Max Wellmann edited the Περὶ ὕλης ἰατρικῆς (De materia medica = hereafter, M.M.) and Περὶ ἁπλῶν φαρμάκων (Liber de simplicibus = hereafter, Simp.) together, both of them as the work of Dioscorides.Footnote ¹ I take the opposite view from Wellmann on the authenticity of Simp.: hence the title of this paper. But that is a subject for another discussion. Here I shall offer some notes on the text of Simp., occasionally relying on clarification provided by M.M. Then I shall balance the account somewhat by discussing two points where Simp. sheds light on M.M. itself.

‘These vapours are introduced through a reed tube for pain and ringing in the ears: decoction of wormwood or hyssop or bay berries or habrotonon with vinegar or brought to a boil by means of heated pebbles.’ Clearly boiling of any of these decoctions is necessary to produce steam, and is not an alternative to mixing with vinegar. Delete the final ἤ (that following μετ᾽ ὄξους).

‘Ephelides [rough facial spots or freckles] are removed by two parts of white hellebore with honey.’ ‘Two parts’ would be meaningful only in relation to x parts of some other ingredient, here honey. James Diggle suggests persuasively that <μέρος α´> has dropped out after μέλιτος through haplography; from the immediate vicinity he cites 1.112.3 λιθαργύρου μέρη β´, θείου <ἀπύρου> μέρος α´, 1.116.1 σηπίας ὀστράκου … κεκαυμένου μέρη β´, βαλάνου μυρεψικῆς μέρος α´. In this case μετά was later inserted to provide a construction for μέλιτος.

These phrases are from a list of treatments to disperse swellings. But the transmitted text, given here and printed by Wellmann, cannot be construed. The participles καταπλασθείς and καταπλασσόμενος regularly indicate in Simp. that a medication is used as a poultice or plaster; ἐπιτεθείς and ἐπιτιθέμενος indicate that a medication is ‘applied’. In other words, we have here two prescriptions, which have been wrongly combined: the first is for meal made from lupins (cf. 1.136.1, 1.232.2, 2.69.3; Diosc. M.M. 2.109.1); the second, for boiled honey (cf. 1.208.3, 2.31.5; Diosc. M.M. 2.82.2). So the puzzling εἰς is interpolated: perhaps it was meant to be taken with ἀσβέστου μιγείσης, and an original ζεσθέν (cf. 1.128, 1.196) was simultaneously altered to ζέον, giving ‘with unslaked lime mixed into boiling honey’, but this leaves ἐπιτιθέμενον stranded. With εἰς deleted and ζεσθέν restored, we have ‘meal of lupins as a poultice; boiled honey applied with an admixture of unslaked lime’. Use of the genitive absolute with passive μείγνυμι is not uncommon in Simp.: for example 1.73 ὀλίγου ἁλὸς αὐτοῖς μειγνυμένου, 1.121.2 πίσσης μιγείσης.

‘Thin-necked warts in any area are removed by the juices from a roasted lung used as a liniment.’ In using animals’ body parts, Simp. elsewhere—like Pliny (HN Books 28–30) and Dioscorides, M.M. (Book 2)—regularly specifies not only the body part (here the lung) but also the animal: clearly we need such a specification here. For warts on the (male) genitalia, Pliny recommends anointing with the gravy that runs from a ram's liver in cooking (HN 30.72 arietini pulmonis inassati sanies). Possibly, then, <κριοῦ> or <ἀρνειοῦ> has dropped out. But elsewhere Simp. and Dioscorides refer to sheep by the undifferentiated πρόβατον, and there is nothing gender-specific in the present context; so perhaps <προβάτου> or <προβατείου> is more likely.

