ancient veterinary medicine

Ancient Veterinary Medicine: A survey of Greek and Latin sources and some recentscholarshipAuthor(s): Klaus-Dietrich FischerSource: Medizinhistorisches Journal, Bd. 23, H. 3/4 (1988), pp. 191-209Published by: Franz Steiner VerlagStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25803949 .

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Klaus-Dietrich Fischer

Ancient Veterinary Medicine A survey of Greek and Latin sources and some recent scholarship

Ancient veterinary medicine has never been at the centre of attention for

either classicists or historians of science. For considerable periods, no re

search whatsoever seems to have been carried out in this admittedly remote

field. However, in recent years a handful of scholars has started - indepen

dently of each other - to take a new interest in this subject. This interest is

justified, not only because nullius rei scientia vilis est (no kind of knowledge is worthless), as the verterinary author Vegetius put it (Veg. mulom. prol.

9), but also because veterinary medicine is, and perhaps always has been, a

sister of human medicine. If we want a more profound understanding of

human medicine at any particular time, we cannot afford to neglect what

evidence is to be gathered from the way people treated their sick animals.

In this survey, I shall try to deal with three main topics: (1) which texts on

veterinary medicine have survived, and what they contain; (2) what recent

work has been done; and (3), what still remains to be done. I shall not dis

cuss veterinary instruments, because a general account with abundant

illustrations is lacking. Wilhelm Rieck's short study (1932) may, however, serve as a starting point.1 In recent years, instruments for castration and

hoof paring have been discussed by archaeologists, and articles on the use of

hipposandals and the introduction of horseshoeing continue to appear with

a certain regularity.2

1. Origins of the Veterinary Profession

Another problem that will receive only passing reference is when and whe

ther a veterinary profession existed and what the social status of the veteri

nary surgeon was. Our earliest evidence is an honorary decree (IG IX 2,69) for a veterinary surgeon called Metrodoros, from Lamia in Thessaly

- one

of the regions famous for horse breeding in antiquity. This decree is dated

approximately 130 B. C. As the inscription records, this Metrodoros did not

charge for his professional services, so he must have been a rather well-off

191

1 WilhelmRieck: Das Veterinar-Instrumentarium im Wandel der Zeiten und seine For

derung durch die Instrumentenfabrik H. Hauptner, Berlin 1932 (reprinted from Jubi laums-Katalog der Firma H. Hauptner). 2

Augusto Fernandez de Aviles: Pujavantes romanos esculturados. Contribucion al

estudio de la hipiatria antigua, Archivo Espanol del Arqueologia 37 (1964) 3?21 (with further references to articles on ancient paring knives); Alfons Rolling, Romische Ka

strierzangen, Archaologisches Korrespondenzblatt 3 (1973) 353?357; for hipposandals, see Walker's article, belown. 13.




'gentleman-vet'. It seems safe to assume that regular ijwtiaxQOi (horse

doctors) existed earlier; whatever the precise interpretation, the ijimaxQi nov in an Egyptian papyrus of 257 B. C. must refer to one, or possibly several professional iftjuotQOi.

In Rome, the first testimony is an inscription for a certain Apollodorus equa rius medicm et venator, from the time of Augustus.3 Perhaps we should as

sume that in the late Republic specialists from the East were brought in, who would have looked after large animals -

horses, mules, and oxen, which were

the most important for transport, war and horse-racing and which repres ented the greatest financial investment.

For a long time, sick animals would have been cared for by farm personnel. Varro tells us that his chief herdsman would frequently have to study appro

priate excerpts on veterinary medicine from the treatise on agriculture by

Mago of Carthage (rust. 2.5.18). However, he also states (rust. 2.1.21;

2.10.10) that there are two kinds of illnesses in animals, just as in man: for

the one, the attention of a medicus is required, the other can be left to the

pastor diligens> who must be litterate and possess a manual describing cures

for those cases of illness in beast and man (!) that sine medico curaripossint

(may be cured without a physician), as well as carry a medical bag (quae opus ad medendum, rust. 2.2.20). This would imply the existence of medicipe corum, livestock doctors, but the text of Varro cannot be pressed beyond this point. Neither does Columella's account, written some fifty years later,

provide precise information about the situation. He speaks of both pastor and veterinarius as possessing skills in veterinary medicine. It is safest to

assume that these would have been exercised as part of their other duties

rather than to equate veterinarius and veterinary surgeon, i. e. a full-time

animal health specialist.

We are best informed about the later Roman empire. We know that then the

mansiones of the cursus publicus, the imperial postal transport services, had, beside a staff of carpenters (to maintain the vehicles) and grooms, mulome

diciy whose sole responsibility would have been attending to the injuries and illnesses of the beasts employed in the cursus publicus, i. e. horses, mules and

oxen. These mulomedici were hereditary public slaves and were not allowed

to charge for their services (Cod. Theod. 8.5.31.370). There were also mulo

medici in free practice. It was for them that Diocletian's Edict on Prices of

301 A. D. laid down the maximum charges for two specific operations

(7.20?21). And there were, of course, veterinary surgeons employed by the

3 For full references to this and the preceding attestations, see K.-D. Fischer, The first Latin treatise on horse medicine and its author Pelagonius Saloninus, Medizinhistorisches

Journal 16 (1981) 215-226, esp. pp. 216-218. 192



Ancient Veterinary Medicine

army, LJtJttaxQOi or medici veterinarii (on Latin inscriptions). Ihey would

have been supported by other staff in lower ranks.4

Veterinary surgeons could be found in many social strata. We know of an

army veterinary surgeon, Theomnestos, who was a friend of the emperor Licinius (early 4th century A. D.); other veterinary surgeons worked at the

circus, looking after race horses, but there were slaves and freedmen in the

veterinary profession as well. However, the prestige of veterinary medicine

could never hope to reach that of human medicine - there are just no veteri

nary surgeons on record who were made comites or viri clarissimi; as Vege tius put it, ?perhaps the veterinarians' job appears to be a little sordid" (Veg.

mulom. prol. 13).

2. Agricultural Writers

After this glance at social history, we shall now turn to the texts which tell

us about veterinary medicine. They can be divided into two main categories:

(a) sections on veterinary medicine in the larger context of agricultural

treatises, and (b) specialised veterinary textbooks. In a third category, we

might group together all those texts whose prime concern is not veterinary medicine but which offer nevertheless here and there pieces of information

which usefully supplement our other data.

