Berlin Studies of the Ancient World This volume Babylon-Wissenskultur in Orient und Okzident (Bab... more Berlin Studies of the Ancient World This volume Babylon-Wissenskultur in Orient und Okzident (Babylon: Cultures of Knowlegde in Orient and Occident) inaugurates the "Berlin Studies of the Ancient World," a publication series whose focus is the classical and ancient world. Editorship will pass from the Excellence Cluster TOPOI to the Berliner Antike-Kolleg (BAK) following its planned establishment in 2011. The series unites the spectrum of disciplines represented by these institutions: from prehistoric, ancient Near Eastern, and Classical archaeology to Egyptology, Assyriology and Classics, from the linguistics of ancient civilizations and their literatures to history, philosophy, theology, and the historical impact of ancient cultures on the history of knowledge and the sciences. The series title "TOPOI," shared by the Excellence Cluster of the same name, indicates the full breadth of the topics addressed and the methods associated with them. The series will explore, under the category of space, the natural environment and its transformation by human societies; the administered spaces of governmental authority; linguistic, pictorial, and spatial concepts as expressed in different media, and finally cosmological and metaphysical models of space as well. How did such spatial orders and knowledge systems evolve jointly and interdependently in ancient societies? The Excellence Cluster TOPOI and the BAK are addressing these questions from a number of perspectives, as reflected in the subjects represented as well as in the network of Berlin-based institutions, which are supporting the BAK: the two major universities,
This volume explores the versatility of the concept of pneuma in philosophical and medical theori... more This volume explores the versatility of the concept of pneuma in philosophical and medical theories in the wake of Aristotle's physics. It offers thirteen separate studies of how the concept of pneuma was used in a range of physical, physiological, psychological, cosmological and ethical inquiries. The focus is on individual thinkers or traditions and the specific questions they sought to address, including early Peripatetic sources, the Stoics, the major Hellenistic medical traditions, Galen, as well as Proclus in Late Antiquity and John Zacharias Aktouarios in the early 14th century. Building on new scholarly approaches and on recent advancements in our understanding of Graeco-Roman philosophy and medicine, the volume prompts a profound re-evaluation of this fluid and adaptable, but crucially important, substance, in antiquity and beyond.
This paper looks in detail at Erasistratus of Ceos' theory of the triplokia, or 'triple web', of ... more This paper looks in detail at Erasistratus of Ceos' theory of the triplokia, or 'triple web', of arteries, veins and nerves. It seeks to identify and remove some uncertainties about the nature of this theory and the problems it was intended to resolve, and to locate it more firmly within the context of his groundbreaking physiology. I argue that it was not a kind of elemental theory intended to describe what the body is ultimately composed of, but principally an account of how the arterial, venous and nervous systems interact with each other and the body's organs at a subsensible level.
This paper argues that the Alexandrian physicians Erasistratus of Iulis and Herophilus of Chalced... more This paper argues that the Alexandrian physicians Erasistratus of Iulis and Herophilus of Chalcedon adopted an Aristotelian analysis of the composition of organic bodies into three levels, namely elements, uniform and non-uniform parts. They asserted that it was not the task of the doctor to analyse the body at the level of elements, that the uniform parts, being perceptible, should be taken to be most basic in the context of medicine and that the inquiry into the elements be left to philosophers. The paper explores the possible motivations behind this restriction, and considers more generally its connections to the Peripatetic background.
A medical catechism on tumours from the collection of the Oslo University library
In Frosen J and Purola T and Salmenkivi E Proceedings of the 24 Congress of Papyrology Helsinki 1 7 August 2004 Societas Scientarum Fennica Helsingfors Finland, 2007
A New Medical Catechism from the Collection of the Oslo University Library
In Frosen J and Purola T and Salmenkivi E Proceedings of the Xxiv International Congress of Papyrology Helsinki, Jul 1, 2007
Elements and Uniform Parts in Early Alexandrian Medicine
This paper examines a fundamental, though relatively understudied, aspect of the physical theory ... more This paper examines a fundamental, though relatively understudied, aspect of the physical theory of the physician Asclepiades of Bithynia, namely his doctrine of pores. My principal thesis is that this doctrine is dependent on a conception of void taken directly from Epicurean physics. The paper falls into two parts: the first half addresses the evidence for the presence of void in Asclepiades' theory, and concludes that his conception of void was basically that of Epicurus; the second half focuses on the precise nature of Asclepiadean pores, and seeks to show that they represent void interstices between the primary particles of matter which are the constituents of the human body, and are thus exactly analogous to the void interstices between atoms within solid objects in Epicurus' theory.
