Download PDF | Download PDF | A Byzantine Encyclopaedia of Horse Medicine: The Sources, Compilation, and Transmission of the Hippiatrica (Oxford Studies in Byzantium) , de Anne McCabe (Author), Oxford University Press, 2007.
360 Pages
Preface
Tuis book is based on a thesis entitled “The Transmission of the Greek Hippiatrica, submitted to the Faculty of Literae Humaniores, University of Oxford, in 2002. The original text has been revised and to some degree expanded; at the suggestion of the Press I have also given English translations of quotations from Latin and Greek texts. These are intended simply as an aid to the reader; I have no doubt that there are many points on which they could be improved. Translations of Columella’s De re rustica are, in general, adapted from that of H. B. Ash, E. S. Forster, and E. Heffner in the Loeb Classical Library, and translations of Varro’s Res rusticae from that of W. D. Hooper and H. B. Ash in the same series.
I should like to express my warmest thanks to the editorial board of Oxford Studies in Byzantium for including my work in the new series, and especially to my supervisor, Prof. Cyril Mango, for his kind advice and his patience. The text has benefited greatly from suggestions by my other teacher, Prof. Ihor Sevéenko, for improving its ‘user-friendliness, and from Mr Nigel Wilson’s comments on earlier versions and on matters of palaeography. Very many thanks also to Dr Sebastian Brock for his help with the Syriac translation of Anatolius, and to Dr Robert Hoyland for his collaboration on the Arabic tradition of Theomnestus; Dr Fritz Zimmerman also examined the Arabic translation. Dr Anne-Marie Doyen-Higuet and Prof. Klaus-Dietrich Fischer generously provided much useful material. Mrs Hiilya Baraz, Mr Michael Carey, Dr Krijnie Ciggaar, Dr Vera von Falkenhausen, Dr Jeffrey-Michael Featherstone, Prof. George Huxley, Dr Elaine Matthews, Dr Emilie SavageSmith, Dr Nancy Sevcenko, Dr Natalie Tchernetska, and Prof. Agamemnon Tselikas kindly offered help and all sorts of items of hippiatric interest. I am grateful to the manuscript departments of the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, the Biblioteca dell’ Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei e Corsiniana in Rome, the Biblioteca Mediceo-Laurenziana in Florence, the Biblioteca Nazionale of Naples, the Bibliotheque nationale de France, the British Library, the Kopriilit Kiittiphanesi in Istanbul, and the Universiteitsbibliotheek in Leiden, for permitting me to see their copies of the Hippiatrica; and in particular to Dr Renate Schipke of the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin for allowing me to examine the beautiful imperial manuscript Phillipps 1538; Dr Helen Carron and the late Prof. Frank Stubbings of the Library of Emmanuel College, Cambridge; Bay Muammer Ulker of the Siileymaniye Kiitiiphanesi in Istanbul, Dr Clare Breay and Dr Scot McKendrick of the British Library, M. Christian Forstel of the Bibliotheque nationale and Dr Bruce Barker-Benfield of the Bodleian Library for their answers to questions about manuscripts. Finally, I should like to thank my copy-editor, Heather Watson, for her very helpful observations. I ought in fairness to dedicate this book to my horse Calypso, who is in Patmos, with apologies for spending more time with the Hippiatrica than with her in the last few years. But since she (very sensibly) has more interest in juicy figs than in dry tomes, I dedicate it instead, with love, to my parents.
A.E.M.
Introduction
THE text known as the Hippiatrica! is the principal monument which remains of technical literature in Greek devoted to the care and healing of the horse. Compiled probably in the fifth or sixth century ap by an unknown editor out of excerpts from seven Late Antique veterinary manuals, the Hippiatrica is a vast work of reference organized ailment-by-ailment and author-by-author, ending with lists of recipes for drugs. The text is preserved in five recensions, in twenty-two manuscripts (containing twenty-five copies) which range in date from the tenth century to the sixteenth. Although the origins of the Hippiatrica may be traced back to an earlier age, and its influence detected later, in other languages and literatures, this study will focus on the sources and structure of the compilation, and on its evolution in the Byzantine period, in Greek.
