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PROBABLE NEW FRAGMENTS AND A TESTIMONIUM FROM GALEN'S COMMENTARY ON PLATO'S TIMAEVS

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 September 2019

Aileen R. Das
Aileen R. Das*
Affiliation:
University of Michigan
*
ardas@umich.edu
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Extract

As his writings tend to prioritize the incorporeal over the corporeal, Plato seems an unlikely authority on medicine. He does not appear to have engaged in any systematic investigation of the body through direct examination of animal anatomy, like his pupil Aristotle. Notwithstanding Plato's apparent lack of interest in anatomical research, modern scholars view his dialogues as valuable witnesses for earlier and contemporary theories about the body. Famously, the Phaedrus (270c–e) mentions Hippocrates’ holistic approach to studying the body. Out of all his dialogues, the Timaeus offers the most extensive comments about the nature of the body and its functions. Many of its physiological ideas, however, seem to derive from earlier medical and philosophical authorities such as Alcmaeon of Croton (fifth century), Empedocles (fifth century) and Philistion of Locri (fourth century) rather than from Plato himself.

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Research Article
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The Classical Quarterly , Volume 69 , Issue 1 , May 2019 , pp. 384 - 401
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Copyright © The Classical Association 2019 

As his writings tend to prioritize the incorporeal over the corporeal, Plato seems an unlikely authority on medicine. He does not appear to have engaged in any systematic investigation of the body through direct examination of animal anatomy, like his pupil Aristotle.Footnote 1 Notwithstanding Plato's apparent lack of interest in anatomical research, modern scholars view his dialogues as valuable witnesses for earlier and contemporary theories about the body. Famously, the Phaedrus (270c–e) mentions Hippocrates’ holistic approach to studying the body.Footnote 2 Out of all his dialogues, the Timaeus offers the most extensive comments about the nature of the body and its functions.Footnote 3 Many of its physiological ideas, however, seem to derive from earlier medical and philosophical authorities such as Alcmaeon of Croton (fifth century), Empedocles (fifth century) and Philistion of Locri (fourth century) rather than from Plato himself.Footnote 4

For the physician Galen (d. c.217 c.e.), Plato—especially his Timaeus—was an important source of information about the body, even if Hippocrates held primacy in his own medical thought.Footnote 5 Galen quotes from different sections of the Timaeus throughout his corpus; for example, he reproduces the dialogue's discussion of flavour (65b4–66c7) in his pharmacological work On the Powers [and Mixtures] of Simple Drugs and defends its tripartite embodied psychology (69a6–72b5) in On the Doctrines of Hippocrates and Plato.Footnote 6 Galen engages most extensively with Plato's text in his Synopsis of Plato's Timaeus, which survives in a ninth-century Arabic translation, and in the four books of his lemmatic commentary On the Medical Statements in Plato's Timaeus (Περὶ τῶν ἐν τῷ Πλάτωνος Τιμαίῳ ἰατρικῶς εἰρημένων = Plat. Tim.), which is fragmentary in both Greek and Arabic.Footnote 7 In this article, I will draw attention to the Arabic tradition of Plat. Tim. to bring to light a possible new testimonium and three fragments of this Galenic work that are preserved in medieval medical manuscripts.

According to the Arabo-Latin proemium of the Synopsis of Plato's Timaeus, Galen composed his lemmatic commentary on the Timaeus because he wanted to show that ‘[Plato] is a doctor’ (ipse est medicus).Footnote 8 While this surviving preface probably reproduces Galen's Greek version rather freely, it will become clear below how Plat. Tim. helped to establish Plato as a medical authority in the medieval Islamicate world.Footnote 9 Medieval Muslim, Christian and Jewish writers seemed to have regarded Plat. Tim., which the Christian physician Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq (d. 873/7) and his son Isḥāq ibn Ḥunayn translated into Arabic, as a medical text, for most of the surviving Arabic material of this exegesis is included in medical anthologies.Footnote 10 These compilations refer to Galen's commentary by a number of titles, such as the ‘Medicine of Timaeus’ (Ṭibb min Ṭīmāwus),Footnote 11 ‘Medical Timaeus’ (Ṭīmāwus al-ṭibbī)Footnote 12 and even ‘Timaeus’ (Ṭīmāwus).Footnote 13 Certain medieval readers conflated Plat. Tim. and other Greek exegeses of the dialogue, which also circulated in Arabic under the title Timaeus, with the Platonic original, which does not appear to have been translated into Arabic before the modern period.Footnote 14 For those who had access to Galen's commentary indirectly (via quotations in earlier medical anthologies), this conflation was further compounded by the fact that some authors only give Plato's name when quoting from the exposition.Footnote 15

Apart from the testimonium, the material from Plat. Tim. that this article highlights is ascribed to Plato (Aflāṭūn) and refers to neither Galen nor the Timaeus. Owing to the lack of information in these texts’ citation markers, it is impossible to conclude with absolute certainty that they derive from Galen's Plat. Tim.—to say nothing of the extent to which they follow the original Greek source. None the less, the content of these ‘Platonic’ excerpts, which relate to the subjects of coughing, anatomy and sexual pleasure, supports their attribution to a medical author, or a philosophical writer with considerable medical knowledge. My analysis will demonstrate the parallels between this material and certain passages in Plato's Timaeus and the surviving Galenic corpus. In so doing, it will indicate that the texts come from a lost Galenic explanation of Plato, most likely Plat. Tim. Moreover, as I previously noted, there is precedent for medieval authors citing Plat. Tim. as if it were a work by Plato.Footnote 16 Perhaps similar to the authors of the medical compositions examined below, al-Bīrūnī in his India, for instance, only mentions Plato when summarizing the discussion of plant life from Book 3 of Plat. Tim.Footnote 17

In what follows, I will translate and provide a short commentary on the Arabic testimonium and the three excerpts that probably stem from Galen's commentary on Plato's Timaeus. The appendix to this article contains the Arabic texts of these materials. I shall begin with the outlier of the group, namely the testimonium that identifies its source text as Galen's ‘Medical Timaeus’. As will be shown, the text offers insight into how Ḥunayn and Isḥāq ibn Ḥunayn may have adapted Galen's work to make it more accessible to their Arabic readers. Next, I will examine how the three fragments, which are prefaced by the phrase ‘Plato says’ (Aflāṭūn qāla), reveal the wide range of medical subjects that Galen interpreted the Timaeus as covering. Therefore, the testimonium and the three fragments, along with the previously discovered material from Plat. Tim., demonstrate not only how Galen viewed the Timaeus as a medical work but also how seriously he took Plato as medical authority. They suggest, then, that the tendency of modern scholarship to evaluate Plato's impact on Galen only with regard to the development of Galen's philosophical thought needs to be reassessed.