Let us begin with a short list of agricultural treatises. Among these, the work

of Mago from Carthage is the earliest and the most influential. Recent re

search assumes that it was written around the end of the 4th century B. C.

and that it would have drawn on earlier Punic and Greek sources.5 It was

translated into Latin after the fall of Carthage in 146 B. C. on the orders of

the Roman senate. Neither the original nor this Latin version survive nor do

we possess the Greek translation in 20 books by Cassius Dionysius (com

pleted in 89/88 B. C), or the Greek abridgement in six books by Diophanes of Bithynia. Varro (who, as we saw, urged his staff to consult Mago) as well

as Columella and Pliny the Elder name Mago among their sources. His book

was used by the Greek veterinary writers, by Pelagonius and in the Mulome

dicina Cbironis, with and probably more often without proper acknow

ledgement. Passages from Mago's treatise even form part of the 10th century

agricultural compilation in 20 books called Geoponica, so Mago's influence

extends for over 1300 years.

Another agricultural author of importance for veterinary medicine who is

also represented in the Geoponica is Vindanios Anatolios of Berytos (Bei

193

4 See Roy W. Davies: The Medici of the Roman armed forces, Epigraphische Studien 8

(1969) 83-99. 5 See JacquesHeurgon: Magon et ses traducteurs en latin et en grec, Comptes rendus de

l'Academie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres 1975, 441?456.




rut). His writings were also excerpted for the great Byzantine collection of

Greek writers on horse medicine which we refer to as the Hippiatrica; we

shall discuss this work in greater detail later on.

The other authors of agricultural treatises all wrote in Latin. The first among them was Cato the Elder, but neither his De agricultura nor Varro's three

books Res rusticae contain much specific medical information. The contrast

is easily grasped if we compare books 6 and 7 of Columella^s De re rustica, where long passages are devoted to the medicinae of large animals (book 6) and small animals (book 7). We may speculate that the agricultural part of Celsus' encyclopedia also contained numerous passages, possibly whole

books, dealing with veterinary medicine, since both Columella and the 4th

century writer on horse medicine, Pelagonius, copy remedies from him.

Gargilius Martialis, who wrote perhaps around 260 A. D., is another agri cultural author with a strong interest in medicine. Some four pages under the

heading curae bourn, bovine diseases, but dealing also with iumenta, i. e.

horses and mules, have come down to us in a Leiden ms. as a sort of appen dix to Vegetius' mulomedicina. There are, however, good reasons to doubt

Gargilius' authorship.

With Palladius, who was active in the late 4th and early 5th centuries, we

have come to the end of this part of our survey. He appended a book on

veterinary medicine to his agricultural treatise, but by a quirk of the trans

mission this book became separated, in all of the numerous mss. but one, from the main work and was rediscovered only some fifty years ago. It deals

with the same animals as books 6 and 7 of Columella, omitting dogs and asses. In this book, Palladius drew extensively on Columella (like in the rest

of his agricultural treatise), but also on additional Latin and especially Greek

sources. The greater part of those non-Columellan prescriptions can be

paralleled from the Hippiatrica and the Geoponica, but only occasionally from Latin veterinary authors. At the beginning of his book, Palladius lists the desirable contents of the farmer's veterinary dispensary (vet. med. 3). So

far, nobody has taken up this opportunity and studied the contents of this medicine chest in detail or compared it with existing prescriptions in our

literary sources.

3. Greek Veterinary Writers

For all these writers on agriculture, veterinary medicine was only one

among several subjects to be expounded. Let us now turn to monographs devoted entirely to veterinary medicine. For the writers of these mono

graphs, veterinary medicine is almost totally confined to what one is lead to

expect from the ancient designations of the subject -

iJCJtiatQia and mulo 194




medicina, i. e. the medicine of horses and mules. Oxen and asses are men

tioned now and then; after all, oxen also played a role in transport and were

of the stock of the cursus publicus, and asses were indispensable in the pro duction of mules.

First we shall examine the Greek texts. Today, none of them survives in its

original, independent form. As Greek agricultural writers were collected in

to the Geoponica in Byzantine times, so were the writers on horse medicine -

Eumelos, Apsyrtos, Anatolios, Pelagonius, Theomnestos, Hierocles,

Tiberios, Hippocrates, and an anonymous manual which we refer to as

nQoyvcooeic; xcd i&oeig (prognoses and cures). This hippiatric collection

{Hippiatrica) is not preserved either in its original form. All we have at our

disposal is different versions which underwent changes in representation,

linguistic form and content. So at times it is difficult to reconstruct the con

tents and arrangement of the original collection, and it is nearly impossible to answer these and similar questions concerning the original writings that

such a collection was made up from.6

The Greek hippiatric texts can be studied in the edition of Eugen Oder and Karl Hoppe, 2 vols., Leipzig 1924 and 1927, which superseded the only pre vious edition, by Simon Grynaeus, published in 1537. Since spring 1983, the

epitome of the Hippiatrica is for the first time accessible in a Louvain Ph. D.

thesis by Anne Marie Doyen. A few Greek texts - probably under 5% of the

total - have not yet found editors. Likewise, the medieval Latin translations

of Hierocles and the epitome still have to be studied in manuscript form.

It was perhaps not quite correct to claim that no complete treatise of the

Greek hippiatric writers is preserved independently. There is an Arabic ms.

of Theomnestos, now in Istanbul, from which Franz Rosenthal translated a

few lines in his Das Fortleben der Antike im Islam.7 Thus it might at least be

possible one day to form an idea about what the translator's copy of Theo

mnestos' treatise contained.

Quotations allegedly from Greek and Latin works are not at all rare in a few

translations of Arabic texts that I have examined, following the lead of Gud

mund Bjorck. However, it is unlikely that these fragments from the Arabic

would change the overall picture of ancient veterinary medicine in a radical

way. This picture is by no means as clear as one would wish. There is no

195

6 For an up-to-date survey of the problems and bibliography, cf. Doyen's article Les tex

tes d'hippiatrie grecque in the bibliography below. JohannSchaffer, Das Corpus Hip

piatricorum Graecorum, Sudhoffs Archiv 71 (1987) 217?229, takes insufficient account of

Bjorck's and Doyen's research. 7 Franz Rosenthal: Das Fortleben der Antikeim Islam, Zurich/Stuttgart 1965, pp. 278

f.; see also Gudmund Bjorck, Griechische Pferdeheilkunde in arabischer Uberliefe

rung, Le Monde Oriental 30 (1936) 1-12 (published Uppsala 1944).




monograph or survey or chapter in a history of veterinary medicine that we

could turn to in order to find reliable information about the principles of treatment, the relationship of human and veterinary medicine, or the

achievement of specific authors.

