Perhaps the chief ancient work on pharmacology was the De materia medica or Περὶ ὕλης ἰατρικῆς of Pedanius Dioscorides of Anazarba. Galen, as we have seen, found things to criticize in it but nevertheless made great use of it in his own work on medicinal simples. Dioscorides of course had his previous sources but seems to have surpassed them in fulness and orderliness of arrangement. Of the man himself his preface tells us all that we know, and his dedication shows that he probably wrote during the reign of Nero. He was born in Cilicia near Tarsus, he had traveled in many lands as a soldier, and his work was based partly upon personal observation and experience as well as previous books.
Textual history of the De materia medica.
Dioscorides’ influence continued and even increased as time went on; but if future centuries were deeply influenced by his book, it was also seriously affected by them, for it seems to have been subjected to a long series of repeated abbreviations and omissions, additions and interpolations, changes in form and in order. Thus all sorts of versions of what was called Dioscorides came into being, but which in some cases can hardly be regarded as more than compilations from all the favorite pharmacies of the time, in which the genuine Dioscorides constituted but a remnant or a core. Thus most early printed editions of what purports to be the De materia medica must be handled with great caution, and it may perhaps be doubted if even the latest effort of Max Wellmann to recover the original Greek text has been entirely successful.[2476] Of the five books regarded as genuine and original the first dealt with spices, salves, and oils; the second, with parts of animals and animal products like milk and honey, with grains, vegetables, and pot-herbs. Other plants and roots were considered in the third and fourth books, while the last dealt with wines and minerals.[2477]
Alterations made in the Greek text.
Whether we now possess Dioscorides’ original text or not, at any rate the oldest Greek manuscripts do not contain it, but only that portion dealing with herbs. Moreover, this has been rearranged in alphabetical order and has been adapted to fit a set of pictures of plants which were perhaps taken over from the work of Crateuas, one of Dioscorides’ chief sources. Such is the famous early sixth century illuminated manuscript made for Juliana Anicia, daughter of the emperor Olybrius (472 A. D.) and wife of the consul Areobindus (about 512 A. D.).[2478] The alphabetical rearrangement of the Greek text of Dioscorides was made at some time between Galen and Oribasius, who cites from it in the fourth century. Not only were the five books of the genuine De materia medica interpolated, but additional spurious books were added “On Harmful Drugs” and “On Poisons.”[2479] The work on medicinal simples attributed to Dioscorides is extant in no manuscript earlier than the fourteenth century and some versions of it are much more interpolated than others. As Galen does not cite it while Oribasius and Aëtius do use it, it is assumed that it was composed in the third or early fourth century with a forged dedication to a contemporary of Dioscorides, but that it made considerable use of the genuine Dioscorides, to which it bore much the same relation as the Medicina Plinii did to the Historia Naturalis. Later, however, some Byzantine compiler of the eleventh, twelfth, or thirteenth century introduced a great deal of new material from Galen’s genuine and spurious works in that field and from John of Damascus.[2480]
Dioscorides little known to Latins before the middle ages.
What more especially concern us are the medieval Latin versions of Dioscorides. As a matter of fact, although the De materia medica was from the start highly regarded and widely used by Greek physicians, it seems to have been little known to Latin writers until the verge of the medieval period. Gargilius Martialis, a Roman writer on agriculture in the third century of our era, was the only old Latin author to cite Dioscorides, which he did, however, no less than eighteen times in his Medicinae ex oleribus et pomis. This has led to the suggestion that he was perhaps responsible for the first Latin translation or version of Dioscorides; but it seems unlikely that the work had been put into Latin as early as his time, since it is not cited again by a Latin writer until the sixth century and is not used by such medical authors as Serenus Sammonicus, Cassius Felix, Theodorus Priscianus, and Marcellus Empiricus.
Partial versions in Latin.
But at least a portion of Dioscorides seems to have been translated into Latin by the time of Cassiodorus, who, writing in the first half of the sixth century, states that those who cannot read Greek may consult the Herbarium Dioscoridis.[2481] This naturally suggests a version limited to medicinal plants like the early Greek text in the manuscript of Juliana Anicia. This impression is confirmed by the preface to some early Latin version of Dioscorides, which Rose discovered in one of the manuscripts of the Herbarium of Apuleius in the British Museum.[2482] This preface implies that the translation which it introduced was limited to the botanical books of Dioscorides and states that it was accompanied by illustrations of herbs.
De herbis femininis.