THE TESTIMONIUM AND THE FRAGMENTS I

The pharmacological treatise The Compendium of Simple Drugs with Statements of Ancient and Modern Doctors and Philosophers (Kitāb al-Jāmiʿ li-aqwāl al-qudamāʾ wa-l-mutaḥaddithīn mina l-aṭibbāʾ wa-l-mutafalsifīn fī-l-adwiya al-mufrada) by the Córdoban physician Abū Bakr Ḥāmid ibn Samajūn (d. 1010) preserves a testimonium of the Arabic version of Plat. Tim. Footnote 18 Incorporating quotations from Greek and Arabic authorities such as Dioscorides, Galen, Paul of Aegina, the Christian physician Ibn Māsawayh (d. 857) and the lexicographer Abū Ḥanīfa al-Dīnawarī (d. c.902–3), Ibn Samajūn's text lists and describes the properties of several hundred medicinal plants in the abjad alphabetical order.Footnote 19 While the Compendium of Simple Drugs has not been edited, Fuat Sezgin published a facsimile of its three principal manuscripts: MS Or. 11614 (fols. 1–47), British Library, London; MS Huntington 159 (fols. 1–108), Bodleian Library, Oxford; and MS Bruce 48 (fols. 33–168), Bodleian Library, Oxford.Footnote 20 Ibn Samajūn refers to Plat. Tim. in the book dealing with plants whose names begin with kāf, which is the eleventh letter in the abjad alphabetical order. He notes:

Galen says in the ‘Book of the Medical Timaeus by Plato’ (Kitāb Ṭīmāwus al-ṭibbī li-Aflāṭun): Sneezewort (kundus) is called strouthion in Greek (bi-l-yūnānīya).Footnote 21

Ibn Samajūn does not specify from which of the four books of Galen's commentary this statement about the perennial plant sneezewort (Achillea ptarmica) derives. As this is the sole quotation of Plat. Tim. in the Compendium of Simple Drugs, Ibn Samajūn probably did not have at hand the entire Arabic version of Galen's text but utilized an earlier medical or pharmacological compilation, which contained passages from the exegesis.Footnote 22 A number of Arabic medical compilations quote Plat. Tim. on other medicinal substances, so, if Ibn Samajūn had access to a copy of Galen's commentary, he would have found additional passages that were pertinent to the pharmaceutical context of the Compendium of Simple Drugs.Footnote 23

Galen mentions the therapeutic applications of sneezewort (στρούθιον) in several treatises, but On the Powers [and Mixtures] of Simple Drugs provides his most detailed description of the plant. Footnote 24 There, he explains how the plant's purgative and irritating (ῥυπτικὴ καὶ ἐρεθιστική) properties cause sneezing (πταρμοὺς κινεῖ).Footnote 25 None the less, the above excerpt does not appear to be original to the Greek version of Plat. Tim., but it was added by the Arabic translator, Ḥunayn or Isḥāq. The text glosses the Arabic name for sneezewort (kundus) by giving the transliterated form of its Greek equivalent (that is, στρούθιον).Footnote 26 Ḥunayn and his circle were concerned to produce ‘reader-friendly’ rather than literal Arabic translations of their Greek source texts; they adapted and supplemented their ancient material to accommodate the needs of their patrons.Footnote 27 While Ḥunayn and Isḥāq's Islamicate readers were probably more familiar with the Arabic name for sneezewort, a number of medieval Arabic herbals, including earlier translations of Dioscorides’ Materia Medica, also identify plants by their Greek appellations.Footnote 28 Thus, instead of just replacing the Greek στρούθιον with the Arabic kundus, the translators may have put down both names to assist the reader in looking up additional information about sneezewort in other herbals.

As Galen is not the author of the gloss, it is more accurate to call the above excerpt a testimonium rather than a fragment of Plat. Tim. This comment by Ḥunayn or Isḥāq strongly suggests that Galen brought up sneezewort in his exegesis, but where in the text and for what reason is unclear. Al-Rāzī’s Comprehensive Book shows that Galen examined the power of different materia medica in Book 2 of Plat. Tim. His anthology quotes passages, attributed to the second book of either the ‘Medicine of Timaeusʼ (Ṭibb Ṭīmāyāwus) or ‘Timaeus’ (Ṭīmāwus), that rank the evacuative powers of bran and vegetable flours as well as of red and white frankincense and explain the composite nature of vinegar.Footnote 29 Larrain hypothesized that these pharmacological remarks derive from Galen's discussion of Ti. 61b6–c2 and 65d–e, which list compounds of earth and water such as ‘frankincense’ (θυμιατικά) and the actions of various flavours on the tongue.Footnote 30 Timaeus does not talk about sneezing in his narrative, but his account of odour recognizes a class of offensive smells that ‘irritates and violently affects the entire cavity [of the body], which lies between our head and navel’ (τὸ μὲν τραχῦνόν τε καὶ βιαζόμενον τὸ κύτος ἅπαν, ὅσον ἡμῶν μεταξὺ κορυφῆς τοῦ τε ὀμφαλοῦ κεῖται, Ti. 67a4–5). If Galen made reference to materia medica in his explanation of the dialogue's section on odours, he may have spoken about sneezewort because the plant's irritating qualities cause sneezing when one inhales a powder of its roots.Footnote 31 Accordingly, the gloss would likely come from Book 2 of the Arabic version of Galen's Plat. Tim., which appears to have covered Ti. 59e5–72e6.Footnote 32

II

Similar to the other material discussed below, the next text is ascribed to Plato and does not give any further information about its source. It is found in the unique copy of the essay A Book Based on the Opinions of Hippocrates and Galen Regarding Cough, its Causes, and Methods of Treatment (Kitāb ʿalā raʾy Abuqrāṭ wa-Jālīnūs fī-l-suʿāl wa-asbābihi wa-ṭarāʾiq ʿilājihi), which is attributed to Ibn al-Jazzār (d. 979) and survives in the fourteenth-century manuscript Marsh 215 (fols. 34r–49v), Bodleian Library, Oxford.Footnote 33 No medieval bio-bibliographer lists this title as well as the other two tracts preserved in MS Marsh 25 (that is, A Book of the Statements of Galen regarding Stones Formed in the Kidneys and Bladder [Kitāb min aqāwīl Jālīnūs fī-l-ḥaṣāt al-muwallada fī-l-kulā wa-l-mathāna] and A Treatise on the Spleen and its Diseases and Treatments [Maqāla fī-l-ṭiḥāl wa-ʿilājihi]) among the writings of Ibn al-Jazzār, who is foremost known for his medical summa Provisions for the Traveller and Nourishment for the Sedentary (Zād al-musāfir wa-qūt al-ḥāḍir, translated into Latin as Viaticum peregrinantis).Footnote 34 Therefore, the authorship of these three treatises remains uncertain until someone carries out a systematic comparison of these texts with Ibn al-Jazzār's extant œuvre.Footnote 35

The author of Regarding Cough refers to Plato in the second chapter (fols. 36r–38r), which examines the ‘external causes provoking cough’ (namely food, drink and air). After drawing on Galen's On the Usefulness of the Parts to explain how the lungs prepare inspired air for the heart's use, he quotes Plato on how a blockage in the former organ can cause choking,Footnote 36

Just as Plato says: The chest is the equivalent of a cramped cavity surrounding the heart and lungs [that] causes them to beat in unison. The top part of the trachea has a flap [lit. a cover] akin to the uvula whose mucous [lit. yolk] covers it. It thus seals it completely when swallowing, so that no food or drink leaks down into the trachea, which can happen when a human laughs or speaks while swallowing. Both laughing and speaking can force the airway [lit. passageway] to open in the trachea; when air rushes up [lit. exists], and if a bit of food or drink slips by into the trachea, then choking (sharaq) ensues. If it does not exit the trachea by coughing, it advances into the respiratory passages in the lungs and obstructs them. Air is then cut off from the heart by the obstruction and the human dies thus.Footnote 37

The first two lines of this passage discuss the anatomical structures of the chest and throat. Of the two parts of the body, the text provides a more detailed description of the latter, for it mentions the uvula and seems to refer periphrastically to the epiglottis (fī ṭaraf qaṣabat al-riʾa ghiṭāʾ, lit. ‘a cover at the top part of the trachea’). Footnote 38 It identifies that the uvula is coated with a film of mucous and the epiglottis prevents food and drink from entering into the lungs through the trachea.