The medical and philosophical system of Asclepiades of Bithynia (fl. later second century BC)(1) ... more The medical and philosophical system of Asclepiades of Bithynia (fl. later second century BC)(1) has been the subject of considerable controversy.(2) His physical theory of anarmoi onkoi in particular has seen intense debate, and although many of its broader features appear to be fairly well established, many of its most fundamental details remain obscure. Perhaps somewhat paradoxically, some of the most important work carried out on Asclepiades has been explicitly focused instead on Heraclides of Pontus,(3) the reconstruction of whose physical theory has often proceeded on the assumption that this was largely replicated by Asclepiades some two centuries later. But to a great extent the Asclepiadean debate has been framed in terms of the question of his intellectual debts to ancient atomism, and Epicureanism in particular, and in this respect the present study will be no different.(4) The most recent scholarship has been sharply divided over this question. Vallance has emphasized th...
The Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists. American Society of Papyrologists, 2007
P.Turner 14 preserves a fragment of a Greek medical text in question-and-answer format dated to t... more P.Turner 14 preserves a fragment of a Greek medical text in question-and-answer format dated to the later second century AD. This paper offers some new supplements to the text, and, in the light of these, a re-interpretation of its subject matter and medical genre, as well as some observations on the possible doctrines which may have influenced it.
In the history of the concept of pneuma, the writings of Aristotle are considered a turning point... more In the history of the concept of pneuma, the writings of Aristotle are considered a turning point: he develops a complex conception of pneuma and assigns it a central role in the generation, development and workings of the body and soul. After Aristotle, the importance and supremacy of pneuma in medical and philosophical thought is almost undisputed; yet, while it constitutes an important stage in this history, the period after Aristotle has attracted little attention. The aim of this volume is to fill this lacuna by focusing on post-Aristotelian conceptions of pneuma, and tracing changes in the history of ideas of pneuma from the early Hellenistic period to the early Middle Ages.
CONTENTS
SEAN COUGHLIN, DAVID LEITH, ORLY LEWIS Introduction — 7
PAVEL GREGORIC Soul and Pneuma in De spiritu — 17
LUCIANA REPICI Strato of Lampsacus on Pneuma — 37
MICHIEL MEEUSEN Aristotle’s Second Breath: Pneumatic Processes in the Natural Problems (On Sexual Intercourse) — 63
ORLY LEWIS AND DAVID LEITH Ideas of Pneuma in Early Hellenistic Medical Writers — 93
DAVID LEITH The Pneumatic Theories of Erasistratus and Asclepiades — 131
TEUN TIELEMAN Cleanthes’ Pneumatology. Two Testimonies from Tertullian — 157 IAN HENSLEY The Physics of Pneuma in Early Stoicism — 171
SEAN COUGHLIN AND ORLY LEWIS Pneuma and the Pneumatist School of Medicine — 203
PETER N. SINGER Galen on Pneuma: Between Metaphysical Speculation and Anatomical Theory — 237
JULIUS ROCCA One Part of a Teleological Whole: Galen’s Account of the Lung as an Instrument of Pneumatic Elaboration — 283
JULIA TROMPETER How the Soul Affects the Body: Pneumatic Tension, Psychic Tension and Megalopsychia in Galen — 313
BETTINA BOHLE Proclus on the Pneumatic Ochema — 343
PETROS BOURAS-VALLIANATOS Theories on Pneuma in the Work of the Late Byzantine Physician John Zacharias Aktouarios — 365
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CONTENTS
SEAN COUGHLIN, DAVID LEITH, ORLY LEWIS
Introduction — 7
PAVEL GREGORIC
Soul and Pneuma in De spiritu — 17
LUCIANA REPICI
Strato of Lampsacus on Pneuma — 37
MICHIEL MEEUSEN
Aristotle’s Second Breath: Pneumatic Processes in the Natural Problems
(On Sexual Intercourse) — 63
ORLY LEWIS AND DAVID LEITH
Ideas of Pneuma in Early Hellenistic Medical Writers — 93
DAVID LEITH
The Pneumatic Theories of Erasistratus and Asclepiades — 131
TEUN TIELEMAN
Cleanthes’ Pneumatology. Two Testimonies from Tertullian — 157
IAN HENSLEY
The Physics of Pneuma in Early Stoicism — 171
SEAN COUGHLIN AND ORLY LEWIS
Pneuma and the Pneumatist School of Medicine — 203
PETER N. SINGER
Galen on Pneuma: Between Metaphysical Speculation and Anatomical
Theory — 237
JULIUS ROCCA
One Part of a Teleological Whole: Galen’s Account of the Lung as an
Instrument of Pneumatic Elaboration — 283
JULIA TROMPETER
How the Soul Affects the Body: Pneumatic Tension, Psychic Tension and
Megalopsychia in Galen — 313
BETTINA BOHLE
Proclus on the Pneumatic Ochema — 343
PETROS BOURAS-VALLIANATOS
Theories on Pneuma in the Work of the Late Byzantine Physician John
Zacharias Aktouarios — 365
Index of Ancient Sources — 401
Index of Names — 427
General Index — 429