Gudmund Bjorck, a Swedish classicist whose contributions to the study of the Hippiatrica are of the same paramount importance as the work of the

editors, Oder and Hoppe, has shown this task should be approached and what results we may expect from it.

In his Ph.D. thesis Zum Corpus Hippiatricorum Graecorum (Uppsala

1932), Bjorck examines the terminology and the manner of representation as

well as the actual statements, procedure, and prescriptions. These data are

then compared both within the authors represented in the Hippiatrica and

with ancient medical sources. Thus it emerges that Theomnestos for instan

ce is the only hippiatric author to distinguish between two kinds of gall; the

way he gives definitions of diseases shows the influence of human medicine

(dogmatic or pneumatic) as does his use of phrases like xa oxeqb& (solid parts) or veuQiXY| oujAJto&Eia.

Bjorck's study of the longer texts preserved from the work of Apsyrtos pro ceeds along the same lines. While terms like jiapejbiJtiJtxeiv, evoxaoi^,

ov\ma&Eia are easy to link with medical texts, Bjorck demonstrated that

they do not necessarily presuppose the same theoretical background. A

number of technical terms, listed by Bjorck, remain without parallels in

other medical texts. However, parallels in Celsus, Galen, Antyllos, Leoni

des and Aetios exist for various surgical procedures. How much the veteri

nary surgeon is indebted to his colleagues in human medicine is occasionally

acknowledged openly as when Apsyrtos writes Set ydcrxfjoprjacpeiv xo

JteQixovaiov, ovjteq XQOJtov oi taxQoi ev avdQomq) (it is necessary to

suture the peritoneum with the same technique that surgeons use on a

human subject).

Bjorck concludes, from this and other evidence I have not mentioned, that

the composition of the main part of Apsyrtos' source will not go back much

further than the last decades of the 1st century B.C.

Scholars do not agree about the date of Apsyrtos himself, which appears to

be fixed by the Suda (a Byzantine lexicon) to the early 4th century A. D. The reason why Bjorck felt compelled to challenge the testimony of the Suda is

provided by the only firm and undisputed date in ancient veterinary medi

cine, 313 A. D., when Theomnestos crossed the Alps in the entourage of the

emperor Licinius. Theomnestos quotes Apsyrtos, but Apsyrtos himself

mentions in his work a campaign that the notice in the Suda would fix to 334 196




197

A. D. It seems unlikely that Theomnestos would have prided himself on his close relationship with Licinius after the latter's execution in 325 A. D., even

if Licinius is just referred to as PaotXeug. Although none of the addressees

of Apsyrtos' veterinary letters can be identified with certainty with persons known from other sources, Bjorck is lead by the examination of prosopo

graphical data to propose 150?250 A. D. as the limits of the acme of Apsyr tos.8 This seems also reasonable in view of the chronology of the Latin

writers on horse medicine, to whom I shall now turn.

4. Latin Veterinary Writers

The three texts we possess go under the names of Pelagonius, Chiron, and

Vegetius. Their composition seems to have taken place during the compara

tively short period between 330 and 450 A. D. Pelagonius and Chiron share

the feature that for their works we have to rely on a single ms. each, copied in the second half of the 15th century. At least in the case of Pelagonius it

seems certain that the exemplar the copy was made from dated from the 7th

or 8th century.

a) Vegetius One reason why both Chiron and Pelagonius suffered this apparent neglect was Vegetius' Digesta artis mulomedicinae. The identification of Vegetius the veterinary writer with the one of the Epitoma militarise although not

unchallenged, is now commonly accepted. The two works are sufficiently similar in nature to support the identification.9 A detailed study of linguistic data in both texts has, as far as I know, not been undertaken, but should help to disperse any doubts.

Vegetius' work - three books on mulomedicina, to which a fourth book on

oxen was later added - is a compilation: material taken from elsewhere is cast

in a personal mould, to follow Bjorck's helpful distinction between corpus, collection and compilation. In his preface, Vegetius gives as his sources

Pelagonius, Columella, Chiron and Apsyrtos. He claims to have gathered

together all Latin authors on the subject and consulted mulomedici as well

as medici.

Vegetius' statements concerning his sources deserve quoting at greater

length: Since the profession which promises the cure of beasts seemed to have less dignity, it was exercised by the less prominent and was collected in book form by the less eloquent, even if in recent time Pelagonius did not lack and Columella disposed abundantly of rhetorical skill. But Columella, since he wrote on farm management, touched the healing of animals 8 G. Bjorck: Apsyrtus, Julius Africanus et Phippiatrique grecque, Uppsala/Leipzig 1944

(Uppsala Universitets Arsskrift 1944:4), esp. pp. 7-12. 9 ChristophSchoner: Studien zu Vegetius, Erlangen 1888 (Programm d. Kgl. bayr. Stu

dienanstalt zu Erlangen zum Schlusse d. Schuljahres 1887/1888).




only lightly, and Pelagonius, leaving aside signs and causes of diseases, as if he were

writing for the experts, neglected the basis of such an important subject. Yet Chiron and

Apsyrtos who explored everything with greater care become useless because of their in

ability to express themselves and the vulgarity of their language. Besides, everything [in their treatises] is badly ordered and confused so that, if you are looking for a specific treatment, you have to stray from one rubric to the next because for the same ailments different remedies are set out in the beginning and the end (mulom. prol. 2-4).

If 'Chiron and Apsyrtos' refers to the so-called Mulomedicina Chironis, we

can agree with Vegetius' charge of confusion and poor command of Latin.

His charge against Pelagonius, that he omitted signs and causes of diseases, is plainly wrong, but no obvious reason for this false accusation suggests it

self.

