¹ This may strike the modern reader as curious. The purpose of the clause is to signalize temporary states in which the body is already in a weakened condition. Three such are mentioned: (i) over-eating with the consequent stress it puts upon the digestive process, (ii) general physical weariness, and (iii) the act of coitus (for this meaning of λαγνεία see LSJ s.v. I). This was widely believed, from time immemorial, to ‘drain’ and debilitate the male. A good example of this outlook can be seen at Od. 10.296–301, where Hermes warns Odysseus about Circe who will ‘invite you to go to bed with her. / Do not… refuse the bed of the goddess, /… but bid her swear the great oath of the blessed gods…./… so she will not make you weak and unmanned, once you are naked’ (trans. R. Lattimore). Verse 301 in the Greek goes μ⋯ σ’ ⋯πογνμνωθέντακακ⋯ν καί ⋯νήνορα θήη See also my remarks to Hes. Erga verses 586–8 in CP 75 (1980), 356. This piece of ancient folklore still survives in the practice of boxers and other athletes who abstain from sex while in training. (For convenience of exegesis in this note I have reversed the actual order of Plutarch's three examples. Observe that in the original Greek the sequence is from the more specific [fullness of food and drink, sex] to the more general [physical fatigue without further qualification].)

² For a concise but excellent account, see Jackson, R., Doctors and Diseases in the Roman Empire (Norman and London, 1988),Google Scholar ch. 5, ‘The surgeon and the army’ (112–37).

³ Konrat Ziegler, in his book-length entry on Plutarch in RE agrees: ‘Auch hier liegt die Authentizität des Berichtes P.s klar zutage.’(RE 21.1, col. 679.32–3).

⁴ Here in brief is the proof. Plutarch's purpose in relating this anecdote is to illustrate the dangers inherent in straining one's voice when it is in no condition to take the stress. Declaiming with a fishbone stuck in one's throat is an extreme, and very illustrative, instance of this. All Plutarch need have done to make his point from the rhetorical viewpoint was to state the condition and its consequences, namely a serious surgical procedure followed by death. A very cautionary tale indeed. The too precise details, unnecessary for his primary purpose, almost detract from the total effect; they seem superfluous interruptions. To repeat: we are told that (i) Niger agreed to have surgery because a severe and indurated ‘inflammation’ had developed and the pain was unbearable; (ii) the surgical incision was ‘deep’ (βαθείαν); (iii) the bone was successfully removed; (iv) the wound-site became purulent (ῥευματικόν literally ‘prone to flux', that is, ‘emitting discharges’) and it was this, not the surgery, that killed him. All this is very interesting medically, but hardly the sort of peripheral detail that a writer would invent for rhetorical purposes. Surely Plutarch records all this precisely because they were the facts as he had been told them and he had no wish to suppress them.

⁵ Niger was a common Roman cognomen; this particular bearer of the name is known to us only from the two passages in Plutarch.

⁶ Γαλατία, Galatia, could refer to ancient Gaul, but the general consensus that here it means Galatia in Asia Minor is far more likely to be correct. For the geographical limits of this latter Galatia see Bauer, , Arndt, , and Gingrich, , A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (Chicago and London, 1957)Google Scholar s.v. αλατία and the OCD s.v. Galatia. The place-name was used in two senses in reference to Asia Minor, both of a general region there and with specific reference to the Roman province of that name. The word Galatia (‘Celtic Land’) derives from the migrating tribes of Celts who occupied the region and settled there in the third century B.c. St Jerome asserts that when he visited Galatia in AD. 372/3 a Celtic language was spoken there. There are indications that as late as the sixth century A.D. it was still spoken in outlying districts. The place and its inhabitants are most familiar from St Paul's Epistle to the Galatians.

⁷ Dodds, E. R., Gorgias: A Revised Text (Oxford, 1959, rev. 1966).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁸ Olivieri prints, on his own conjecture, τριχολαβίω here. Since either form is acceptable, I do not understand why he abandons the MSS. The sense is not affected. (I assume τριχολάβον as the nominative of τριχολάβω here, since the neuter is attested elsewhere. The masculine form τριχολάβος is also possible; see below, n. 11.)

⁹ That Aëtius and Paulus date from the early Byzantine period, that is, some centuries later than Plutarch, should not give one pause. They are merely reproducing much earlier methods of treatment. For the widespread practice of derivative compilation on the part of the Byzantine medical writers, see Wellmann, M., ‘Demosthenes περί ⋯φθαλμ⋯ν’, Hermes 38 (1903), 546–66,Google Scholar especially his conclusion on 566.