This excerpt has some parallels with Plato's description of the anatomy and function of the lungs in the Timaeus. At Ti. 70c2–7, Timaeus states that the purpose of the lungs is to combat the excessive heat of the heart; thus, the lesser gods made the organ spongy and bloodless to chill inspired air and to receive drink:

προγιγνώσκοντες ὅτι διὰ πυρὸς ἡ τοιαύτη πᾶσα ἔμελλεν οἴδησις γίγνεσθαι τῶν θυμουμένων ἐπικουρίαν αὐτῇ μηχανώμενοι τὴν τοῦ πλεύμονος ἰδέαν ἐνεφύτευσαν, πρῶτον μὲν μαλακὴν καὶ ἄναιμον, εἶτα σήραγγας ἐντὸς ἔχουσαν οἷον σπόγγου κατατετρημένας, ἵνα τό τε πνεῦμα καὶ τὸ πῶμα δεχομένη ψύχουσα, ἀναπνοὴν καὶ ῥᾳστώνην ἐν τῷ καύματι παρέχοι: διὸ δὴ τῆς ἀρτηρίας ὀχετοὺς ἐπὶ τὸν πλεύμονα ἔτεμον.

Foreknowing that all such swelling [of the passions] would come about through fire, they devised a relief for the pounding by implanting the structure of the lungs, [which is] first [of all] soft and bloodless and then contains pores bored through it similar to a sponge, in order that taking in air and drink it [can] cool [the heart] and provide respite from and relaxation in the heat. For this reason, they cut the windpipe into the lungs.Footnote 39

Plato does not demonstrate the same level of anatomical understanding as the ‘Plato’ of Regarding Cough. Although the Timaeus correctly observes that some drink can enter through the trachea, which it calls ‘ducts of the windpipe’ (τῆς ἀρτηρίας ὀχετούς), it does not comment on how this liquid first has to bypass the epiglottis (or ‘covering’), which usually diverts swallowed nutriment into the oesophagus. Because the dialogue does not offer an anatomy of the throat, it ignores other internal structures such as the uvula, which the Arabic text recognizes. More significantly, the Timaeus suggests that liquid is meant to enter the lungs, whereas the quotation in Regarding Cough characterizes it as an abnormal condition that induces aspiration. The Platonic passage introduces this detail about the passage of liquid into the lungs to explain the nature of the lungs, while the Arabic includes it to explain choking.

The above comparison shows that the ‘Platonic’ quotation in Regarding Cough overlaps thematically with Plato's Timaeus but does not derive directly from it. The issue of whether liquid or food can pass into the lungs appears to have developed into a physiological controversy by the end of Plato's lifetime—at the very latest.Footnote 40 Perhaps interpreting Ti. 70c2–7 to mean that all liquid (not just some) is directed into the lungs, Aristotle attacks the suggestion that the trachea and the oesophagus serve as conduits for drink and solid food respectively.Footnote 41 Moreover, there is no consensus among the Hippocratics about this question: the author of Diseases IV (§ 25) denies that liquid flows into the lungs; the treatise Heart (§ 2) accepts that some (but not all) liquid travels down the trachea; and On the Nature of Bones (§ 1) writes that the lungs rather than the stomach receive drink.Footnote 42 In general, these discussions display a more sophisticated knowledge of the anatomy of the upper respiratory and digestive systems than Plato, and even Heart discusses how an excessive intake of liquid into the trachea can provoke a fit of coughing.Footnote 43 None of these texts seems to be the source of the Platonic quotation in Regarding Cough, because they present very different information.

Galen, on the other hand, offers a closer parallel to the Arabic citation. Unlike Aristotle and his Hippocratic predecessors, Galen explicitly mentions Plato's name with reference to this debate about the passage of liquid into the lungs, which he characterizes as a ‘dogmatic controversy’ (ὃ δογματικῶς ἀμφισβητεῖται) at PHP 8.9.8.Footnote 44 He compares Plato's position to the Dogmatic sect's, which alleges that only part of what we drink filters down through the tracheal artery into the lungs.Footnote 45 Although Galen acknowledges that Ti. 70c2–7 (which he quotes in full at PHP 8.9.4) seems to advance a more extreme view, according to which all drink goes to the lungs, he adduces Ti. 72e3–73a3, 78a6–b2, 78b2–3, 78e5–79a4 as proof of Plato's understanding that the oesophagus brings most of our solid and liquid nourishment into the stomach.Footnote 46 As in ps.(?)-Ibn Jazzār's text, Galen recounts how coughing arises when drink slips past the epiglottis, which he calls the ‘mouth of the larynx’ (τὸ στόμιον τοῦ λάρυγγος), and subsequently tickles and irritates the trachea on its way down to the lungs.Footnote 47 He qualifies this statement by writing that coughing is only provoked when a large amount of liquid blocks the ‘passages of breath’ (τὰς ὁδοὺς τοῦ πνεύματος) in the lungs.Footnote 48 It can be noted that the Arabic quotation also connects coughing with a blockage in the respiratory passages, but it adds that this congestion can kill a patient.

In PHP, Galen does not explain how laughing and eating can cause coughing. Therefore, the ‘Platonic’ text in Regarding Cough probably does not stem from this work. Galen's discussion of coughing (βήξ) at SMT 11.501–3K, which does not make reference to Plato, omits the above details about laughing, but comments on the damage that food inflicts on the trachea. Although the above quotation from ps.(?)-Ibn Jazzār has no exact correspondence to Galen's extant accounts of coughing, its anatomy of the throat and even Platonic attribution suggests a Galenic origin. PHP not only reveals Galen's familiarity with Plato's position(s) on the lungs’ receipt of liquid but also ties this question to the subject of coughing. Furthermore, both PHP and SMT identify the epiglottis (via a periphrasis) as the organ in the throat responsible for preventing liquid from entering the trachea, and the latter text refers to the uvula (Ar. lahā; Gr. γαργαρεών) as well—albeit not at SMT 11.501–3K.Footnote 49

Of the lost works of Galen, Plat. Tim. most likely dealt at some length with the account of the lungs at Ti. 70c2–7. The extant Greek fragments of Book 3 of the commentary show that Galen was interested in the dialogue's description of respiration and digestion (77e7–80c8).Footnote 50 If the author of Regarding Cough utilized Plat. Tim., he may have conflated the Platonic lemma, which was probably introduced by the phrase ‘Plato says’ (Aflāṭūn qāla), with Galen's exegesis.Footnote 51 As I indicated above, al-Bīrūnī demonstrates that other Arabic authors occasionally confused the lemma and exegesis of Plat. Tim., for his text ascribes Galen's interpretation of Ti. 77b to Plato in the India.Footnote 52 If the quotation in Regarding Cough is from Plat. Tim., ps.(?)-Ibn Jazzār, or his source, may have taken it from Book 2 of the Galenic composition. Schröder, the editor of the surviving Greek fragments from Book 3, cites a quotation of Plat. Tim. in Maimonides’ Medical Aphorisms (6.95), which he hypothesizes belongs to Galen's commentary on Ti. 72e3–6, as evidence that Book 2 went up to the gods’ creation of the bones and ‘lesser’ organs.Footnote 53

The medieval gnomologium Gleanings of the Divine Plato (Multaqaṭāt Aflāṭūn al-ilāhī), which supposedly contains sayings from Plato, includes a statement on coughing as well as on sneezing.Footnote 54 The text is part of a series of discrete sayings that discuss medical subjects such as hiccups, diet and the influence of the seasons on the virulence of diseases. Unlike the excerpt in Regarding Coughing, the ‘Platonic’ passage in this work does not go into the reasons why coughing (or sneezing) occurs but rather gives a general definition of it. The gnomologium reports:

He [that is, Plato] says: coughing and sneezing (al-suʿāl wa-l-ʿuṭās), on the other hand, are a decrease of nature (naqṣ al-ṭabīʿa) that happens to the instrument of breathing and nostrils (ālat al-tanaffus wa-l-khayāshīm) in order that the tubes (al-anābīb) be filled with air. Every puff (nafkha) that arises from the nostrils is sneezing and [every puff] in the instrument of breathing [is] a cough.Footnote 55

This material corresponds approximately to Galen's description of sneezing and coughing in Causes of Symptoms II (7.169K), which does not mention Plato. While Galen does not call these bodily movements a ‘decrease of nature’ there, he writes that both are a ‘violent passage of breath to the outside’ (σφοδρὰν … τοῦ πνεύματος ἔξω φοράν)—sneezing only differs from coughing in that it exits through the nostrils. He compares the way in which sneezing and coughing clear the respiratory passages to craftsmen blowing through pipe instruments (ὥσπερ τοὺς αὐλούς τε καὶ τὰς σύριγγας οἱ δημιουργοί).