‘Treatment for whitlow:Footnote ² … dried figs with cooked pomegranate peel and honey, with rock alum and copper flakes mixed and applied as a salve.’ The transmitted reading ἐπιτιθεμένων suggests that it is the rock alum and copper flakes, not the figs, that are to be applied as a salve (ὡς ἔμπλαστρος). But in this case why are they in the genitive, whereas all the preceding medicines in this list are in the nominative? Surely χαλκίτεως καὶ λεπίδος μιγέντων is a genitive absolute like that seen above in 1.140.3, ‘with rock alum and copper flakes mixed in’, and this whole prescription is to be applied as a salve. Confirmation is provided by Celsus, Med. 6.19.2, in a prescription for whitlow using the same five ingredients: chalcitis, malicorium, squama aeris excipiuntur fico pingui leniter cocta ex melle. (Similarly Aëtius 14.74, except that he omits chalcitis.) Hence ἐπιτιθεμένων should be corrected to ἐπιτιθέμενα.Footnote ³ The καί before ὡς ἔμπλαστρος needs deletion: it was inserted after ἐπιτιθέμενα became ἐπιτιθεμένων, to link the two passive participles.

Treatment of haemorrhoids; the symbol <⋅ means ‘drachma(i)’. ‘<Take> eight drachmai of realgar and eight drachmai of the gold-coloured yellow orpiment, and smear it on …; for it necrotizes and falls off in half an hour, being dried up.’ Dioscorides (M.M. 5.104) says that ἀρσενικόν (yellow orpiment) has escharotic properties, that is, it kills unwanted tissue and leaves it to slough off; this agrees exactly with the statement in Simp. that it (the haemorrhoid) necrotizes and falls off. But what is the meaning of προεσχηματισμένῳ? If the masculine gender is correct, it must refer to the patient, who has ‘first assumed a position’ for treatment (cf. LSJ s.v. σχηματίζω II.3: so Saracenus's translation, ‘aegrum prius apte compositum locatumque oblinito’). But since the haemorrhoid is the subject of ἀπονεκροῦται κτλ, it seems more likely that the participle too refers to the haemorrhoid, which has ‘first been protruded’ (LSJ s.v. προσχηματίζομαι): the author has in mind a process such as that described by Celsus, Med. 7.30.3A, of first making haemorrhoids more prominent, in order to facilitate treatment (ora promoueantur … ut omnia quasi … capitula conspicua sint). This requires correction of προεσχηματισμένῳ to προεσχηματισμένῃ.Footnote ⁴ In either case, the participle illustrates the tendency of Simp. towards extreme succinctness.

Medications to treat sciatica. ἀναμισγόμενος is untenable because there is no indication what the colocynth juice should be mixed with. Correct to ἀνατριβόμενος from Diosc. M.M. 4.176.2 on colocynth: καὶ χλωρᾶς δὲ αὐτῆς ὁ χυλὸς ἐπὶ ἰσχιαδικῶν ἀνατριβόμενος ἁρμόζει.

‘And having dealt in the preceding book with resources appropriate to ailments affecting the head and eyes and windpipe and the rest of the body's surface, in this one we shall make a thorough examination of what remains.’ But while the head and eyes did indeed constitute the opening sections of Book 1 (1–28 and 29–53), the windpipe was treated only twice, as a subsidiary to the mouth and throat (83.2, 86). Nor is the windpipe a good instance of the ‘visible surface’ (ἐπιφάνεια) of the body. By contrast, the joints (especially of the foot) and their ailments—arthritis, gout and sciatica—were the subject of the final section of the Book (219–35). If we read ἄρθρα for ἀρτηρίαν, we have a more satisfactory reference to the opening and closing sections of Book 1, roughly equivalent to the proverbial a capite ad calcem.

Palliatives for fatigue. After salt and soda, Simp. lists seventeen further items. But what are they to be mixed with (μειγνύμενα)? Not all together, for Simp. deals in simples, and when it does occasionally prescribe compounds (as at 1.223) they are not extensive. Salt is recommended for fatigue as a liniment σὺν ἐλαίῳ at Diosc. M.M. 5.109.2, and soda with olive oil or wine or vinegar at Simp. 1.220. I suggest, then, that σὺν ἐλαίῳ has dropped out between δὲ and κόπους. (ἐλαίῳ alone would create a hiatus. For σύν used with μείγνυμι cf. Simp. 1.170 ἀπόπατος σὺν ῥοδίνῃ κηρωτῇ προβατεία μιγεῖσα.)

2.37.5. Simp. 2.37 deals with πλευρῖτις (pleurisy), and 2.38 with περιπνευμονία (pneumonia). These are clearly presented as distinct conditions, as at Hipp. Morb. 1.26–7 and Diosc. M.M. 1.19.5. So when we read, at the start of Simp. 2.37.5, μάλιστα δὲ ποιεῖ ἐπὶ τῶν περιπνευμονικῶν κώδιον, it is evident that this section belongs at the end of 2.38, not in 2.37. Perhaps it was omitted and then reinserted at the wrong point.

