In the last few years the study of Arabic and Syriac evidence of ancient medicine has greatly increased, as can be seen from several contributions and discoveries on the oriental reception of such authors as Dioscorides, Galen and Hippocrates. Concerning this last one, the Hippocratic Corpus is one of the foundations of ancient medicine, whose theories were studied and applied in everyday life to identify and heal disease. The different works that converged in the Hippocratic Corpus were also commented on, as attested from the high number of commentaries produced in several areas of the ancient world. The tradition of these commentaries was the topic of the fifteenth Colloque Hippocratique, ‘The Hippocratic Corpus and its Commentators: East and West’, held in Manchester from 28 to 30 October 2015. The result of this colloque is the volume under review, devoted to two aspects of the tradition of Hippocratic commentaries: the importance of some commentators, who were generally obscured by Galen, and the re-evaluation of the Oriental reception of the Hippocratic Corpus. We can therefore retrace the contents of the volume, focusing on the different cultures and periods in which Hippocrates’ theories were acquired.

The first article, ‘Reflections on Hippocratic Commentary’ by E. Craik, forms an introduction to the topics of the following essays, retracing the history of the commentary tradition and the artificial distinction between commentary and quasi-commentary (or partial commentary). It is from the second article onwards that Greek Hippocratic commentators are addressed: within the Greek world, the three main commentators studied are Asclepiades of Bithynia, Sabinus and Galen. The first one, Asclepiades of Bithynia (second–first century bce), as D. Leith shows in Chapter 2, had an important role for the reception of Greek medicine in Rome, even if in his commentaries a certain criticism towards the Hippocratic theories emerges. Regarding Sabinus (first–second century ce), his exegetical method is analysed in Chapter 3 by T. Raiola: examining some fragments of the third book of Sabinus’ Commentaries on Hippocrates, the Arabic evidence and some passages of Galen, Raiola notes that Sabinus’ attention to patients and their life came from an accurate study of the Hippocratic Corpus.

The next six essays are dedicated to Galen, maybe the most important commentator of Hippocrates, aiming to give an overview of his attitude towards previous commentaries and to show his exegetical activity. As J. Jouanna explains in Chapter 4, we can recognise Galen's criticism of his predecessors: among them, Sabinus has a prominent position, since Galen accused him of a lack of understanding of Hippocrates’ theories. At the same time, Galen's activity as a commentator is examined, highlighting the innovations he introduced in the commentary on Epidemics 3 and the criticism against inferior commentators. There is also a discussion of Galen's interpretation of Hippocratic doctrine, for example based on his reception of the four humours theory: this topic is treated in the essays by P.N. Singer and R.J. Hankinson, analysing such works as Commentary to Hippocrates’ Nature of Man and Elements according to Hippocrates, and showing the reshaping of the Hippocratic text in his own doctrine. Another interesting aspect of Galen's exegetical activity concerns the strategies he adopted in his commentaries: considering the Difficulties in Breathing, which Galen wrote for himself, D. Manetti notes the use of the same tools adopted in texts intended for publication (quotations and comparisons of Hippocratic passages, homage to the ancient medical tradition, explanation and interpretation of certain expressions etc.). The study of Galen's exegesis of the Hippocratic Corpus also involves some texts whose attribution to Galen is debated: for example, the new Arabic fragments of a commentary on the Oath analysed by C. Magdelaine and J.-M. Mouton or the Theriac to Piso, attributed to Pseudo-Galen by V. Boudon-Millot. From these chapters devoted to Galen we can recognise his pre-eminence over other commentators, in particular Asclepiades of Bithynia and Sabinus. The criticism towards other commentators is one of the most important aspects of Galen's exegesis, which emphasises a great interest and a deep knowledge of Hippocratic doctrine: the interventions on the texts, for example with comparisons or explanations, reveal Galen's wish to make the commentaries accessible to readers and to be trusted for his precision.

Hippocratic tradition also had an afterlife in late antiquity, as shown in the chapter by G. Ecca: after editing and translating a prologue to a commentary on Hippocrates’ Aphorisms, there is a discussion of the parallels with Galen's Commentary on Hippocrates’ Aphorisms and other Alexandrian authors, hypothesising a relationship with the late antique Alexandrian tradition (especially for the connection between medicine and philosophy). Hippocratic commentaries also had some important evidence from the Syriac and Arabic world, even if there are some difficulties in the tradition of the texts: considering the Syriac and Arabic translations of the Prognostic, K.I. Karimullah assumes that the two versions are independent of each other, with different conclusions from the ones made by J. Jouanna. The last two articles are devoted to the Renaissance, analysing the reception of Epidemics in the Iberian Peninsula, M.T. Santamaría Hernández focuses on the commentary on the second book of Epidemics by Pedro Jaime Esteve (c. 1500–1556); J. Ángel y Espinós examines the commentary on Epidemics by F. Vallés (1524–1592). In both cases the exegetical activity of the two Spanish commentators is debated, highlighting Esteve's intention to restore the Hippocratica veritas and Vallés’ lack of important sources while writing his commentary. These essays on the afterlife of Hippocratic commentary outside the Greek and Roman world are particularly attractive because, in many cases, they explore something new and edited for the first time: this could open the path to future research and to new discoveries, which may reveal other aspects of Hippocrates’ reception in different cultures.

In conclusion, the holistic structure of the volume should be noted, which was also the main aim of the colloque Hippocratique, as explained in the introduction and confirmed in the different chapters. In many cases Greek, Latin and Arabic evidence is mentioned and compared in order to examine a certain commentary or a commentator's exegetical activity: this allows an overview of the tradition of Hippocratic commentary, referring not only to the ancient Greek world but also to other cultures and periods in which Hippocrates’ theories were acknowledged as a fundamental element of medicine. For this reason the volume is an important source for revaluing the reception of the Hippocratic Corpus and, in particular, the Oriental tradition of the commentaries, to shed fresh light on this field of research and to make new discoveries in the future.