The Hippiatrica is a precious source of information about the language, methods, and practitioners of a specialized branch of the veterinary art, a discipline whose flowering (if one may call it that) in Late Antiquity corresponded to the value attached to its patients, and to the importance of their roles in Roman life. Symptoms and maladies described in the text are, for the most part, those that continue to plague horses and their owners today: lameness, cough, colic, laminitis, glanders, parasites—but there are also some, such as affliction by the evil eye, which no longer figure in manuals of horse care (though they may still be cause for concern). The text also sheds light on other aspects of horse care such as breeding, breaking, feeding, grooming, and stable management. No other source offers such vivid glimpses into the daily life of the stables: we learn that horses were massaged with wine and oil; that their stalls were strewn with bay and myrtle leaves or fumigated with myrrh; that they were brought down to the sea to swim. Prescriptions for medicines composed of exotic and expensive spices, sauna sessions in Roman baths, magical amulets, and chicken soup attest to the care lavished on valuable animals. Although the texts are, for the most part, written in the detached tone befitting medical manuals, there are also, in the Hippiatrica, expressions of affection for horses, and of distress at their suffering.
The history of this rich and complex text has been neglected in the last sixty years, whether because of a distaste, on the part of scholars, for the subjectmatter, or as a consequence of the confusing state in which the text appears in its printed editions. Yet a number of paradoxes inherent in the Hippiatrica invite investigation: it is a technical reference-book which nevertheless contains elements of bellettristic style, a secular text which provides evidence of popular beliefs, a text viewed in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance both as an object of antiquarian interest and as a source of practical advice. The diversity of material forms in which the text is presented reflects this varied character: a text devoted to ‘complexities of mire and blood’ is copied in manuscripts of extraordinary beauty, as well as plain copies destined for handy reference in the stables. Early translations of the sources of the Hippiatrica between Latin and Greek and from Greek into Syriac indicate that there was demand for the texts in different areas of the Roman empire. Medieval versions of two of the source-texts into Arabic and Latin, minor products of two movements of translation that constitute milestones in the history of science, show that the influence of Greek veterinary medicine extended past the borders of Byzantium, from Palermo to Baghdad. An Italian translation provides further evidence of the reception of Greek veterinary texts in the West. These translations, which we shall touch upon only briefly, are interesting in their own right, but are additionally useful for the light that they may shed on the history of the Greek texts.
The Hippiatrica is a compilation, and the information it contains represents different periods, different places, and different points of view. In order to evaluate this information, it is necessary to have a clear understanding of the medium in which it is conveyed. At the most superficial level, the medium is that of manuscripts, and the recensions of the text that they contain; at the second, it is the compilation; and at a deeper level, it is the source-treatises that make up the compilation, and their own sources in turn. The history of these various strata of the text follows a well-known pattern of composition, codification, revision, and translation, so that the hippiatric corpus is also a good case-study for the transmission of technical material in the Byzantine period.
The history of the text may be divided into three chronological phases: (1) the period during which the seven source-treatises were composed; (2) the moment when these treatises were excerpted and the excerpts assembled to form the first compilation; and (3) the subsequent period during which the hippiatric encyclopaedia was used, copied, and repeatedly reworked. These divisions are not equal in duration: while the first comprises several centuries of Late Antiquity, the second, its terminus, is probably to be imagined as no more than perhaps a few weeks or months; and the third spans the remainder of the medieval period. Once assembled, the Hippiatrica seems to have become a standard reference-book that eclipsed other literature in the field. Little new veterinary material appears to have been added to the encyclopaedia after it was compiled: the same Late Antique treatises remained in use, being adapted without being superseded. Changes to the content and organization of successive recensions of the compilation reflect the evolving tastes of medieval editors; and it is worthy of note that the literary style and character of the source-treatises, as much as the information which they convey, influenced their fate in transmission. For this reason, rather than proceeding ‘stratigraphically’ from the manuscripts to the compilation to its sources, we shall attempt to trace the history of the text chronologically, from Late Antiquity to the end of the Byzantine period.
