Category Archives: Classical Antiquity

Conference report: “The Words of Medicine”

By Isabella Bonati

From Wednesday 19th to Saturday 22nd September the international Conference “The Words of Medicine: Technical Terminology in Material and Textual Evidence from the Graeco-Roman World” was held at the North-West University of Potchefstroom (South Africa). Sixteen scholars from around the world exchanged knowledge, research and experience, and worked together on the exciting field of ancient medicine and its technical vocabulary. Papers presented at the conference approached the topic from different perspectives and in different typologies of texts and sources – Greek medical authors, as well as non-medical texts, papyri of medical content, Latin prose and poems. While on this journey into the words of medicine, they have explored the degrees of technicality used to express medical concepts and issues, the socio-linguistic aspects of medical vocabulary, the (re)use of medical terms and images in Greek and Latin authors up to Late Antiquity, that is, the crossing of medical terminology into other literary genres, but they have also dealt with the material side of ancient medicine and its practice. The deep interdisciplinary approach which has inspired the conference has proved to be fruitful to enhance our knowledge of the Graeco-Roman medicine and its technical vocabulary through the analysis of its sources, both textual and material. One of the aims of such an approach was to promote connections between disciplines also in a modern institutional context, given the relevance of the reconstruction of medical profession and health care of the ancient world for the Medical Humanities and, in general, Health Sciences. The main aim was to contribute to “revitalise” the past and to make it more accessible by rediscovering the medical terminology in its real and concrete dimension and allowing its issues to come alive, in a way that can improve our understanding both of the past and the present.


Pompeii, Wall Painting, House of Siricus, I century AD

On Wednesday evening, the Conference was opened by a cocktail reception and the Keynote address delivered by Stephen Harrison from the University of Oxford, who investigated the medical imagery in Horace’s poetry. The first panel, on Thursday 20th, was inaugurated by the Keynote address given by Alessia Guardasole from Paris-Sorbonne, who focused on a diachronic and contextual study of the technical vocabulary employed by Galen in his pharmacological treatises.  As a second speaker of that session, Nathalie Rousseau from the same University scrutinised other remarkable aspects of the technical words of medicine according to Galen.

The second and the third panels provided an opportunity to explore the medical terminology and the medical practice in the Greek papyri from Egypt. Anna Monte from the Humboldt University of Berlin analysed the terminology of private letters on papyrus dealing with medical topics. Isabella Bonati from the North-West University of Potchefstroom, organizer of the conference, surveyed the medical words and the context of medicine in the ostraca from the Roman praesidium of Mons Claudianus, in the Eastern desert of Egypt. Francesca Bertonazzi from the University of Parma approached the technical vocabulary of surgery in the papyri focusing on some terms for “threads”. Dimitris Roumpekas from the University of Athens dealt with metaphors and medical terminology in the light of the papyri of Graeco-Roman and Byzantine Egypt.


PSI XX Congr. 5: papyrus preserving a recipe for an ophthalmic ointment, III century AD

During the fourth panel, entitled ‘Illness and healing in Greek non-medical texts’, Caterina Manco from the University Paul-Valéry of Montpellier approached the medical terminology of Thucydides, and Maria Konstantinidou from the Democritus University of Thrace discussed the topic of disease and healing in early hagiographical texts. The day was concluded by a panel on ‘Technical terminology of specialized medical fields’. Jane Draycott from the University of Glasgow examined the vocabulary utilised in ancient Greece and Rome to refer to assistive technology, specifically mobility aids, in ancient textual evidence, and Tara Mulder from the Vassar College of New York approached the terms for uterus in ancient Greek medical and philosophical texts, early Christian writings, magical amulets, and Greek magical papyri.

The sixth panel on Friday 21st discussed the medical words and their technicality in Latin prose. Cristoph Weilbach from the University of Leipzig analysed the presence of medical themes and the manipulative command of medical language in the epistles of Seneca the Younger, and Michiel Meeusen from the King’s College of London explored Gellius’ acquaintance with technical scientific knowledge and his use of medical terminology in some passages of the Attic Nights.