The Gleanings of the Divine Plato cites an extensive passage from Galen's Synopsis of Plato's Timaeus shortly after the above saying.Footnote 56 Therefore, it is possible that the compiler made use of Plat. Tim., Galen's other exegesis of the Timaeus, when recording the medical views of ‘Plato’. If so, the quotation on sneezing and coughing may belong to the same section of Galen's commentary as ps.(?)-Ibn al-Jazzār's ‘Platonic’ text. Furthermore, although Gleanings of the Divine Plato appears to postdate the lifetime of Ibn al-Jazzār and thus possibly the composition of Regarding Cough, similar gnomologia may have served as important vehicles of the transmission of Plat. Tim.Footnote 57 As I observed earlier with regard to Ibn Samajūn, the limited reference which ps.(?)-Ibn al-Jazzār and Ibn al-Burqumānī (whom I will introduce below) make to Plat. Tim. indicates that they may not have had access to the complete Arabic translation of the commentary. This gnomological mode of transmission, which is more concerned with presenting the ideas of philosophical rather than medical authorities, would explain why ps.(?)-Ibn al-Jazzār and Ibn al-Burqumānī omit Galen's name in their quotations of his work.

III

The following two excerpts come from The Treatise for Muḥsinī on the Preservation of the Health of the Body (al-Maqāla al-Muḥsinīya fī ḥifẓ al-ṣiḥḥa al-badanīya) by the Jewish physician Ibn al-Burqumānī (fl. 1323), or Fāḍil al-Rashīd ibn Abī al-Ḥasan al-Isrāʾīlī al-Sikandarī, from Alexandria.Footnote 58 The Muḥsinī in the title refers to the Mamlūk viceregent of Alexandria al-Badr Bīlīk al-Muḥsinī, to whom this work on hygiene and regimen is dedicated.Footnote 59 The text survives in four Arabic manuscripts and in a fifteenth-century Hebrew copy; for this article, I have only been able to consult the fourteenth-century MS Marsh 534, Bodleian Library, Oxford (fols. 1r–66v, 68r–84r).Footnote 60 Consisting of ten chapters, The Treatise for Muḥsinī considers the effect of the ‘six non-naturals’ (air, food and drink, sleep and waking, movement and rest, evacuation and retention, and the emotions), which Galen sets out in The Art of Medicine (§ 23), on human health.Footnote 61 In addition to Galen, Ibn al-Burqumānī takes his material from ancient and more contemporary sources such as Rufus of Ephesus, Polemon, Ibn Rushd (d. 1198) and Maimonides (d. 1204). He quotes from ‘Plato the philosopher’ (Aflāṭūn al-faylasūf) twice in the work, on the subjects of anatomy and sexual pleasure.

The first ‘Platonic’ passage in The Treatise for Muḥsinī emphasizes how the complexity of the human body makes anatomical study difficult. It forms part of a lengthy exposition of the importance of understanding how the mixture of certain principal organs, for instance the stomach, influences a person's general well-being. The quotation describes how the principal organs are compounded of simple structures that have their own distinct mixtures:

Plato the philosopher says: An intelligent man must learn first about the parts of his organs; for instance, he should know about the nerves, bones, veins, muscles, marrow, flesh, and so on, because they are not composed in the same way. Each part of a person's body is composed in a certain way. No one is required to be familiar with them all and ascertain their mixtures, for they are many, and, with their multiplicity, they are also different [from each other]. Examples of this include composite organs such as the brain, heart, liver, lungs and spleen, for these are also diverse in their composition. But an excellent person manages these principal [organs] and their various components with that which perceives them. For when he attends to and regulates that which perceives them, he will manage them all, so that he can restore them and bring them close to equilibrium.

Plato says: If someone asks: what is ‘that which perceives them’, I answer: it is the eye, which takes all of them [sc. the parts of the body] out of it; it is their source and foundation. The eye is what orders and perceives them all. If you manage that which orders, you manage all the parts of the body.Footnote 62

The text contains two ‘Platonic’ statements, the latter of which seems to be in question-and-answer format. As with ps.(?)-Ibn al-Jazzār's excerpt, the first citation seems to derive indirectly from Plato's Timaeus.

At Ti. 82a1–c3, Plato writes that the most fundamental constituents of the body are the four elements and that they form ‘secondary structures’ (δευτέρων δὴ συστάσεων), namely marrow, bone, flesh and sinew (μυελοῦ γὰρ ἐξ ἐκείνων ὀστοῦ τε καὶ σαρκὸς καὶ νεύρου συμπαγέντος). While the Arabic identifies two kinds of body parts, it does not mention the elements and adds muscles (ʿaḍalāt) and veins (ʿurūq) to the list of what Plato calls ‘secondary structures’. In the translations of Ḥunayn and his circle, the Arabic term aʿṣāb often renders the Greek νεῦρα, meaning either ‘sinews’ or ‘nerves’ depending on the date of the text in which it appears.Footnote 63 The subsequent analysis will show that ‘nerves’ is the appropriate translation, because the passage probably derives from Galen, who benefited from Herophilus and Erasistratus’ pioneering work on the nervous system.Footnote 64 The classifications of the parts of the body in the Timaeus and in Ibn al-Burqumānīʼs quotation also differ in that the former omits the category of compound organs, for example the brain and the liver. Instead, turning to the subject of pathology, the dialogue reports how some diseases arise as the result of the ‘degeneration’ (ἀνάπαλιν ἡ γένεσις τούτων πορεύηται, Ti. 82c6) of the sinews and other secondary structures.

The distinction between basic and compound parts (al-aʿḍāʾ al-murakkaba) corresponds closely to Galen's division of the body into homoiomerous (pl. ὁμοιομερῆ; or ‘simple’, ἁπλᾶ) and compound (pl. σύνθετα; or ‘organic’, ὀργανικά) structures, with cartilage, bone, nerve, membrane and ligament belonging to the first category and all the inner organs to the second.Footnote 65 In PHP, Galen introduces this classification as an improvement on Plato and Aristotle's schemes—he draws on Ti. 82b8 to describe the Platonic arrangement of the body.Footnote 66 Ibn al-Burqumānīʼs quotation adds that the diversity of the basic parts of the body is due in part to their distinct mixtures or temperaments (mizāj). In Galenic thought, the proportion of the primary qualities hot, cold, wet and dry in an organ or part determines its mixture.Footnote 67 Galen encourages the would-be doctor Patrophilus in the Constitution of the Art of Medicine to study the mixtures of the various parts of the body so that he may restore them to health when they suffer from a temperamental imbalance.Footnote 68 Therefore, the assertion at the end of the above excerpt, that knowledge of the temperamental composition of the body has therapeutic value, dovetails with Galen's emphasis on the pertinence of this information to medical practice.