Vegetius' first two books discuss semeiotics, etiology and therapy of large animal diseases, without following a general plan like the frequent a capite ad calcem (from head to heel). Book 3 contains, after some initial chapters on the numbers of bones and veins etc., a pharmacopoeia. To this pharma

copoeia an anonymus compiler appended a further collection of remedies

(now chapter 3,28) at a later time. As the conspectus testimoniorum in Lom

matzsch's edition shows, almost all the material of books 1 and 2 can be

found in our texts of Pelagonius and in the Mulomedicina Chironis, books

1?6. We may accept Karl Hoppe's suggestion that the few passages which

remain unaccounted for also derived from Pelagonius and the Mulomedicina

Chironis, neither of which survive complete. Of the remedies in the pharma

copoeia, ?chosen from many authors", only some have been found in Pela

gonius and the Mulomedicina Chironis. They may well go back to such rustic compilations as the herdsmen of Varro and Columella used.

Vegetius does not hide his status as a layman. He certainly owned horses and

was interested in their wellbeing, and he would have seen people like himself

rather than professional mulomedici as the readers of his book.

The text of Vegetius was excerpted for the collection on horse medicine pu blished by Theoderic Borgognoni in the last quarter of the 13th century,10 and Vegetius was, as could be expected, eagerly studied in the Renaissance

and later. Vegetius remained the only representative of Latin horse medicine

until Pelagonius and the Mulomedicina Chironis were printed for the first ti me, in 1826 and 1901, respectively. Since then, Vegetius' mulomedicina has

wrongly, as I think, only retained interest as a paraphrase of the Mulomedi

cina Chironis. This work, hailed by practicing veterinary surgeons as anti

10 The Latin text, based on two mss. (several more are known), was published, with a German

translation, in three Berlin Ph. D. theses in 1936/1937. For details cf. Yvonne Poulle

Drieux, L'hippiatrie dans l'occident latin du XIIP siecle au XVesiecle, pp. 22?24, which forms part of Guy Beaujouan

- Y. Poulle-Drieux - Jeanne-Marie Dureau

Lapeyssonnie, Medecine humaine et veterinaire a la fin du moyen age, Geneve-Paris 1966. 198




199

quity's most important contribution to their discipline, we shall now consi

der.

b) The Mulomedicina Chironis The Mulomedicina Chironis is preserved in a single ms. which at one time

belonged to the physician Hermann Schedel of Nuremberg. After the death

of Schedel's nephew Hartmann in 1514, most mss. from their library passed via Johann Jakob Fugger into what now is the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek in Munich. There it lay, seemingly undisturbed, until 1885, when Wilhelm

Meyer, one of the librarians and later professor at Gottingen, discovered the

55 folio pages bound with medieval medical and veterinary writings. Guided

by the subscriptions of books 1, 2 and 9, he identified the text as the source

of Vegetius' mulomedicina and noted the parallel passages in blue crayon on

the margins. His announced edition of this and all the other ancient veteri

nary writers never saw the light of day. Meyer had pointed out that the

Mulomedicina Chironis was an important document of a late and very de

based form of Latin, and as such it was to be exploited for the Thesaurus Lin

guae Latinae, which was then in its preparatory stages. An edition had to be

produced before excerption could begin. Eugen Oder, who was at the time

working on his new edition of the Hippiatrica, was pressed into the job. It

is hard to believe that he took little more than two years to edit and see

through the press 300 pages of Latin text, even with the substantial assist

ance of Franz Bucheler and, among others, his later co-editor for the Hip

piatrica, Karl Hoppe.

In the Munich ms., the Mulomedicina numbers 10 books. The confusion

and muddle which Vegetius complained about seem to have become more

pronounced. At least one bifolium was lost from book 1, as Hoppe conjec tures. Book 9, mainly a pharmacopoeia like Vegetius' 3rd book, now also

carries prescriptions for oxen, sheep and swine. Book 10 first returns to hor

ses but later adds a few remedies for oxen, sheep and goats. At one time, it

obviously ended with the subscriptio Claudius hermeros veterinarius liber

decimus Explicit feliciter (after ? 976). In the Munich ms. and doubtless al

ready in its predecessor, a few more pages with undoubtedly ancient addi

tional material follow (?? 977-999).

Book 1 seems to have originally dealt with bloodletting and cauterisation ac

cording to methodist principles. (It now ends with cures for conditions of

the extremities, sections 42.2?55, which are continued at the end of book 2,

sections 100.2?113.) Book 2, claiming to contain chirurgiam totius corporis, starts with head injuries and eye diseases, but suddenly abandons the a capite ad calcem arrangement and takes up ailments in the extremities, perhaps continued from the present end of book 1. No ordering principle can be dis




cerned in books 3?5, while 6 and 7 concentrate on surgical diseases in the

region of the head and the extremities. Book 8 is about horse breeding and

gynecological disorders, topics absent from the works of Pelagonius and

Vegetius.

Some chapters of books 3 and 4 carry authors' names and are labelled as

coming from the pens of Apsyrtos, Polycletus, Chiron; Farnax and Sotion.

(The last four are only known from these passages in die Mulomedicina.)

Although the arrangement is not as orderly as in the Hippiatrica, we can dis

cern that the opinions of different authors on the same topic were grouped

together - a collection, in Bjorck's terminology. In other parts of the Mulo

medicina, groups of passages stand out because they begin with the same

stereotyped forumula si quod iumentum ... or quodcunque iumentum . . .,

to quote but the two most frequent.

Hunters for linguistic data have often overlooked the fact that the Mulome

dicina is by no means a homogeneous whole - it rather resembles snippets

pasted onto file cards, shuffled a couple of times, and then copied out again. Its oldest discernible source seems to be Columella (??778?784 and

??946?947), the most recent one Apsyrtos; of Chiron, Polycletus and

Farnax nothing is known. The identification of Sotion with the Sotion of the

Geoponica remains doubtful.

We cannot say with any degree of certainty when the different parts of the

Mulomedicina were brought together. Vegetius provides a terminus ante

quern of sorts, as in the case of Pelagonius. There is no evidence for the rela

tive chronology of these two principal sources of Vegetius. The observation

that veterinary science and its practitioners are never referred to as mulome

dicina and mulomedici but as veterinarii or neutrally as auctores, may indeed

point to an earlier rather than a later date for the Mulomedicina. As far as we

know, mulomedicus is first attested in the Edictum Diocletiani of 301 A. D.