The seventh session moved to the reuse of medical terms and images in Latin poems. Katharina Pohl from the University of Wuppertal dealt with Cassandra’s medicine-image in Dracontius’ De raptu Helenae, and Ezequiel Ferriol from the University of Buenos Aires with the trans-textual and trans-generic transformations in Quintus Serenus Sammonicus’ Liber medicinalis.

The following day, the conference was brought to a close with the last session concerning diseases and disorders between literature and medicine. Matthew Chaldekas from the University of California-Riverside focused on melancholy as a technical term and literary model in Sophocles’ Trachiniae. Finally, a rich and stimulating discussion concluded this journey into the words of medicine that will result in the publication of a peer-reviewed volume.

Fevers and the Dog Star in Antiquity

By Laurence Totelin

Summer this year in the UK has been particularly hot; we have experienced a heat wave for the first time in almost a decade. The hot days between roughly the tenth of July and the fifteenth of August are known as the Dog Days, so called because they are under the astronomical influence of the Dog Star (canicula in Latin, hence the French “canicule”, sometimes also used in English), also known as Sirius. Greek and Latin poets, starting with Homer and Hesiod, sang of the effects of the parching heat on the environment and people:

When the golden thistle blooms and the chirping cicada
Sits in a tree and pours down its shrill song
Continuously from under its wings, it is the season of exhausting heat,
Then goats are fattest, wine is at its best,
Women are most lustful, but men are weakest,
Because Sirius dries up the head and the knees,
And the skin is parched by the burning heat.
[Hesiod, Works and Days 582-588]

The constellation Sirius in the ninth-century manuscript Harley MS 647 . Source: wikipedia

To the Greeks, women were wet and men dry. The heat of the Dog Days caused both men and women to become drier; this brought positive effects to women, who became more like the ideal male, but weakened men. That weakness, however, was not a morbid state; it was not an illness.

Medical texts composed in later antiquity described a disease called seiriasis, which was an inflammation of the meninges accompanied by a burning fever. Its name evoked the Dog Star Sirius, although the physician Soranus of Ephesus suggested that the origin of the word seiriasis might be slightly more complex:

Some people state that the disease is called ‘seiriasis’ after the star [Sirius], because of the fever; but others state that it is thus called after the sunken forehead, because among farmers ‘seiros’ is the name of a hollow object in which they put and keep seeds. [Soranus, Gynaecology 2.55]

Soranus, and other medical writers, recommended the application of various ingredients to the forehead as treatment for the illness: egg yolk mixed with rose oil, the leaf of the heliotrope, grated colocynth, the skin of melon, or the juice of nightshade with rose oil. Most of these products, available in mid-summer, were thought to be cooling, and therefore effective in the treatment of fevers: opposite is a cure for opposite. The heliotrope, however, was not known as a cooling drug. The therapeutic principle at play here seems to be that of homeopathy (similar is a cure for similar): the heliotrope, the plant that follows the heat of the sun, is a remedy for a burning fever.

An altogether more colourful remedy for seiriasis is recorded in Pliny the Elder’s Natural History:

The inflammation of infants which is called seirasis is improved by the bones that are found in dog excrement, worn as amulets. [Pliny the Elder, Natural History 30.135]

Girl playing with a dog on a Greek funerary stele, second century BCE. Credit: British Museum

Bone shards are sometimes found in dog poop, and these might be what Pliny was referring to here. This ingredient was most certainly chosen because of the perceived link between seiriasis and the Dog Star Sirius. One can only imagine the despair that would lead the sleep deprived parents of a sick child to put their trust in such an amulet.

Banishing the Armpit Goats: Body Odor in Ancient Rome

By Cari Casteel

Cari Casteel is currently working on a manuscript on the social and cultural history of deodorant, based on her dissertation, “The Odor of Things: Deodorant, Gender, and Olfaction in the United States.”Beginning in the fall she will be joining the history department at the University at Buffalo as a Clinical Assistant Professor. You can find her on twitter @thedeodorantone.

Figure 1: Advertisement for Mum deodorant illustrated by Don Herold. Esquire April 1939, 166.

“Remember that night in 1933, Ed Snootz came to the Club Dance with that cave-man aroma? … Just let a man forget himself for one evening and come to a party with a slight case of perspiration fumes and his name is Mr. Goat.” This selection from a 1939 advertisement for Mum—the first commercially available deodorant—reprimanded the fictional Snootz for his body odor.