The second ‘Platonic’ quotation provides a gloss on the phrase ‘that which perceives them’, which appears in the preceding passage. The gloss is in question-and-answer format: some hypothetical person asks what ‘that which perceives them’ means and the speaker, who is presented as Plato, answers that it refers to the eye. The first excerpt's combination of themes from Platoʼs Timaeus and Galenic theories suggests that it may be based on a lost passage from Galen's commentary on the dialogue. Similar to ps.(?)-Ibn al-Jazzār's material, it seems to ascribe the Galenic exegesis to Plato. Therefore, in the case of the second excerpt, it is unclear whether the subject of the first-person verb ‘I answer’ (qultu) is supposed to be Galen or another author. In other passages in The Treatise for Muḥsinī, the verb qultu, which can also be translated as ‘I say’, introduces Ibn al-Burqumānī’s commentary on his primary sources.Footnote 69 However, these personal remarks by Ibn al-Burqumānī are not integrated into the quotations of the source texts but rather are appended to them. Thus, it seems probable that Galen is the author of the gloss. Even so, although Galen stresses the importance of observing the bones and other structures of the human body with one's own eyes, he never characterizes in his extant corpus the eye as a tool that needs to be mastered.Footnote 70

Fragments in al-Rāzī’s Comprehensive Book indicate that Galen covered Plato's account of the origin of disease in Book 4 of Plat. Tim. Specifically, al-Rāzī cites Galen's explanations of tertian and quartan fevers, which arise respectively from an excess of water and earth in the body according to the dialogue (Ti. 86a2–8).Footnote 71 I have suggested that Ibn al-Burqumānī’s text may derive from Galen's exegesis of Ti. 82a1–c3. This section of the Platonic text serves as a preface to Timaeus’ pathology, because it lists the parts of the body that are subject to decay and dissolution. Therefore, the above excerpts from The Treatise for Muḥsinī probably come from Book 4 of Plat. Tim. Even so, as in the case of ps.(?)-Ibn al-Jazzār, Ibn al-Burqumānī may have relied on an intermediary source, such as an earlier medical compilation or even a gnomologium, rather than on Ḥunayn and Isḥāq ibn Ḥunaynʼs Arabic translation. Medieval authors rarely reproduce their sources verbatim, so it is important to keep in mind that Ibn al-Burqumānī may have modified his text of Plat. Tim., however mediated it is.

IV

The Timaeus mentions the subject of pleasure (ἡδονή) several times in its narrative: Plato groups it with bodily affections (παθήματα) and defines it as a sudden return to a natural state at 64a–65b; he links it with the mortal part of the soul at 69c–d; and he discusses its purpose as an inducement to procreation at 91a–d. This conception of pleasure as a corporeal experience, which results from a restoration of health or some deficiency in the body, had a considerable influence on Galen, for he quotes and treats the dialogue's description of it at 64a–65b in his nosological works Differences of Symptoms (7.44K) and Causes of Symptoms (7.116–18K) as well as in his two exegeses Synopsis of Plato's Timaeus and Plat. Tim. Book 2.Footnote 72 Ḥunayn and his associates’ Arabic version of these Galenic texts, especially the Synopsis of Plato's Timaeus, helped to transmit Plato's theory of pleasure to medieval Islamicate thinkers.Footnote 73

In The Treatise for Muḥsinī, Ibn al-Burqumānī includes a citation on pleasure that is attributed to ‘Plato the philosopher’, and it gives an aetiology of the sensation which is similar to the account at Ti. 91a–d. The text links pleasure with sex, which al-Burqumānī groups with salubrious exercises. As I will now show, while the passage reflects Galenic ideas on the topic, it has no exact parallel in his extant corpus. Ibn al-Burqumānī writes:

Plato the philosopher says: pleasure in this world is a reward for the service [to the survival of the species]. If it were not for [pleasure], people would neither eat nor have sex; for if only those who desire to survive ate and those who desired children had sex without any pleasure, why would most people do this?

I say: Sex has benefits when it is done at the appropriate time and to the appropriate extent. For when one has sex in this manner, it evacuates things from the body that need to be evacuated, and produces relief in the body, rest in the soul, energy, reprieve from vile thoughts and melancholic urges. Many a time it brings joy and takes away sadness.Footnote 74

The quotation maintains that corporeal pleasure was not created for its own sake but rather for a purpose—namely to entice individuals to eat and to have sex to ensure the survival of their species. While the Philebus (51b–52b) discusses corporeal as well as intellectual pleasures, which endure beyond this world, it makes no mention of the former's role in preserving the human race.Footnote 75 The Timaeus, on the other hand, explains that the lesser gods created sexual desire (τὸν τῆς συνουσίας ἔρωτα) to encourage people to have children.Footnote 76 Notoriously at 91b–d, Timaeus recounts how the genital organs in both men and women have an innate love for procreation (τοῦ γεννᾶν ἔρωτα; ἐπιθυμητικὸν ἐνὸν τῆς παιδοποιίας) and will drive their hosts mad and make them ill if they are prevented from achieving this desire.Footnote 77

The idea that corporeal pleasure serves a procreative purpose is not unique to Plato, for texts such as the pseudo-Aristotelian Problemata (4.15, 878b) also contend that the sensation was created ‘for the sake of the generation of living creatures’ (ἕνεκα δέ τινος ἵνα γένεσις ᾖ ζῴων).Footnote 78 The absence of any distinctively medical information in Ibn al-Burqumānī’s ‘Platonic’ excerpt makes it difficult to connect the material to Galen. None the less, in On the Usefulness of the Parts, which advances a teleological understanding of the body that is influenced by the Timaeus, Galen claims that Nature gave the ‘faculty of producing pleasure’ (δύναμιν εἰς γένεσιν ἡδονῆς) to the genital organs to incite animals to procreate.Footnote 79 He goes so far as to assert that pleasure is the only thing which makes animals want to bear offspring:

[…] ἔδωκεν αὐτοῖς ὃ μόνον ἐδύνατο λαβεῖν δέλεαρ εἰς σωτηρίαν τε καὶ φυλακὴν τοῦ γένους, ἡδονὴν σφοδροτάτην τῇ χρήσει τῶν μορίων συνάψασα.Footnote 80

[Nature] gave to them the only thing which they [sc. animals] could receive as a lure to preserve and guard their race, after it joined the most extreme pleasure to the use of these [parts].Footnote 81

Similar to the ‘Platonic’ citation from The Treatise for Muḥsinī, Galen suggests here that animals are only interested in mating, and thus contributing to the survival of their respective species, because sexual intercourse involves intense pleasure. Moreover, the term ‘lure’ (δέλεαρ) in the above passage demonstrates that Galen had recourse to the Timaeus to articulate this thought, for the dialogue calls pleasure ‘the greatest lure to evil’ (μέγιστον κακοῦ δέλεαρ) at 69d2. The Arabic version of Galen's On Character Traits (Περὶ Ἠθῶν) adds that the pleasures of food help to maintain the life of the body, but they, like the pleasures of sex, are also a ‘trap’ (miṣyada) to snare the animal into shameful behaviour.Footnote 82 Therefore, Ibn al-Burqumānī’s excerpt accords with Galen's utilitarian attitude towards the pleasures associated with sex and food.Footnote 83

This correspondence represents the strongest evidence in support of the ascription of the above Arabic citation to Galen. That Galen's writings were an important vehicle for the transmission of Plato's ideas about pleasure in the medieval Islamicate world lends further credence to this attribution. It is also possible that Ibn al-Burqumānī utilized the same source from which he derived his ‘Platonic’ quotation on anatomy. If this material on pleasure originates from Plat. Tim., it probably stems from the fourth book of the commentary. Although Galen's authorship is more uncertain in this case, the following passage prefaced by ‘I say’ (qultu) incorporates Galenic theories about the therapeutic value of sex.