Pelagonius is consistent in his adherence to mulomedicus, as is Vegetius, ex

cept for one passage taken from the Mulomedicina.

c) Pelagonius

To conclude our survey of hippiatric authors, we turn to Pelagonius. Like

Apsyrtos, he organized his material into letters addressed to patrons and

friends, and, as in Apsyrtos' case, prosopography allows not a single certain

identification but rather points to the traditional date, the mid-fourth cen

tury A. D. Pelagonius' Commenta artis veterinariae (this is the title recon

structed by Hoppe from the somewhat garbled subscriptio of the only ms.) does not survive in its original form. It may have resembled Apsyrtos' letters

rather more closely than it does now. In our ms., chapters usually begin with a letter, but the epistolary style soon ends and numerous snippets con 200




201

taining remedies and sometimes additional signs and symptoms for the com

plaint or complaints dealt with in the particular chapter follow.

In my work on Pelagonius, I assumed that this state of things could best be

explained by the following hypothesis: Pelagonius' book was excerpted and

incorporated into various collections, of which we have no trace, but was

later reconstituted into an independent treatise by a redactor who had, from

a mutilated ms. of the original Pelagonius, a vague idea of the structure of the

unabridged work.

As is the case with the other veterinary authors, the original contribution

perhaps made by Pelagonius to the subject is hard to pinpoint. In a few pla ces, remedies are recommended as apopiras Pelagoni, but it is questionable if this wording is Pelagonius' own rather than an excerptor's and thus genu ine proof of authorship. Pelagonius as a person remains totally unknown.

There is no conclusive evidence to show that he really was a practicing

veterinary surgeon, rather than an amateur, or that he practiced human

medicine as well - a claim which has also been made for Apsyrtos. While we

know of a number of physicians in more recent times, especially in the 18th

and 19th centuries, who were active in both fields, the occasional recom

mendation of a remedy for human use cannot be accepted as conclusive

proof. It should be remembered that remedies in human medicine also

sometimes have a rider attached recommending them for use on animals.

Pelagonius is just as erratic as anybody else in antiquity when it comes to in

dicating his sources. While we are able to check the passages from Columella

against our own text of that writer, this is impossible in Celsus's case, since

his agricultural treatise is lost. A different case is again represented by Ap

syrtos, parts of whose work survive in the Hippiatrica and, in a Latin ver

sion, in the Mulomedicina Chironis. The Apsyrtos passages in Pelagonius,

however, differ from the wording in the Mulomedicina Chironis. It has been

suggested, correctly I think, that the 'rustic' version of Apsyrtos represent ed in the Mulomedicina Chironis would have been unsuitable for Pelago nius's purposes and some of his upper-class addressees - a vir clarissimus

among them. Did Pelagonius then make, or draw on, another translation of

those Apsyrtos passages? My own, perhaps somewhat naive attempt to

settle this question by examining the use of -que in Pelagonius, has failed.

But recent work by Dr. J. N. Adams throws light onto another source pre

sented in Pelagonius' horse medicine.11 Careful and thorough examination

of linguistic data points to the fact that those passages traditionally regarded as translations from the work of the Greek writer Eumelos really do come

11 J. N. Adams: Pelagonius, Eumelus, and a lost Latin veterinary writer, Memoires du

Centre Jean Palerne 5 (1984) 7-32.




from a Latin source. The style of this anonymous source is similar to that of

Columella, but Adams also notes differences.

This tallies well with the fact that Eumelos must have used, in addition to

Columella, a second Latin source. Pelagonius would have used his source

directly, rather than retranslated the passages in question from Eumelos.

Hoppe assumes that Apsyrtos, too, had an unidentified Latin source at his

disposal, and from a comparison of parallel passages in Pelagonius, the Mu

lomedicina, and Vegetius, Hoppe concludes that a common Latin source

must be postulated for at least two passages in Pelagonius and the Mulome

dicina. Three Latin anonymi, or just one? This question remains to be an

swered. In concluding this discussion of Pelagonius' sources I may add that

he quotes, in addition to Celsus, Columella and Apsyrtos, some authorities

whose names occur nowhere else. It seems impossible to determine whether

they wrote treatises on horse medicine, or on agriculture, or just passed on

their proven home remedies.

The material preserved by Pelagonius independently of Columella and Ap syrtos contains few remarks on medical theory in a mass of generally

straightforward prescriptions. No attempt has yet been to relate these pre

scriptions to one another or to medical systems.

5. Other Sources for Veterinary Medicine

Veterinary and agricultural writers are not the only sources for the student

of ancient veterinary medicine. Even leaving social history aside and con

centrating on a more narrow concept of medicine, we will find that interest

ing details can be gathered from a wide range of writers. Aristotle and Pli

ny's Natural History will take pride of place.

Commonly known medical writings like the Hippocratic Corpus, Dioscori des and Galen, the Elder Pliny's Natural History, but also more obscure

sources like the Anonymus Piechottae12 or the Appendix miscellaneorum in

Rose's edition of Theodorus Priscianus (Leipzig 1894) yield relevant mate

rial, as do grammarians (e. g. Nonius Marcellus), scholiasts and glossogra

phers. Poets should not be forgotten either, from Vergil to Nemesianus and

Sevenis Sanctus Endelechius.

6. Recent Work on Ancient Veterinary Medicine

If we ask what scholars have done with this material during the last fifteen

years, we notice that neither the whole of ancient veterinary medicine nor

special areas have been the subject of any monograph study. (Veterinary 12

See Hans Wieland, [orfus]. Beitrage aus der Thesaurus-Arbeit XXI, Museum Helveti

cum36(1979) 122-124. 202




medicine is not dealt with in Paul Vigneron's otherwise very useful Le che

valdans Vantiquite, Nancy 1968.)

A British veterinary surgeon, R. E. Walker, contributed an appendix on

Roman Veterinary Medicine to J. M. C. Toynbee's book on Animals in

Roman Life and Art. Given the limitations of the genre, Walker provides a

useful survey based on an independent study of sources. R. E. Walker has

also published a number of articles, especially dealing with the horse, which

genuinely advance our understanding.13

Wilhelm Rieck's article about the methodist chapters on bloodletting in

Book 1 of the Mulomedicina must also be mentioned.14 Rieck, a friend of

Oder and Hoppe's, the editors of the Hippiatrica, and probably one of the

last pupils of Max Wellmann still alive, combines veterinary expertise with

a sound training in the classical languages acquired in an old-style German

Gymnasium. Rieck's ability to recognize the importance of medical ideas in

a text under consideration distinguishes him from many veterinary surgeons of later generations. I stress these points, because in a survey like this I must

discuss the project of the Institutfur Palaeoanatomie, Domestikationsfor

schung und Geschichte der Tiermedizin in Munich to render into German

the Mulomedicina Chironis, the Hippiatrica and the relevant passages in the

Geoponica with a view to assessing them in the light of modern veterinary science. The work on the Mulomedicina Chironis was undertaken by ten

students of veterinary science in order to gain a doctorate, and was edited in

ten separate dissertations.15 It made good sense to discuss a particular disease

irrespective of its occurrence in various parts of the Mulomedicina. Now,

however, there are occasional problems when one tries to locate the trans

lation and interpretation of some passage.

