Medicine and philosophy - Classical Homeopathy Online

302 Late antiquityTo be sure, Caelius does not mention any Methodist, or indeed anyother medical writer, known to be later than Soranus 16 (surprisingly, hedoes not even mention Galen) 17 – which might suggest that at least in thearea of doxography he had nothing to add to Soranus, but for which theremay be other reasons as well 18 – and he nowhere explicitly disagrees withSoranus. Yet we cannot rule out that Methodist doctrine developed furtherand, by the time of Caelius, had, perhaps unintentionally, evolved beyondthe strict boundaries of Soranus’ teaching. 19 There are indeed indicationsthat this happened. Thus P. H. Schrijvers, in his commentary on Caelius’rejection of homosexuality in Chron. 4.9, has pointed out that Caelius’use of a theological and indeed teleological argument about the naturalpurpose of the bodily organs is incompatible with Soranus’ often expressedanti-teleological views on nature, and is perhaps to be understood againstthe later background of Christian or Stoic intolerance towards homosexualbehaviour. 20 To this it may be objected that Chron. 4.9 is a rather exceptionalchapter and cannot be regarded as representative of the whole work; 21 but,as I will show here, there are more signs to suggest that Caelius took a linewhich is not always easy to accommodate within what we know – both16 It should be stressed that of some authorities the date and identity are not known, e.g. Valensphysicus (Acut. 3.1.2) and Leonides Episyntheticus (Acut. 2.1.6).17 As Mirko Grmek pointed out during the discussion of the original version of this paper, in the lightof the subject matter of the Acute and Chronic Affections, the absence of any reference to Aretaeusof Cappadocia (first century ce) is perhaps even more surprising; also one would expect a moreprominent place for Archigenes of Apamea, who seems to have been in close contact with theMethodist school (cf. Waszink (1947a) 25) but who is only mentioned twice (Acut. 2.10.58 and 61).For Caelius’ references to earlier authorities see van der Eijk (1998) and (1999c); see also von Staden(1999a).18 Alternatively, it may suggest an earlier date for Caelius himself (see n. 14 above); however, Caelius’silence on intermediary authorities is not without parallel: Galen’s On the Doctrines of Hippocrates andPlato does not discuss authorities later than Posidonius either (for this observation see Vegetti (1999)).For the observation that Caelius does not mention medical authors later than Soranus see Hanson andGreen (1994) 980; however, I fail to see the point of their remark that ‘Particularly important for thesuggestion that Caelius Aurelianus draws his doxographic accounts from Soranus is the impressionthe text gives of having appended onto an existing framework opinions from Asclepiades, Themison(e.g. Cel. Pass. i xiv 105–xvi 165; ii xxxix 225–xl 234), and sometimes Thessalus (e.g. Tard. Pass. iii.55–62).’ I do not see how the text should give this impression or why the ‘appending’ should havebeen done by Caelius rather than by Soranus (who may have updated the doxography of AlexanderPhilalethes, as Hanson and Green suggest on p. 980 n. 33). – The fact that in Caelius’ Gynaeciadoxographic passages are far less frequent than in Soranus’ original, whereas such passages aboundin Caelius’ Acute and Chronic Affections, suggests that in this respect there is an important differencebetween the relationship between Soranus’ and Caelius’ gynaecological works and that betweenCaelius’ and Soranus’ works on acute and chronic diseases (see also n. 2 above).19 A similar case would be Plotinus, whose philosophical system represents a major development inPlatonic doctrine but who claimed to do nothing else than interpret Plato.20 Schrijvers (1985) 22–5.21 Caelius’ own contribution in this chapter also becomes clear in the Latin hexametric translation ofParmenides. The chapter is also exceptional in that there is no section on therapeutics.