortion • Works accrue to popular authors • More popular the author, more he acquires • Dialectical differences? • Anonymous texts, in particular • Hippocrates is worst case

  5. Hippocratic Corpus • 'Hippocratic' > 'of or pertaining to Hippocrates' • corpus > body of work • term that sets aside question of authorship

  6. Internal Evidence? • Ionian dialect • Lack of divine causation • diverse in purpose • healing • defining disease • diverse in origins of disease • Work like 'On the Heart' probably 3rd c. BC, much later than Hippocrates • No work can be ascribed to him internally

  7. Hippocratic Question • Who was Hippocrates? • When did he live? • Where did he live? • How did he gain such a reputation for healing?

  8. External Evidence • Outside the corpus • The earlier the better • What do we learn in Plato's Protagoras? (LIV.1) and Aristotle Politics (LIV.2)‏

  9. Period of Life • Floruit = that of Socrates • Socrates d. 399 BC • Not alive at time of Politics' writing • After his return to Athens in 335 BC? • Squares nicely with our story of the progress of philosophy and medicine

  10. Place of Birth • Island of Cos • Ionian region • Temple to Asclepius

  11. Ancient Biography • Ps.-Soranus • Soranus 2nd c. AD • What were his accomplishments according to biographical tradition? • What is interestingly lacking?

  12. Hippocrates and the Asclepiadai • L1V.6 • What was his method here? • How does this fit with, e.g., Sacred Disease?

  13. Temple to Asclepius at Cos

  14. Statements about Hippocrates' Method • LIV.8-9 • What does Anonymous think Aristotle thinks about Hippocrates? • What does Anonymous think about Hippocrates? • How does LIV.10 fit? • How about LIV.11 or 12?

  15. Problems with Using Method to Ascribe Authorship • Intellectual schools • Lack of direct quotation

  16. Hippocratic Question Unresolved • Is he “a man without a work”? • Is it likely that one individual began all this? • Compare tradition down to him

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