The Mulomedicina Chironis is undoubtedly one of the most obscure texts in

the Latin language, and the bad state of the transmission in the single ms. is

an aggravating factor. Less frequently than is perhaps assumed by the non

specialist, we can look to Vegetius or the Hippiatrica for help. It must be re

membered, however, that Vegetius as a layman cannot always be trusted to

have interpretated the 'rustic' Latin of his copy correctly, and that the Greek

text in the Hippiatrica often does not correspond word for word to the Latin

in the Mulomedicina.

203

13 See bibliography, section 2. RobinE. Walker, Aptaturae pedis. Some notes on the care

of the hoof in Roman times with special reference to the use of 'hipposandals', Veterinary

History 1 (1973) 7?12; id., Malleus and Podegra: Lead Poisoning in Horse and Man.

Veterinary History N. S. 1 (1979/1981) 118-136. 14 See bibliography, section 1. 15 See bibliography, section 1, and Gisela Amberger, Die Mulomedicina Chironis, ein

Buch iiber Pferdeheilkunde aus dem 4. Jahrhundert n. Chr., Ethnomedizin 5, 3/4 (1978/ 1979) 233-261.




Given these tremendous difficulties, we must not expect that these German

translations will provide final answers as far as the precise meaning and the

establishment of the Latin text are concerned. The authors all seem to have

lacked the necessary grounding in medical history and were therefore not

able - and indeed it was not their aim - to understand their texts as testimo

nies of ancient medicine. One or two of these authors who had spent some

years in veterinary practice bring their experience to bear in a useful way; most of them, however, students in their final years at university, had only their textbooks to rely on.

In spite of these reservations, the references to modern veterinary textbooks

and the evaluation of drugs - where these identifications are not too uncer

tain - do provide some help. On the whole, I concur with R. E. Walker, who wrote - in a different context - that "Evaluation of Roman veterinary medicine in the light of modern knowledge and practice ... is a procedure of doubtful value and tells us nothing about the part played by veterinary medicine and its practitioners in Roman life".

Five dissertations on the Hippiatrica have appeared so far. They follow a

similar pattern. Among them, Johann Schaffer's translations of and notes

on the pharmacopoeia at the end of the Hippiatrica Berolinensia stands out

as a work of dedicated and meticulous research that will be profitably con

sulted.16

We now leave veterinary surgeons and turn to classicists. I have already mentioned the recent edition of the epitome of the Hippiatrica by a young

Belgian scholar, Anne Marie Doyen. Perhaps I should have said epitomai, because the several versions we have and which Ms Doyen has edited in full

for the first time differ as widely as do the unabridged Berlin, British and Paris versions of the Hippiatrica. She has also provided French translations

of all the epitomai and supplied a few veterinary interpretations. While this edition will be difficult to consult - the ms. has been deposited with the uni

versity of Louvain-la-Neuve her survey article on the Hippiatrica and her

collection and interpretation of sources on equine reproduction are more

easily accessible in journals.17

The Latin text of Pelagonius was recently reedited by myself, almost 90

years after Ihm's Teubner edition which had become very scarce. The Latin

commentary printed with the edition makes available most of Hoppe's notes

on Pelagonius, published in a less well-known German journal in the thir

ties, and explains some of my own ideas and difficulties with the text. I have

16 See bibliography, section 1. 17

Anne-MarieDoyen: L'accouplement et la reproduction des equides dans les textes hip piatriques grecs, Annales de Medecine Veterinaire 125 (1981) 533-556; for the rest, see bi bliography, section 1. 204




also provided copious cross-reference, mostly to the other ancient veterina

ry writers, and an index, which is supplemented by the full concordance

prepared by Dietmar Najock and myself.18

The text of Palladius' book on veterinary medicine was also edited again, as

book 14 of the opus agriculturae in Rodgers' Teubneriana of Palladius.19

Two German translations of Columella books 6 and 7 were published, by K.

Ahrens and recently by W. Richter in his bilingual edition of Columella.20 A Latin-French edition of these two books of Columella is being prepared

by Pierre-Paul Corsetti for the Collection des Universites de France. Cor

setti's penetrating discussions of the text of Columella, published over the

years, and his recent studies of equine dentition and the terms talus and suf

frago augur well for this undertaking.21

I shall conclude with a few short remarks on some directions for future

work. The need for a new edition of the Hippiatrica, giving the full text of

all versions, especially the Paris version, became obvious even a few years after the publication of Oder's and Hoppe's Corpus Hippiatricorum Grae

corum. It will be a gigantic task, even if Arabic texts are not drawn on. Less

formidable but still something of a nightmare is a new edition of the Mulo

medicina Chironis. I started work on this while still a student and have made

some progress, but completion will no be achieved for some years.

If we want to know what ancient veterinary medicine was about, we have to

study the content of these texts and give a well-reasoned account of their

doctrines, much as Bjorck did in his dissertation more than fifty years ago. This approach seems to be more promising than a study of the medieval tra

205

18 See bibliography, section 1, and for a survey of Pelagonian lore in English, my article Pela

gonius on Horse Medicine, in: Papers of the Liverpool Latin Seminar, ed. F. Cairns, third vol., Liverpool 1981, 285-303.

