Philip J. van der Eijk. Diocles of Carystus: A Collection of the Fragments with Translation and Commentary. Vol. 1, Text and Translation.Studies in Ancient Medicine, no. 22. Leiden: Brill, 2000. xxxiv + 497 pp. $131.00; € 107.00 (90-04-10265-5).
Philip J. van der Eijk. Diocles of Carystus: A Collection of the Fragments with Translation and Commentary. Vol. 2, Commentary.Studies in Ancient Medicine, no. 23. Leiden: Brill, 2001. xlii + 489 pp. $109.00; € 89.00 (90-04-12012-2).
This monumental work of more than one thousand pages, devoted to the fourth-century B.C. Greek physician and scientist Diocles of Carystus, represents contemporary scholarship in the history of ancient medicine in its most productive form, a scholarship that does not shirk the drudgery of clearing away more than a century of luxurient but strangling overgrowth, and thereby making a new overview possible. This being the situation, readers must accept that they will leave these volumes knowing decidedly less about Diocles and his medicine than previous scholars have pretended was possible—but in exchange, they will know it much more truly: if Philip van der Eijk reduces the number of facts we may claim to command, he more than repays our loss by bringing clearly into the light the questions that we can and should now be asking.
Volume 1 (Text and Translation) opens, after a brief reference to Diocles' importance and the place he has occupied in the history of medicine (pp. vii-x), with a well-considered and lucid discussion (pp. x-xxii) of the special problems that the present collection of fragments entails: for example, where in each fragment does the reference to Diocles actually begin, and where does it end? Should potential references to Diocles be included in the collection when they do not name him directly, but possibly include him in some collective designation such as "the ancient doctors"? Is the distinction between what appear to be direct quotes delivered in Diocles' own words and what are clearly statements about his opinions expressed in the reporter's words hermeneutically significant? How is the particular textual-criticism situation obtaining for each fragment most clearly and concisely to be presented? Next follow a table of contents of the 241 fragments, a list of known titles of Diocles' works (pp. xxv-xxxiv), and then, as the main body of the book, the fragments themselves, both in their original language (Greek, Latin, or Arabic) on even-numbered pages, and in complete English translations on facing odd-numbered pages (pp. 2-391). The order of fragments is by subject, as follows: Diocles' life and chronology (frs. 1-12); his general approach to medicine (frs. 13-16); anatomy (frs. 17-24); physiology (frs. 25-39); reproduction (frs. 40-48); general pathology (frs. 49-71); special pathology (frs. 72-144); therapy (frs. 145-67); gynecology (frs. 168-75); dietetics (frs. [End Page 172] 176-86); specific foods, drinks, and herbs (frs. 187-238); and miscellaneous (frs. 239-41). There follow four indexes: of the textual sources of the fragments, ordered alphabetically by author; of all Greek, Latin, and Arabic words occurring in the more-verbatim fragments; of the more significant Greek and Latin words occurring in the less-verbatim fragments; and a general index to the fragments.
The second volume (Commentary) begins with a general discussion of the writers and works from which the fragments are drawn (including any specific peculiarities that may bear upon the form and reliability of the evidence they furnish (pp. viii-xxii)), and of Diocles' works and his significance in the history of medicine (pp. xxii-xxxviii). The commentator then procedes through the fragments one by one: summarizing contents and context, giving background information on specific persons, concepts, and historical relationships, and adding relevant parallels from other ancient sources (pp. 1-426). The volume closes with an extensive bibliography of primary and secondary sources, a general index to the volume, and an index of all ancient passages cited in the commentary.
In order to appreciate the methodological difficulties that van der Eijk faced at the outset, it is important to recall that Diocles-scholarship had suffered its full share of the baleful effect of Hermann Diels's Doxographi Graeci (Berlin, 1879), an attempt to trace "influence" among philosophers and philosophical schools on the basis of Greek and Latin texts ostensibly copied, excerpted, and compiled over an extended geographical area and a long period of time. Virtuoso proponents of the succeeding method (Quellenforschung), such as Max Wellmann, routinely employed equivocal testimonies, far-fetched associations, and well-honed rhetoric to justify the existence of chimerical schools and dubious dependencies. For Wellmann, Diocles was unquestionably under the influence of Philistion of Locri and the Sicilian school of medicine.1 The present reassessment, however, after a careful weighing of the evidence, soberly concludes:
Quite apart from the fact that not much of Sicilian medicine survives, and that in most cases it is at best indirect, the fact is that it is extremely difficult to find conclusive evidence that some of the more characteristic features of Sicilian medicine were adopted by Diocles. . . . In sum, the whole notion of "Sicilian" medicine, and Diocles' association with it, is too problematic and looks too much like an ancient doxographical construct to serve as an explanatory principle for the formation of Diocles' thought. (2: xxxv-vi)
A second unfortunate development in Diocles-scholarship occurred in the 1930s when Werner Jaeger attempted to redate Diocles by a generation, making him a pupil of Aristotle rather than a contemporary, as scholarship up to that time had done (Diokles von Karystos: Die griechische Medizin und die Schule des Aristoteles, 1938). Van der Eijk's position in this question is to emphasize what we [End Page 173] do know about Diocles' chronology and possible influences, and to seek to discourage further fruitless debate on unknowns and unknowables: "I believe such accounts [sc., rehashing the Jaeger controversy] are largely of antiquarian interest, whereas what is needed is a fresh start" (2: xxxi n. 71).
In the way of his own "fresh start," van der Eijk takes important steps toward more realistic interpretations in many directions, including a careful analysis of the relationships between the various extant historical sources, a differentiated exploration and sensitive integration of their often seemingly contradictory purport, and a new and probing attention to the actual medical content of Diocles' thought in both its biological and its clinical aspects. If after reading this work we feel any inclination to be disappointed, when the author can sum up Diocles' significance no more definitely than
Diocles can therefore be regarded as an independent key figure in the interaction between medicine and natural philosophy (at least in its epistemological results) in one of the founding periods of Greek science, who long exercised a powerful influence on later Greek medicine, (2: xxxviii)
this sensation will be quickly dissipated when we call to mind the
new freedom he has given us to move beyond the kind of tedious and
unproductive debate that has sapped the energy of scholars in this area
in the past, and to engage actively the fascinating challenges that lie
before us.
Paul Potter
University of Western Ontario
Notes
1 Max Wellmann, Die Fragmente der sikelischen Aerzte Akron, Philistion und des Diokles von Karystos (Berlin, 1901), pp. 65-93, esp. p. 69.