Many early deodorant advertisements actively shamed consumers into purchasing their product. Men and women were told that if they did not wear a deodorant it would lead to other failures: in love, friendship, and business. In the case of “Mr. Goat” his faux pas was so egregious that women were talking about it 6 years later.

As I write this from the comfort of my airconditioned office, the outside temperature is 90°F. The moment I venture outside, my body will begin to perspire in order to regulate its temperature. One unpleasant side effect of this perspiration is underarm odor. No need to worry, however, because in the 21stcentury, we have a vast array of deodorants and antiperspirants created to banish body odor.

A commonly held refrain about deodorant use is that because of these scolding advertisements consumers were duped into buying a product to hide perspiration and the accompanying offensive odor. While this is not entirely untrue, it is not the whole story. Mum deodorant was not the first—or even the hundredth—attempt to tone down the “cave-man aroma” described by the ad. As long as people have existed, they have worried about their appearance and smell. While the custom of wearing a commercially produced deodorant is rather new—about 130 years—attempting to combat fetid odor is as old as mankind.

Figure 2: Statue of Barberini Faun located in the Glyptothek Munich. Image credit Wikimedia Commons

The Romans particularly worried about foul body odor and worked fastidiously to keep their bodies clean and smelling pleasant. Just as the Mum advertisement shamed Ed Snootz for his lack of deodorant use, Roman playwrights and poets rebuked and joked about malodorous men and women. This can be seen –and smelled—in an epigram by Catullus:

Rufus, you are being hurt by an ugly rumor which asserts

that beneath your armpits dwells a ferocious goat.

This the women fear, and no wonder; for it’s a right rank

beast that no pretty girl will go to bed with.

So either get rid of this painful affront to the nostrils

or cease to wonder why the ladies flee. (Carmina 69)

Rufus—much like his 20th-century counterpart Mr. Snootz—had failed to practice proper hygiene and as a result could not find a female companion. Throughout Roman texts, foul body odor was described as goaty (hircus) and connotatively undesirable. Roman citizens took pride in their appearance and viewed their perceived cleanliness as a mark of superiority over other civilizations.

In a scene from Plautus’ Pseudolus, two characters gossip about a newcomer from Greece.

Pseudolus: But this servant, who is come here from Carystus, does he smell of anything?

Charinus: Yes, of the goat under his armpits.

Pseudolous: It befits the fellow, then, to have a tunic with long sleeves (2.4.46-49)

Much in the same way that 20th-century deodorant advertisements sought to correct a behavior, Roman prose and poems—such as those by Catullas and Plautus—used satire to poke fun at foul odors, but also as a way to educate and encourage cleanliness. Ovid, in The Art of Love, cautioned readers against offensive underarm odor, writing “I warn you that no rude goat find its way beneath your arms” (3.193). Ovid continued by recommending removing underarm hair and using powders to keep the body free from odor.

The Romans had countless remedies for dealing with perspiration odor. For example, In Natural History,Plinyrecorded a number of solutions for dealing with goats under the armpits. One method for combating body odor was a combination of rue, aloe, and rose oil boiled together and then dabbed on the offending areas (20.51). Another—slightly more fitting—recipe was a concoction made from the ashes of goats’ horns mixed with oil of myrtle, and then rubbed all over the body (28.79). While these solutions might not have checked perspiration, the scented oils would have helped mask the goaty odor.

Most significantly, when it comes to halting foul odors in the 21stcentury, the Romans recorded some of the earliest instances of applying alumen—the main ingredient in many antiperspirants today—as a deodorizer. Roman recipes for alumen as a preparation for halting armpit odor range from, bathing in a mixture of two parts honey and one part alumen, to placing unadulterated alumen stones in the armpits until the odor disappeared (35:52).

For over 2000 years, foul body odor has been a topic of conversation, a location for shame, and a way to assert superiority. Whether in ancient Rome or the present-day United States, dealing with goaty armpits has been a priority for many men and women. If you wear an antiperspirant, next time you apply it, you can thank the Romans.