‘I say’ seems to introduce the commentary of Ibn al-Burqumānī instead of Galen, because the passage is not introduced by ‘Plato says’, like the ‘Platonic’ gloss on the eye that I discussed above. Its subsequent placement after the source text quotation also reflects the structure of Ibn al-Burqumānī’s other personal comments, where the context makes it clear that these are his remarks. None the less, Ibn al-Burqumānī reproduces Galenic views about the purgative effect of sexual intercourse. Galen writes at The Art of Medicine 24.9 that, performed at sufficient intervals, sex ‘gives the impression of one becoming lighter and better in breath’ (κουφότερον αὐτὸν ἑαυτοῦ δοκεῖν γεγονέναι καὶ εὐπνούστερον).Footnote 84 Moreover, in On the Affected Parts (6.5, 8.418K), he warns that sexual abstinence can cause melancholic-like (ὁμοίως τοῖς μελαγχολικοῖς) symptoms, such as irrational despondency and gloominess, in men. The monograph On Sexual Intercourse (Περὶ Ἀφροδισίων) by Rufus of Ephesus (fl. 98–117 c.e.) may have influenced Galen's remarks about sex as a therapy in the aforementioned texts. Fragmentary in Greek and Arabic, Rufus’ work advises that the ‘greatest and most beneficial cure’ for a melancholic patient is sex.Footnote 85 As Rufus’ On Sexual Intercourse circulated in Arabic, Ibn al-Burqumānī could have based his comments on the ability of sex to mitigate ‘melancholic despondency’ (wasāwis sawdāwīya) on this source. Alternatively, he may have taken this information from a more contemporary composition such as al-Rāzī’s Book on Sexual Intercourse (Kitāb fī-l-Bāh), which makes use of both Galen and Rufus.Footnote 86 While the widespread recognition of the therapeutic benefits of sex in ancient and medieval medicine makes it difficult to link Ibn al-Burqumānī’s remarks to one authority, his explanation illustrates how the Greek medical tradition has shaped his understanding of pleasure.

CONCLUSIONS

I have argued in this article that the medical works of Ibn Samajūn, ps.(?)-Ibn al-Jazzār and Ibn Burqumānī preserve previously unknown material, namely a testimonium and three fragments, from the Arabic version of Galen's On the Medical Statements in Plato's Timaeus. Besides Ibn Samajūn's citation, these excerpts mention neither the title Timaeus nor Galen's name, so, to support their Galenic attribution, I have highlighted their textual and thematic parallels with Plato's dialogue and Galen's extant writings. The circulation of this material from Plat. Tim. under Plato's name demonstrates the influence of Galen's interpretation of the Timaeus as a medical source. Galen may have claimed that ‘Plato is a doctor’ (ipse est medicus) in the preface to his Synopsis of Plato's Timaeus as a rhetorical tactic to justify his own venture into the exegetical tradition on the dialogue. Be that as it may, the majority of the Arabic fragments of Galen's lemmatic commentary on the Timaeus come from medical compositions, and thus show that their medieval readers, because of Galen, viewed Plato as a medical authority. As Ibn al-Burqumānī’s designation of Plato as ‘the philosopher’ (al-faylasūf) makes clear, these Islamicate writers do not refer to Plato as a ‘doctor’ (ṭabīb), but their citation of him (via Galen) alongside Hippocrates and Rufus of Ephesus reveals the extent of his canonization as a medical figure.

APPENDIX

Footnotes

The author wishes to thank Samer Ali, Cameron Cross, Pauline Koetschet, Glen M. Cooper and Peter E. Pormann for their helpful comments on the editions and translations of the Arabic material in this article. This paper has also benefited from the input of Richard Janko and the anonymous reader.

References

1 For Aristotle's comparative anatomical research, see Hist. an., Part. an., De motu an., Gen. an. and IA. On Aristotle's interest in medical subjects, see e.g. Longrigg, J., Greek Rational Medicine: Philosophy and Medicine from Alcmaeon to the Alexandrians (London, 1993), 149–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar; van der Eijk, P., ‘Aristotle on melancholy’, in id., Medicine and Philosophy in Classical Antiquity: Doctors and Philosophers on Nature, Soul, Health and Disease (Cambridge, 2005), 139–278CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Connell, S., Aristotle on Female Animals: A Study of the Generation of Animals (Cambridge, 2016)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 Some scholars have used this reference to argue for the ascription of certain Hippocratic treatises to the historical Hippocrates. See Steckerl, F., ‘Plato, Hippocrates, and the Menon papyrus’, CPh 40 (1945), 166–80Google Scholar; Joly, R., ‘La question hippocratique et le témoignage du Phèdre’, REG 74 (1961), 69–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Flashar, H., Antike Medizin (Darmstadt, 1971), 52–81Google Scholar; Lloyd, G.E.R., ‘The Hippocratic question’, CQ 25 (1975), 171–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Herter, H., ‘The problematic mention of Hippocrates in Plato's Phaedrus’, ICS 1 (1976), 22–42Google ScholarPubMed; and Mansfeld, J., ‘Plato and the method of Hippocrates’, GRBS 21 (1980), 341–62Google ScholarPubMed.

3 See especially Ti. 69d–81e.

4 On the influence of these earlier thinkers on the dialogue's discussion of the human body, see Cornford, F., Plato's Cosmology (Indianapolis and Cambridge, 1935), 283–4, 334, 343, 345, 375Google Scholar and Longrigg (n. 1), 49–53. See also Miller, H.W., ‘The aetiology of disease in Plato's Timaeus’, TAPA 42 (1962), 175–87Google Scholar and Grams, L., ‘Medical theory in Plato's Timaeus’, Rhizai 6 (2009), 161–92Google Scholar, who argue that Plato included some of his own medical ideas in the Timaeus.

5 In addition to the Timaeus, Galen refers to several Platonic dialogues in his texts, including, for example, the Republic (e.g. On the Doctrines of Hippocrates and Plato [= PHP] 9.2.5), Theaetetus (PHP 7.6.12–21), Phaedrus (On Hippocrates’ On the Nature of Man 15.12K) and the Sophist (PHP 5.2.39). Galen cites two other writers with the name of Plato in his corpus: the comic playwright Plato (On Hippocrates’ Aphorisms 18a.149K) and a physician called Plato (On the Composition of Drugs according to Places 13.60K), who seems to have composed a work on cauterization and hair (see Ullmann, M., Die Medizin im Islam [Leiden, 1970], 78–9Google Scholar and Kahl, O., ‘The pharmacological tables of Rhazes’, Journal of Semitic Studies 56 [2011], 367–99, at 384CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed). Besides Galen, no other extant ancient source mentions this second Plato. Drawing on the lost Chronology of the Physicians of Yaḥyā al-Naḥwī, Isḥāq ibn Ḥunayn, the son of the famous translator Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq, writes that this Plato is the fifth of the eight great physicians of antiquity. This Plato seems to have advocated an integrated approach to medicine that combines the Rationalist sect's emphasis on theory and the Empiricists’ emphasis on experience. See Rosenthal, F., ‘Isḥāq ibn Ḥunayn's Taʾrīḫ al-aṭibbāʾ’, Oriens 7 (1954), 55–80, at 65, 67, 75 and 77Google Scholar.