¹⁰ Adams, F., The Seven Books of Paulus Aegineta. Translated from the Greek With a Commentary Embracing a Complete View of the Knowledge Possessed by the Greeks, Romans, and Arabians on All Subjects Connected with Medicine and Surgery, 3 vols (London, 1844,1846,1847);Google Scholar the passage cited is from vol. 2, 300–1.

¹¹ The word ‘forceps’ here renders the Greek word ⋯καυθοβόλος, literally ‘thorn-thrower’, found in the MSS of Paulus. This is surely an error for ⋯κανθολάβος (or λάβον, since both masculine and neuter forms of such compounds occur), ‘thorn-seizer’. See LSJ s. vv. ⋯καυθοβόλος II and ⋯κανθολάβος (The by-form ⋯κανθολάβίς is also attested.) The corresponding passage in Aëtius (8.53) has тριχολάβου (or тριχολάβιου see above, n. 8) for the name of the instrument performing this same function, which seems decisive. Comparable names of medical instruments from the root λαβ- are:λαβίδον (‘pair of tweezers’ LSJ), λαβίς (‘forceps’ LSJ), λιθολάβος (‘instrument for extracting the stone’ LSJ), σαρκολάβος (also λαβίς and λάβον ‘surgeon's forceps’ LSJ), σтαφυλολαβίς (not in LSJ; see H. Schoene, ‘Zwei Listen Chirurgischer Instrumente’, in Hermes 38 [1903], 283). This last word probably =σтαφυλάγρα, ‘forceps for taking hold of the uvula’ (LSJ s.v.). On these and other medical instruments, see Milne, J. S., Surgical Instruments in Greek and Roman Times (Oxford, 1907, repr. Chicago, 1970).Google Scholar He discusses both our passages (Aëtius 8.53 and Paulus 6.32) on p. 100, where he identifies ⋯κανθοβόλος (sic) as a ‘pharyngeal forceps’ and тριχολάβον as an ‘epilation forceps’ (used here as a pharyngeal forceps). For the тριχολάβον see his plate XXXII, fig. 1. Important also is R. Jackson, ‘A set of Roman medical instruments from Italy’, Britannia 17 (1986), 119–67 (with good illustrations of scalpels, forceps, hooks, etc.).

¹² See the previous note for references.

¹³ For ἄκανθα as applied to fish, see Arnott, W G., Alexis: The Fragments. A Commentary (Cambridge, 1996),Google Scholar notes on fr. 49 (48K).2–4 (p. 169) and fr. 138 (133K).2–3 (p. 400). At fr. 49 Arnott remarks ‘the κανθα (v. 3), a term normally applied to the backbones of such creatures…. But κανθα is used of other fishbones (e.g. the hair bones of ⋯φυαί and similar species, Ath. 8.357e) and even (in the plural) spiny parts of a fish's exterior…’. There is also much illustrative material in Aristotle; see Bonitz, H., Index Aristotelicus (Berlin, 1870),Google Scholar s.v.κανθα

¹⁴ The closest description of which I am aware is to be found in the very next chapter of Paulus (6.33), which describes a laryngotomy λαρυγγοтομία. This too was a very rare surgical procedure. Paulus actually uses the term φαρυγγοтομία (p.70, line 19 Heiberg, with λαρυγγοтομία as a variant), but φάρυγξ means both ‘throat’ and ‘windpipe’ and context proves the latter meaning here.

¹⁵ 7.13.2: ‘sed scalpelli curatio brevior est… ‘ (‘But treatment by the knife is shorter…’). I cite Celsus, both Latin text and English translation, from the Loeb edition of W. G. Spencer (Cambridge, MA and London, 1938; repr. 1953, 1961). Spencer in a footnote ad loc. states ‘Galen, VIII.53, mentions two cases of this operation in which the surgeon had injured the recurrent laryngeal nerves lying behind the thyroid gland and had so caused loss of voice.

¹⁶ ‘Now tonsils which have become hardened after inflammation… since they are enclosed in a thin tunic, should be scratched round with a finger and drawn out. But if they cannot be so detached they should be seized with a hook and excised with a scalpel [… hamulo excipere et scalpello excidere]; and the hollow then swilled out with vinegar and the wound smeared with something to check the blood [… et inlinere vulnus medicamenlo, quo sanguis supprimitur].’

¹⁷ Spencer (n. 15),314, n.b.

¹⁸ I am grateful to Professors Robert B. Todd and Lawrence J. Bliquez for reading and criticizing an earlier version of this article. Professor Bliquez most kindly provided several important references.