HORSES, HORSE-DOCTORS, AND HORSE-MEDICINE
Before we turn to the text itself, a few words about horses, horse-doctors, and veterinary literature in antiquity may help to introduce the subject.2 The specialized genre of hippiatric literature, which makes its first appearance in cuneiform tablets of the fourteenth century Bc found at Ras Shamra-Ugarit in Syria,> does not appear to have been much cultivated in Greek before the Roman period. Simon of Athens, the first known Greek writer on horses (fifth century BC), is said by Xenophon to have written on horsemanship (wept tamxhs);4 the Souda’s attribution of a medical manual to him is probably an error.> A fragment attributed to Simon, describing the characteristics desirable in a horse, is preserved in the Hippiatrica.© Xenophon’s own treatise On the Art of Horsemanship (Ilepi inmuxjs) is not concerned with diseases or their treatment, though he refers in passing to three conditions: surfeit of blood, exhaustion, and laminitis.” Aristotle gives a detailed account of the breeding and lifespan of horses, donkeys, and mules, and names several diseases with their symptoms, but describes only one treatment, namely bloodletting. Aristotle’s allusion to the opinion of ‘the experienced’ (€uecpor) that horses suffer from the same diseases as humans suggests that there were people specialized in horse care, but does not make it clear that they were professional horse-doctors.8 The Souda ascribes a ‘medical book on the treatment of donkeys’ (B:BAvov tarpixdv ets 6vwv Oeparetav) to the legendary Persian magus Astrampsychus.? Many texts of an occult nature and of diverse date, including spells and works on divination and dream interpretation are attributed to Astrampsychus,!° but the veterinary work is not known. A certain Cleodamas, from the city of Achnai in Thessaly, is said by Stephanus of Byzantium to have written on riding and horse-breaking (wept inmxhs Kat twAcdapacrixys); but there is no indication that veterinary material was included in his work."
Veterinary treatments for horses and other domestic animals appear to have figured in the lost work on agriculture by Mago of Carthage, probably composed in the third or second century sc.!? Little is known about its authorship or date, but it is clear that Mago’s work was very influential, so it is worth digressing for a moment to outline what is known about the history of the text. Cicero refers to Mago as the proverbial source of information about farming;!> for Columella, Mago is ‘the father of agriculture’ (rusticationis parens).'4 Pliny informs us that after the destruction of Carthage in 146 Bc, Mago’s work, in twenty-eight books, was translated from Punic into Latin by order of the Roman Senate, despite the fact that the work by Cato on the same subject was already available. The undertaking is said to have been entrusted to men expert in the Punic language, among whom one D. Silanus was prominent.!5 A Greek version in twenty books, which also included material from other Greek writers,!© was made, apparently again from Punic rather than from the Latin, by Cassius Dionysius of Utica,!7 who dedicated the work to the praetor Sextilius (c.88 Bc). The title of this work seems to have been Iewpyixd (though that may simply be a descriptive term).!8 Cassius’ work in turn was condensed into six books by Diophanes of Bithynia for the Galatian king Deiotarus (in the middle of the first century BC), and into two by Asinius Pollio of Tralles (first century Bc).!9 Through these translations and adaptations, Mago’s work was used in the agricultural compilations of Varro (first century Bc) and Celsus (first century aD); Celsus’ text, now lost, was used by Columella. Veterinary material copied nearly word-for-word from Columella is also included in book 14 of the agricultural manual of Palladius, compiled probably in the mid-fifth century ap.2° Diophanes was a source for the Greek compilation of Anatolius of Berytus, and, through Anatolius, was incorporated into the wepi yewpyias éxAoyai of Cassianus Bassus, and the medieval Geoponica. Descriptions of the points of the horse, advice on breeding, and remedies for horses, cows, and other domestic animals common to Varro, Columella, Palladius, and Anatolius/Cassianus Bassus/the Geoponica have been attributed to Mago, or rather to Cassius Dionysius—Diophanes.?! Mago’s influence may also be detected in the Hippiatrica, as we shall see. Antique veterinary literature thus had close links to agricultural literature as well as to human medicine. The role of translation in the transmission of this family of texts is also worthy of note, and accounts for the kinship between Greek and Latin agricultural compilations.
The earliest occurrence of the Greek word for horse-doctor, (amatpés,?2 is in a long inscription of around 130 Bc, which grants the conventional privileges of proxenia to one Metrodorus son of Andromenes, a native of Pelinna in Thessaly who, ‘being a hippiatros’ (srdpywv immarpés), treated the horses of Lamia without demanding payment from their owners.?3 The Greek word is quoted by Varro: De medicina vel plurima sunt in equis et signa morborum et genera curationum, quae pastorem scripta habere oportet. Itaque ab hoc in Graecia potissimum medici pecorum i7iarpou appellati.24
In the matter of treatment there are, in the case of horses, a great many symptoms of disease and methods of treatment, and the head groom should have these written out. It is for this reason that in Greece those who treat livestock are called by the special name, hippiatroi, ‘horse-doctors’.