6 On the Powers [and Mixtures] of Simple Drugs ( = SMT) 11.445–54K and PHP passim.

7 For the Arabic text of Galen's Synopsis of Plato's Timaeus, see Kraus, P. and Walzer, R. (edd.), Galeni Compendium Timaei Platonis (London, 1951), 3–34Google Scholar. According to Rashed, M. (‘Le Prologue perdu de l'abrégé du Timée de Galien dans un texte de magie noire’, Antiquorum Philosophia 3 [2009], 89–100)Google Scholar, the prologue of this Galenic synopsis appears to be preserved in the Arabo-Latin magical treatise Book of the Laws (Liber aneguemis). Fragments from Books 1 to 3 of Galen's On the Medical Statements in Plato's Timaeus survive in Greek. Daremberg, C. (Fragments du Commentaire de Galien sur le Timée de Platon en grec et en français [Paris and Leipzig, 1848])Google Scholar first published the Greek fragments of Book 3, which were later re-edited by Schröder, H.O. (Galeni in Platonis Timaeum commentarii fragmenta [CMG Suppl. 1] [Leipzig and Berlin, 1934])Google Scholar. P. Kahle added to Schröder's 1934 edition an appendix of Arabic fragments from Books 1, 2 and 4. Since the publication of Schröder's text, Moraux, P. (‘Unbekannte Galen-Scholien’, ZPE 27 [1977], 1–66, at 44, 49–50)Google Scholar, Larrain, C.J. (‘Ein unbekanntes Exzerpt aus Galens Timaioskommentar: Γαληνοῦ περὶ τῶν ἐν τῷ Πλάτωνος Τιμαίῳ ἰατρικῶς εἰρημένων. ὑπόμνημα πρῶτον καὶ δεύτερον’, ZPE 85 [1991], 9–30Google Scholar; id., Galens Kommentar zu Platons Timaios [Stuttgart, 1992]Google Scholar) and Loruso, V. (‘Nuovi frammenti di Galeno [In Hp. Epid. VI Comm. VII; In Plat. Tim. Comm.]’, ZPE 152 [2005], 43–56, at 51–2)Google Scholar have uncovered additional Greek fragments. On the authenticity of Larrain's fragments, see Nickel, D., ‘On the authenticity of an “excerpt” from Galen's Commentary on the Timaeus’, in Nutton, V. (ed.), The Unknown Galen (BICS Supplement 77) (London, 2002), 73–8Google Scholar; cf. Das, A.R., ‘Re-evaluating the authenticity of the fragments from Galen's On the Medical Statements in Plato's Timaeus (Scorialensis Graec. Φ-III-11, ff. 123r–126v)’, ZPE 192 (2014), 93–103Google Scholar.

8 Rashed (n. 7), 92.

9 On the relationship between the Arabo-Latin and the lost Greek version of Galen's proemium to his synopsis of the Timaeus, see Rashed (n. 7), 94–5.

10 The only non-medical author (to my knowledge) that cites Plat. Tim. in Arabic is the polymath al-Bīrūnī, who incorporates citations from it in his India; see Sachau, E. (ed.), Kitāb al-Bīrūnī fī taḥqīq mā li-l-Hind min maqūla maqbūla fī-l-ʿaql aw mardhūla (London, 1887), 17, 21 and 164Google Scholar. See Larrain (n. 7 [1992]), 184–216 for Latin, German and English translations of the Arabic material of Plat. Tim., which has been discovered heretofore. When surveying the Arabic fragments and testimonia of Plat. Tim., Larrain appears to have relied heavily on early modern Latin editions of medieval Arabic medical anthologies such as Abū Bakr al-Rāzī’s Comprehensive Book (al-Kitāb al-Ḥāwī). Owing to errors in these Latin translations and his own disregard of the context of certain passages, Larrain misattributes two citations in the Comprehensive Book to Plat. Tim. See A.R. Das, ‘Galen and the Arabic Tradition of Plato's Timaeus’ (Diss., University of Warwick, 2013), 111–19.

11 See e.g. Bayṭār, Ibn, Kitāb al-Jāmiʿ li-mufradāt al-adwiya wa-l-aghdhiya (Compendium of Simple Medicines) (Bulāq, 1874), 2.66Google Scholar lines 27–9.

12 See e.g. al-Rāzī, Abū Bakr, al-Kitāb al-Ḥāwī (Hyderabad, 1955–70), 9.67 lines 13–14Google Scholar.

13 See e.g. id., Channing, J. (ed.), K. al-Judarī wa-l-ḥaṣba (On Smallpox and Measles) (London, 1766), 12 line 10Google Scholar. In his famous Epistle (Risāla) to the courtier Yaḥyā ibn al-Munajjim (b. 815–16), Ḥunayn identifies Galen's commentary by the title On What Plato Mentioned in his Book Known as Timaeus on Medical Science (fīmā dhakarahū Aflāṭūn fī kitābihi al-maʿrūf bi-Ṭīmāwus min ʿilm al-ṭibb); see Bergsträsser, G. (ed.), Hunain Ibn Ishaq: über die syrischen und arabischen Galen-Übersetzungen (Leipzig, 1925), 50 lines 3–7Google Scholar.

14 In his Book of Notification and Review (K. al-Tanbīh wa-l-ishrāf), the historian al-Masʿūdī (d. 956) not only attributes Plat. Tim. to Plato but also conflates it with Galen's Synopsis of Plato's Timaeus. See de Goeje, M.J. (ed.), Kitāb at-tanbīh waʾl-ischrāf, auctore al-Masūdī (Leiden, 1894), 162 line 15–163 line 5Google Scholar for the Arabic text and Zimmermann, F. (‘The origins of the so-called Theology of Aristotle’, in Kraye, J. [ed.], Warburg Institute Surveys and Texts XI: Pseudo-Aristotle in the Middle Ages [London, 1986], 110–240, at 150)Google Scholar for an English translation of the passage. On medieval Arabic readers’ knowledge of Plato's Timaeus, see Arnzen, R., ‘Plato's Timaeus in the Arabic tradition: legends-testimonies-fragments’, in Celia, F. and Ulacco, A. (edd.), Il Timeo: Esegesi greche, arabe, latine (Pisa, 2012), 133–80Google Scholar.

15 Of the surviving Arabic excerpts of Plat. Tim., only al-Rāzī, Comprehensive Book, (n. 10), 10.303 lines 3–6 preserves the lemmatic structure of Galen's original text.

16 In his Treatise on the Secret of the Art of Medicine (Escorial MS árabe 833, fol. 130r), al-Rāzī introduces his quotation from Plat. Tim. with the phrase ‘Plato in the Medical Timaeus’ (Aflāṭūn fī Ṭīmāwus al-ṭibbī). On the passage, see Das (n. 7), 99–100.

17 See Larrain (n. 7 [1992]), 192. For the Arabic text of al-Bīrūnī’s quotation, see Sachau (n. 10), 21 lines 18–19.

18 Apart from his composition of the aforementioned pharmacological work, which I will hereafter call Compendium of Simple Drugs, little else is known about Ibn Samajūn (sometimes Ibn Samjūn). For these scant biographical details, see Ullmann, M., Die Medizin im Islam (Leiden and Köln, 1970), 267Google Scholar and J. Vernet, ‘Ibn Samdjūn’, in Encyclopedia of Islam, Second Edition [accessed online].