Cleansing treatment for jaundice: ‘let them bathe, mixing decoction of vinegar-and-brine or of origanum or osyris with the bathwater.’ The early editors took the puzzling transmitted genitives ὀξάλμης and ἀποζέματος as partitive (‘acidae muriae aliquid, aut … decocti’), but this usage is unparallelled in Simp. and alien to its plain style. Wellmann's emendation, however, only half-corrects the text, for we need ὀξάλμην as well as ἀπόζεμα: both have been attracted into the genitive case of the adjacent nouns. A decoction is regularly of a plant, as here of origanum or osyris; one might conceivably boil down vinegar-and-brine for some purpose, but not when about to dilute it by mixing it into the bathwater.

A poultice to treat female flux. In Wellmann's text it consists of ‘barley <meal> with ground-up oak gall … or with <bark> of holm oak or of acorns, or with myrtle leaves’. But ‘the bark of acorns’ is untenable: trees have bark, acorns do not. Rather the original βαλάνῳ has been attracted into the genitive by the surrounding nouns πρίνου and μυρσίνης. (For βάλανος as a collective singular, cf. 1.51.3 and earlier in 2.89.) Consequently, one wonders whether the insertion of <φλοιῷ> is justified. Ground-up acorns are used in poultices, without tree bark, elsewhere in Simp. at 1.138.2, 1.193, 2.88.2 (the last as a pessary for flux). Dioscorides tells us that the acorns of the holm oak are stronger medicinally than those of other oaks (1.106.2). A less intrusive solution, then, is simply to delete the ἤ after πρίνου; it was inserted after βαλάνῳ was corrupted to βαλάνων.

On Wellmann's unnecessary addition of ἄλευρον, see my note below on alum, meal and substantival adjectives.

A list of diuretics. Dioscorides (M.M. 4.147) tells us that χαμαιδάφνη (a species of butcher's broom) is also called ἀλεξάνδρεια. The author of Simp. interprets this plant's name as χαμαιδάφνη ἀλεξανδρίνη both here and at 2.42.4, where he recommends its use for griping pains, as does Dioscorides. Since Dioscorides also commends the plant as a diuretic, it is perfectly at home in the present list. True, Dioscorides calls another species of butcher's broom δάφνη ἀλεξάνδρεια at 4.145, but there seems no need to introduce that plant here.

There is no obvious reason why an original nominative χαμαιδάφνη ἀλεξανδρίνη should have been corrupted into a genitive as Wellmann supposed. Rather the transmitted genitive points to the loss of a word indicating what component of the plant should be used. Since M.M. 4.147 specifies the χυλός or expressed juice of the leaves as a diuretic, that word should be reinstated here after ἀλεξανδρίνης.Footnote ⁵

Means of removing leeches from the gullet and the oesophagus. ‘After grinding sharp vinegar with thyme, let them drink it.’ Wellmann's adjustment of the manuscripts’ spelling does not improve the sense, for it is the thyme that needs to be ground—hardly the vinegar. Read λεανθέντος (for the form, cf. Simp. 1.123.2 λεανθέντα). Confirmation is provided by a passage in Oribasius on leeches (probably indebted to Simp.), which recommends θῦμος λεῖος σὺν ὄξει δριμεῖ πινόμενος (5.431.18 Raeder).

Remedies for poisoning caused by ingesting blister-beetles. ‘Having boiled [sing.] linseed together with goat's lard … let them eat it.’ Here the participle is even odder than that at 2.138 because of the incongruity with the plural main verb. In addition, it seems unlikely that the poisoning victim is to cook up his own remedy: other preparations in this paragraph are clearly made by a doctor or an assistant (ἔγκλυζε, τρίψας … δίδου), and at Nic. Alex. 133–4, which is also on blister-beetle poisoning, it is (naturally enough) the helper, not the victim, who is to prepare the linseed dish. Correct συγκαθεψήσας to συγκαθεψηθέν (for the form, cf. Simp. 2.159 συνεψηθεῖσα).