Celsus (first century aD), in the introduction to his medical encyclopaedia, refers to ii qui pecoribus ac iumentis medentur, ‘those who heal cattle and horses, without using a more specific term.25 In Graeco-Latin glossaries, immuatpés is given as the equivalent of veterinarius and mulomedicus.?®
It is from Late Antiquity that we have the greatest quantity of documentary evidence about hippiatroi.2” Gravestones of pagan and Christian horse-doctors from all over the Roman empire are evidence of varying levels of literacy and prosperity.28 Private documents, such as letters and receipts for services, provide information about horse-doctors,?9 and also attest to concern for the welfare of horses.3° Moreover, in this period, the practice of veterinary medicine was both regulated and encouraged by the state.
In 301 Diocletian’s Price-Edict set the fees to be paid to a horse-doctor for basic treatments including purging and trimming the hooves.3! An edict to the Praetorian Prefect Maximus, promulgated in 337 in the name of Constantine I, exempts veterinarians (mulomedici) along with architects, doctors, and a variety of other craftsmen from public duties so that they might perfect their art and transmit it to their sons.3? That veterinary knowledge was indeed passed from father to son is corroborated by a monument at Dion (of imperial date) commemorating one Aurelius Lykos imovatpds dedicated by his son Valerian, also called inmovarpos.33
It is logical that the state should have taken an interest in those who maintained the health of horses, for the horse was essential for the functioning of three great institutions of the Roman state, the army, the hippodrome, and the public post; veterinarians were attached to all three. There exists ample documentation of the cavalry corps, including the horse-doctors who were attached to regiments;34 two authors in the Hippiatrica, Apsyrtus and Theomnestus, refer to their experience in the army. Horse-racing was a vast industry: hippodromes constructed across the empire in Late Antiquity provided the setting for public and imperial ceremonial; while both the setting and the races themselves were regarded as laden with cosmic symbolism.
The state subsidized stud-farms in areas with grazing land, and a decree of ap 371 in the Theodosian Code honours horses from the stables of Hermogenes in Pontus and those of Palmatius near Tyana, which were to be provided for from the stores of the imperial granaries even after they had finished their racing career.3° During race-meetings at Oxyrhynchus in the fourth century, a veterinarian was given payment (in wine) equal to that of a charioteer.3” The circus-factions also provided for the care of their horses: a papyrus receipt dated 552 records a purchase of ointment (waddypya) on behalf of the Greens.38 The ointment was presumably prepared by ahorse-doctor; there are numerous recipes for malagmata in the Hippiatrica.
A number of prescriptions in the Hippiatrica are specifically associated with the racecourse: mobdABep kovdpryapiov ‘chariot-racing powder, dAcpupa Kovopryapiov ‘chariot-racing ointment, xataokevy) TeOpimmov Tob Aeyopévou Kovopryapiov ‘preparation of the four-horse chariot, called quadrigarion, ovyxXpioua apuatos, Omep Kovdprydapiov KaAetrat ‘salve of the chariot, which is called quadrigarion.*° Finally, a decree of 370 in the Theodosian Code stipulates that the mulomedici who attended the animals of the public post were to be fed and clothed by the state.*!
Additional insight is provided by the fourth-century astrologer Firmicius Maternus, who predicts that those who are born in the sign of the Scorpion with the Centaur ascendant are likely to become horse-doctors:
In Scorpii parte XII oritur Centaurus. Hoc oriente quicumque natus fuerit, aut auriga erit aut equorum nutritor et cultor, aut certe exercitator aut mulomedicus, aut certe equitarius.*42
In the twelfth degree of Scorpio rises the Centaur. Whoever was born with this in the ascendant will either become a charioteer or a breeder and keeper of horses, or else surely a trainer or a horse-doctor, or surely the inspector of a stud.