19 See bibliography, section 1, and R. H. Rodgers,An Introduction to Palladius, London

1975 (BICS Suppl. 35). JosephSvennung's ed., Palladii Rutilii Tauri Aemilinai uiri in lustris opus agriculturae. Liber quartus decimus de ueterinaria medicina, Gotoburgi 1926, and his monumental ?Untersuchungen zu Palladius und zur lateinischen Fach- und Volks

sprache", Uppsala 1935, may still be consulted with profit. 20 KarlAhrens: Columella. Uber Landwirtschaft. Berlin2 1976; Italian translation: Rosa

Calzecchi Onesti, Columella. L'arte dell' agricoltura e libro sugli alberi, Torino 1977;

Will Richter, Lucius Iunius Moderatus Columella, Zwolf Biicher uber Landwirtschaft, Buch eines Unbekannten uber Baumzuchtung, vol. 2 (books 6?10), Miinchen 1982.

21 Pierre-Paul Corsetti: Notes critiques sur le texte de Columella (Res rustica, livre VI), Eranos 77 (1979) 127?146, with references to his earlier publications; id., Columelle et les dents du cheval, Memoires du Centre Jean Palerne 3 (1982) 7?23; i d., Notes de lexicologie latine (I. Talus II. Suffrago), Revue de Philologie 56 (1982) 233-248; id., Lat. salivatum, salivare, Memoires du Centre Jean Palerne 5 (1984) 33?40; id., L'apportde

la tradition in

directe a l'etablissement du texte de Columelle, res rustica, livre VI, Etudes de Lettres 1986,

33?44. For his work on Palladius, see A propos d'une edition recente de Palladius. Remar

ques sur la tradition manuscrite et le texte du livre XIV, Latomus 37 (1978) 726?746, and

i d., Le manuscrit Birmingham, Oscott College 20 et la tradition du texte de Palladius (livre 14), Revue des etudes latines 57 (1971) 42-48.




dition - both Latin and Arabic - and a collection of passages of veterinary in

terest interspersed in other writings. A comprehensive view for the historian

of science can, at any rate, only come later.

Postscript: The present article was conceived and written in 1983 as part of a collective vol ume on Greek and Roman medicine to provide some kind of an introduction to ancient medical history for students of classics. For various reasons, this project eventually had to be abandoned. I am grateful to the editor of Medizinhistorisches Journal, Professor

Mann, for publishing the article in its original form with some additions to the biblio

graphy. I believe it can still serve its purpose as a simple introduction for classicists and medical historians alike to a subject for which reliable and up-to-date accounts, be it in

English or German, are not abounding. For the Latin authors treated here, the reader is referred to the more technical articles in the forthcoming Handbuch der Lateinischen Li teratur derAntike, ed. R. Herzog and P. L. Schmidt, Miinchen 1989 ff., vols. 4 (Gargi lius Martialis), 5 (Pelagonius, Mulomedicina Chironis), and 6 (Palladius, Vegetius); texts and translations are covered in greater detail in Bibliographic des textes medicaux latins.

Antiquite et haut moyen age, sous la direction de Guy Sabbah, Pierre-Paul Corsetti et Klaus-Dietrich Fischer, St. Etienne 1987 (recte: 1988).

Bibliography

1. Authors

Greek Agricultural Writers

Geoponicasive Cassiani Bassi scholastici eclogaede re rustica, rec. H. Beckh, Leipzig 1895 (a new Teubner ed. by R. H. R o d g e r s is in preparation).

German translations

(all Ph. D. theses in veterinary medicine, University of Munich, Federal Republic of

Germany).

Jung, H.: Buch 18 und 19 der Geoponica. Ubersetzung und Besprechung. Miinchen 1986.

Krauss, Christine: Buch 13 und 15 der Geoponica. Ubersetzung und Besprechung. Miinchen 1986. Sommer, J.: Buch 14 und 20 der Geoponica. Ubersetzung und Besprechung. Miin chen 1985.

Wappmann, U.: Buch 16 und 17 der Geoponica. Ubersetzung und Besprechung. Miinchen 1985.

Latin Agricultural Writers

M. Porci Catonis de agri cultura ed. A. Mazzarino, Leipzig2 1982. L. Iuni Moderati Columellae opera aquae exstant. Fasc. IV, rec.V. Lundstrom, Go

toburgi 1940. Curae bourn ex corpore Gargilii Martialis, in: Vegetius ed. Lommatzsch, see below. Palladii Rutilii Tauri Aemiliani opus agriculturae, de veterinaria medicina, de insitione ed. R. H. Rodgers, Leipzig 1975.

Greek Veterinary Writers

Corpus HippiatricorumGraecorum, edd. E. Oder et C. Hoppe, vols. 1?2, Leipzig 1924/1927, reprint Stuttgart 1971.

Doyen, Anne-Marie: Un manuel grec de medecine veterinaire. Histoire du texte, edition critique traduite et commentee. Contribution a Petude du Corpus Hippiatrico rum Graecorum, Ph. D. thesis Louvain-la-Neuve, 1983. 206




207

E a d e m : Les textes d'hippiatrie greque. Bilan et perspectives, L Antiquite Classique 50

(1981) 258-273 (quotes all relevant bibliography). Bjorck, Gudmund: Zum Corpus Hippiatricorum Graecorum. Beitrage zur antiken Tierheilkunde, (Ph. D. thesis), Uppsala 1932 (Uppsala Universitets Arsskrift 1932. 5). Schaffer, Johann: Die Behandlung der Mauke in der Rezeptsammlung des Corpus

Hippiatricorum Graecorum, Band I, Historia Medicinae Veterinariae 8 (1983) 80?96.

Id.: Das Corpus Hippiatricorum Graecorum - ein umstrittenes Erbe, Sudhoffs Archiv 71 (1987)217-229. Id.: Die Pf erdeheilkunde der Spatantike

- zum Stand der Bearbeitung des Corpus Hip piatricorum Graecorum, Pferdeheilkunde 1 (1985) 75?94. Id.: Uber die tierarztliche Hamatoskopie in der Spatantike, Tierarztliche Praxis 13

(1985) 131-139. Id.: Zur Semiotik und Diagnostik in der Pferdeheilkunde der Spatantike, Pferdeheil kunde 2 (1986) 139-166. Simon, Franz: Das Corpus Hippiatricorum Graecorum von E. Oder und C. Hoppe in seiner Bedeutung als Sammelwerk griechisch-romischer Uberlieferungen in griechi scher Sprache liber Heilbehandlung von Tieren in den nachchristlichen Jahrhunderten unter besonderer Berucksichtigung des damaligen Standes der Veterinar-Chirurgie, Ph. D. thesis in veterinary medicine, Munchen 1929.