Recipes for honey-drinks in the first published English beekeeping manual

By Matthew Phillpott

The Roman emperor Augustus is said to have asked the Roman orator, poet, and politician, Publius Vedius Pollio, how to live a long life. Pollio answered that ‘applying the Muse water within, and anointing oil without the body’ would help to keep him free of sickness. Whether Augustus took up Pollio’s advice is not mentioned. Indeed, Thomas Hill was little interested in exploring the story further when he took it from Pliny the Elder’s The Natural History in the 1560s as part of his small treatise on beekeeping, A Pleasant Instruction of the Perfect ordering of Bees (London, 1568).

Drawing of Thomas Hill from his The Art of Gardening (1568).

The story’s purpose, as an opening passage of his twenty-ninth chapter, was meant only to introduce Muses water (otherwise called Melicrate by the Greeks or more commonly, Hydromel), and to suggest that it is a drink containing various health benefits. Hill went on to explain that the Muses water can ‘ease the passage of wind or breath, soften the belly’ and cure poisoning by Henbane. He then gave a recipe;

Let eight times so much water be mixed unto your honey prepared which boil or seethe so long, until no more foam arises to be skimmed off, then taking it from the fire, preserve to your use.

Hill provides no more detail than that, but he does go on in the next chapter to give a recipe for Oenomel – ‘a sweet wine made with honey’ – that he says is ‘not only for the preservation of health but also to expel the torment of sickness’. Hill advises his readers that the best Oenomel is made of ‘old and tart wine’ with ‘the best purified honey’. His recipe;

Take one gallon and a quart of wine and mix it with half a gallon and a pint of the best honey.

There are more recipes in Hill’s treatise on beekeeping. There are several that describes a distillation of the honey, and another that describes the making of a Honey Quintessence.

Hill’s manual was the first handbook published in English about beekeeping, and it was attached to the very first handbook on gardening (The Profitable Art of Gardening), also produced by Hill. The purpose was a simple one: to bring the knowledge of ancient authorities such as Aristotle, Pliny the Elder, and Virgil, to a modern audience as a means of providing ‘their knowledge and experience’ for the profit of ‘poor husbandmen’ and the better wealth of England more generally.

It seems likely that the recipes for Hydromel and Oenomel were common knowledge and all Hill did here was to cite an authority for something that was already known (he cited Paul Aegina – a 7th-century Greek physician – and Pedanius Dioscorides – a 1st-century Greek physician and botanist). The recipes for distillation and Quintessence were more advanced and might well have been one of the earliest published recipes for these drinks in the English language (although again, the general principles were likely well known).*

By including recipes in his book, Hill emphasises the benefits of beekeeping for his readers but also makes the manual useful beyond those strictly interested in managing a swarm of bees. Landowners or their land managers, who purchased the book to improve the gardens, might equally pass the knowledge of honey recipes to others in gentry households. It would be fascinating to discover if any manuscript recipe books from this period contained references to Hill’s honeyed-drinks or whether any copy of Hill’s books contains annotations or bookmarks related to the recipes.

At the very least, by initialising the genre of beekeeping manuals in England, Hill provided precedence in terms of the structure of content, if not in detail. Many of the beekeeping manuals published in the seventeenth-century also contained recipes for honeyed-drinks and many followed a similar structure to the one that Hill provided, even where they disagreed with many of his claims. How many people followed the recipes, however, is another question entirely.

* Quintessence was described by Andreas Vesalius in 1551 in a book called A compendious declaration of the excellent virtues of a certain lately invented oil, called for the worthiness thereof oil imperial.  He described the Quintessence as ‘nothing else but aqua vitae’ (i.e. distilled wine), and does not mention honey. In 1559, Konrad Gesner’s The Treasure of Euonymus included a much more detailed description of types of Quintessence as drawn out of wine made from a variety of wood, fruits, flowers, oats, leaves, seeds, stones, metals, flesh, and spices. There is a brief mention of honey quintessence, but not a specific recipe for it. I have yet to find any other English printed work before 1568 that describes Honey Quintessence in any kind of detail.


Matthew Phillpott lives in the United Kingdom and undertook studies in early modern history at Hull and Sheffield. He now works at the School of Advanced Study, University of London, and in addition investigates early modern printed materials for ideas about knowledge, history, culture, health, and food. He has recently started a new website to talk more about his research into bee culture in the early modern period called Early Modern Bees.