Doctors were a favourite butt of humour; horse-doctors, too, did not escape ridicule: in a joke based on Odysseus’ instructions to Diomedes in Iliad 10.481 an unscrupulous immatpds says to a doctor, ov y dvdpas evaipe, pedrcovow & éuol imoz: ‘You take out the men, and I'll take care of the horses.’ 43 A brief account of veterinary literature is given in the introduction to the treatise of Vegetius (probably to be identified with the author of the Epitoma rei militaris, and thus dated to the late fourth or early fifth century ap).
Mulomedicinae apud Graecos Latinosque auctores non fuit cura postrema. Sicut enim animalia post hominem, ita ars veterinaria post medicinam secunda est. In equis enim ac mulis et adiumenta belli et pacis ornamenta constitunt. Sed quo minus dignitatis videbatur habere professio, quae pecudum promittebat medelam, ideo a minus splendidis exercitata minusque eloquentibus collata docetur in libros, licet proxima aetate et Pelagonio non defuerit et Columellae abundaverit dicendi facultas.
Verum alter eorum cum rusticae rei praecepta conscriberet, curas animalium levi admonitione perstrinxit, alter omissis signis causisque morborum, quasi ad doctissimos scriberet, tam magna rei fundamenta neglexit. Chiron vero et Apsyrtus diligentius cuncta rimati eloquentiae inopia ac sermonis ipsius vilitate sordescunt. Praeterea indigesta et confusa sunt omnia, ut partem aliquam curationis quaerenti necesse sit errare per titulos, cum de eisdem passionibus alia remedia in capite alia reperiantur in fine.49
Among Greek and Latin authors, there has not been the least care for veterinary medicine. Just as animals come second to man, so has the veterinary art followed behind human medicine. Horses and mules, to be sure, provide support in times of war and ornament in times of peace. But 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 times the ability to write was not entirely lacking in Pelagonius and was abundant in Columella.
Still, the latter, since he was writing about farming, touched only briefly on cures for animals, with little advice; while the former, omitting the symptoms and causes of diseases as though he were writing for very learned men, neglected the basic principles of the science. And Cheiron and Apsyrtus, though certainly they investigate everything more thoroughly, are sullied by their lack of eloquence and the low level of their language. Moreover, everything is disorganized and confused, so that it is necessary for someone searching for some part of a treatment to browse through the headings, since some remedies for the same ailments are to be found at the beginning and others at the end.46
Vegetius, an amateur in the field of veterinary science as in that of military science, based his compilation upon other writers: when he names Columella, Pelagonius, and ‘Apsyrtus and Cheiron, these seem to be his immediate sources rather than a survey of all veterinary works.
The last two names are apparently an allusion to the Mulomedicina Chironis. This enigmatic compilation has been much exploited as evidence of late and low Latin; yet the history of the text remains to be written. Cheiron the centaur, amalgam of horse and man, is associated in Greek literature from earliest times with healing, the teaching of medicine, and the preparation of drugs.
He is also linked with veterinary medicine: Columella alludes to Cheiron’s ‘learning in the care of cattle’ (in pecoris cultu doctrinam Chironis), in an enumeration of semi-legendary sages such as Pythagoras and Melampus.48 Cheiron’s name appears in the Hippiatrica twice, in a rhetorical invocation and in a spell, as a deity rather than an author. In a third instance a remedy is called yerpwrerov.4? But a Greek work on horse-medicine going under the centaur’s name (and no longer extant) may lie behind the Mulomedicina Chironis.>° Book II of the Mulomedicina is a compilation of excerpts from Apsyrtus, Sotion, and Farnax; it may well represent a compilation similar to the Hippiatrica.>!
Indeed, the invention of the discipline of horse-medicine is attributed to Cheiron by Isidore of Seville (sixth century aD), with his customary logic, and probably with the Mulomedicina Chironis in mind.
Medicinam iumentorum Chiron quidam Graecus invenit. Inde pingitur dimidia parte homo, dimidia equus. Cheiron, a certain Greek, invented horse-medicine. For this reason he is depicted as half man, half horse.
In the twelfth-century chronicle of George Cedrenus, credit is given instead to one Sosandros, said to have been the brother of Hippocrates: the relation of human and veterinary medicine is symbolically expressed as a fraternal one.
Link
Press Here
0 التعليقات :
إرسال تعليق