Skupas, Michael: AltgriechischeTierkrankheitsnamenundihreDeutungen, Ph. D. thesis in veterinary medicine, Hannover 1962.

German translations


Germany) Amann, Ludwig: Ausgewahlte Kapitel uber Chirurgie und Pferdezucht im Corpus Hippiatricorum Graecorum. Ubersetzung und Besprechung. Munchen 1983.

Appel, Josef: Die Kapitel uber die Haut, die Haare und das Urogenitalsystem im

Corpus Hippiatricorum Graecorum. Ubersetzung und Besprechung. Munchen 1983.

Reiter, Georg: Die Kapitel uber Erkrankungen an Kopf und Hals im Corpus Hip piatricorum Graecorum. Ubersetzung und Besprechung. Munchen 1981.

Schaffer, Johann: Die Rezeptsammlung im Corpus Hippiatricorum Graecorum Band I (Kapitel 129, 130; Appendices 1-9). Munchen 1981. Zellwecker, Leopold: Die Kapitel uber Erkrankungen an den Extremitaten im

Corpus Hippiatricorum Graecorum. Ubersetzung und Besprechung. Munchen 1981.

Latin Veterinary Writers

Pelagonii ars veterinaria, ed. K.-D. Fischer, Leipzig 1980. In Pelagonii Artem Veterinariam Concordantiae cur. K.-D. Fischer etD. Najock,

Hildesheim 1983.

Wilberg, Karl: Die Pferdeheilkunde des Pelagonius, Ph. D. thesis in veterinary medi cine, Berlin 1943 (typescript) (German translation).

Claudii Hermeri Mulomedicina Chironis, ed. E. Oder, Leipzig 1901. Proben aus der sogenannten Mulomedicina Chironis (Buch II und III), hrsg. von M.

Niedermann, Heidelberg 1910 (books 2 and 3 = ?? 57-296). Rieck, Wilhelm: Die Blutentziehung in der anonymen Einleitung der Mulomedicina

Chironis, in: Et multum et multa, Festschrift fur Kurt Lindner, Berlin 1971, p. 307?312

(with translation of ?? 2-21). Rieck, Wilhelm: Tieraugenheilkunde im Wandel der Zeiten, Cheiron-Veterinarhi storisches Jahrbuch 8 (1936) 7-79 (with translations of relevant sections from the Mulo

medicina).




German translations


Germany) Baumgartner, Angelika: Buch I der Mulomedicina Chironis (?? 1-55), 1976.

Enderle, Carola: Buch X der Mulomedicina Chironis, 1976.

Frick, Rudiger: Buch II und Buch IV, Kap. 38?57 der Mulomedicina Chironis, 1979.

Guggenbichler, Christine: Buch IV, Kap. 1?37 der Mulomedicina Chironis, 1978.

Kruger,Jurgen: Buch IX der Mulomedicina Chironis, 1981.

Lamprecht, Wolfgang: Die geburtshilflichen und gynakologischen Probleme in der Mulomedicina Chironis, 1976 (book 8). Roeren, Thomas: Buch III der Mulomedicina Chironis, 1977

Schwarzer, Hubertus: Buch V der Mulomedicina Chironis, 1976

Wasle, Georg: Die in der Mulomedicina besprochenen Krankheiten im Kopfbereich, 1976

Wohlmuth, Walter: Teile von Buch VI und Buch VII der Mulomedicina Chironis, 1978

Ahlquist, Helge: Studien zur spatlateinischen Mulomedicina Chironis, Uppsala 1909 (Uppsala Universitets Arsskrift)

Grevander, Sigfrid: Untersuchungen zur Sprache der Mulomedicina Chironis, Lund 1926 (Lunds Universitets Arsskrift N. F. Avd. 1 Bd. 22, Nr. 3)

P. VegetiRenatiDigestorumartismulomedicinaelibri, ed. E. Lommatzsch. Accedit

Gargili Martialis de curis bourn fragmentum, Leipzig 1903

2. Studies relating to several texts

History of Veterinary Medicine

There is no work that is up-to-date, complete and satisfactory in all respects. The Eng

lish-speaking reader should first turn to Walker, then to Smith, whose more detailed account is necessarily outdated here and there. Froehner's history of veterinary medi

cine rests on a life-long study of the sources, often, unfortunately, in editions that were obsolete. Froehner has abundant references to secondary literature.

Froehner, Reinhard: KulturgeschichtederTierheilkunde. Ein Handbuch furTier arzte und Studierende. 1. Band: Tierkrankheiten, Heilbestrebungen, Tierarzte im Alter tum. Konstanz 1952

Smith, Frederick: The Early History of Veterinary Literature and its British Deve

lopment. Vol. I: From the Earliest Period to A. D. 1700, London 1976 (reprinted from the Journal of Comparative Pathology and Therapeutics, 1912-1918)

Walker, Robin E.: Ars Veterinaria. L\Art Veterinaire de PAntiquite a la fin du XIXeme siecle. Essai historique. Levallois-Perret 1972 (published by galena, produits professionels veterinaires) id. : Appendix on Veterinary Medicine, in:J. M. C. Toynbee, Animals in Roman Life and Art, London 1973, pp. 303-343, notes on pp. 404-414

Bodson, Liliane:La medecine veterinaire dans Pantiquite greco-romaine. Proble

mes-composantes-orientations, Ethnozootechnie 34 (1984) 3?12 (attempts a survey si

milar to our own in French) e a d e m: La recherche en histoire de la zoologie et de la medecine veterinaire. Tendances et perspectives, Informations du Centre Palerne n? 11 (1987) 1 -9 (the stress is on zoolo

gy) 208




209

Bibliographical Aids

Windisch, Wilhelm: Titelbibliographie der deutschsprachigen Veterinarhistorik 1900-1957, Munchen 1957 (not always reliable; only books and articles in German) Current Work in the History of Medicine, London (three times per year) L'Annee philologique, Paris (annually) Index Veterinarius (annually)

Special Journals

Veterinary History, Bulletin of the Veterinary History Society (32 Belgrave Square, London SW1X 8QP, Great Britain) (two issues per year) Historia Medicinae Veterinariae (Copenhagen) (4 fascicles

= 1 vol. per year)

Anschrift des Verfassers: Prof. Dr. Klaus-Dietrich Fischer Medizinhistorisches Institut Am Pulverturm 13 D-6500 Mainz 1



ancient veterinary medicine

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