19 The abjad alphabet orders the twenty-eight letters of the Arabic alphabet according to their numerical value. Instead of the initial sequence alif, bāʾ, tāʾ, thāʾ, the abjad alphabet has alif, bāʾ, jīm and dāl, which have the values 1, 2, 3 and 4, as its first four letters. On the abjad system, see Gacek, A., Arabic Manuscripts: A Vademecum for Readers (Leiden, 2009), 11–13CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

20 Sezgin, F. et al. (edd.), Jāmiʿ al-adwiya al-mufrada = Compendium of Simple Drugs (Frankfurt, 1992)Google Scholar. On the Huntington and Bruce MSS, see Savage-Smith, E., A New Catalogue of Arabic Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, University of Oxford; Volume I: Medicine (Oxford, 2011), 622–4, 626–7Google Scholar.

21 Sezgin (n. 20), 2.126 lines 19–20. Unless otherwise noted, all translations of the following Arabic texts are my own. For the Arabic, see text A in the Appendix.

22 In his pharmacological compendium Collection of Simple Drugs and Nutritive Substances (al-Kitāb al-Jāmiʿ li-mufradāt al-adwiya wa-l-aghdhiya), Ibn al-Bayṭār (d. 1248) cites Plat. Tim. twice, and these excerpts, which discuss vinegar and bran, appear to be taken from al-Rāzī’s Comprehensive Book. Cf. Ibn al-Bayṭār (n. 11), 2.66 lines 27–9 and 4.178 line 25, and al-Rāzī (n. 12), 20.450 line 18–451 line 7 and 297 line 11.

23 See p. 389 below.

24 See SMT 12.131K. See also On the Composition of Drugs according to Place 13.231K, where Galen lists sneezewort as an ingredient of a compound remedy for jaundice.

25 Cf. Dioscorides, Materia Medica 2.163.

26 Cf. Galen's Synopsis of Plato's Timaeus (n. 7), 7 lines 10–12. In this passage, the Arabic translator, either Ḥunayn or his associate ʿĪsā ibn Yaḥyā, glosses Plato's comparison of the World Soul to the letter chi at Ti. 36b8. In consideration of an Arabic reader's unfamiliarity with the Greek alphabet, the translator writes that the World Soul resembled ‘the shīn in the writing of the Greeks’ (al-shīn fī kitābi l-yūnānīyīni). The Arabic letter shin does not have the same shape as the Greek chi, but the translator may have equated the letters on the basis of their similar pronunciation. On the relationship between chi and shīn, see Daiber, H., Aetius Arabus: die Vorsokratiker in arabischen Überlieferung (Wiesbaden, 1980), 41–2Google Scholar and Zimmerman (n. 14), 114.

27 See Overwein, O., ‘The art of the translator, or: how did Ḥunayn ibn ʾIsḥāq and his school translate?’, in Pormann, P.E. (ed.), Epidemics in Context (Berlin, 2012), 151–69Google Scholar and Cooper, G., ‘Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq's Galen translations and Greco-Arabic philology: some observations from the Crises (De crisibus) and the Critical Days (De diebus decretoriis)’, Oriens 44 (2016), 1–43CrossRefGoogle Scholar, who discuss the ways in which Ḥunayn and his associates tailored their translations.

28 Ullmann, M., Untersuchungen zur arabischen Überlieferung der Materia Medica des Dioskurides (Wiesbaden, 2009), 59–62Google Scholar. See also e.g. the entry on sneezewort in the late twelfth-century anonymous commentary on Disocorides’ Materia Medica, Dietrich, A. (ed.), Dioscurides triumphans: ein anonymer arabischer Kommentar (Ende 12. Jahrh. n. Chr.) zur Materia Medica: arabischer Text nebst kommentierter deutscher Übersetzungen (Göttingen, 1988)Google Scholar, 1.62, entry 147, lines 3–7. The author not only gives the Greek and Arabic names for sneezewort (i.e. strouthion and kundus) but also its designation in Andalusian Arabic (qūlāla) and Amazigh (tāghīghāsht [?]).

29 For the references to the citations on vinegar and bran, see n. 22 above. For the fragment on the evacuative power of red and white frankincense, see al-Rāzī (n. 12), 21.318 lines 3–5. Serapion junior cites the same passage on red and white frankincense in his pharmacological work, which derives from the Spanish Ibn Wāfid's (d. 1067) Kitāb al-Adwiya al-mufrada; see Schröder (n. 7), 5.

30 Larrain (n. 7 [1992]), 205–6.

31 At SMT 12.131K, Galen relates that the medicinal value of sneezewort lies in the roots which are dried and made into a powder. He does not specify whether this powder should be inhaled, but the fact that it provokes a fit of sneezing when taken suggests that it was snuffed. Cf. eighteenth-century and nineteenth-century medical vademecums and herbals such as Tissot, S.A.D. et al. , The Universal Family Physician and Surgeon: Containing a Familiar and Accurate Description of the Symptoms of Every Disorder Incident to Mankind (Blackburn, 1798), 704Google Scholar, which explicitly advise that powdered sneezewort be taken as snuff.

32 Schröder (n. 7), 3–8 uses fragments from the medical works of al-Rāzī and Maimonides to reconstruct the scope of Book 2 of Plat. Tim.

33 On this MS, see Savage-Smith (n. 20), 539–44. For the sake of brevity, I will refer to this tract hereafter as Regarding Cough.

34 For two medieval lists of Ibn al-Jazzār's writings, see Juljul, Ibn, Ṭabaqāt al-aṭibbāʾ wa-l-ḥukamāʾ (Classes of Physicians and Wise Men), edited by M.K. Imām (Tehran, 1979), 168–70Google Scholar [in Persian] and Ibn Uṣaybiʿa, Abī, ʿUyūn al-anbāʾ fī ṭabaqāt al-aṭibbāʾ (The Best Accounts of the Classes of Physicians) (Beirut, 1965), 482 lines 6–18Google Scholar. See Bos, G. (Ibn al-Jazzar on Sexual Diseases: A Critical Edition, English Translation and Introduction of Zād al-musāfir wa-qūt al-ḥāḍir = Provisions for the Traveller and Nourishment of the Settled, Book 6 [London, 1997]Google Scholar; Ibn al-Jazzar on Fevers: A Critical Edition of Zād al-musāfir wa-qūt al-ḥāḍir = Provisions for the Traveller and Nourishment for the Sedentary, Book 7, Chapters 1–6 [London, 2000]Google Scholar), who has edited and translated into English parts of the Provisions for the Traveller and Nourishment for the Sedentary.

35 Suwaysī, M. (ed.), Provisions for the Traveller and Nourishment for the Sedentary (Zād al-musāfir wa-qūt al-ḥāḍir [Tunis, 1999], 1.317 lines 9–11Google Scholar) cites ‘Plato’ on the topic of fever types, but there are reasons to doubt that Ibn al-Jazzār's source here is Galen's Plat. Tim. The quotation describes two kinds of fever, ‘general’ (ʿāmma) and ‘specific’ (khāṣṣa). Although fragments in al-Rāzī ([n. 12], 15.111 lines 10–14 and 16.101 line 15–102 line 8) show that Plat. Tim. discussed tertian, burning and quartan fevers, Galen does not recognize in his extant corpus the fever categories ‘general’ and ‘specific’. For Galen's most extensive explanation of fevers, see On the Differences of Fevers (7.273–405K). Moreover, Plato does not mention these types of fever at Ti. 86a, where he describes quotidian, tertian and quartan fevers. Of course, it is possible that Ibn al-Jazzār, or his source text, has loosely paraphrased Galen's commentary. None the less, as the citation does not contain any distinctively Galenic material, I have not included it in this article.

36 Cf. Helmreich, G. (ed.), Peri chreias moriōn (Leipzig, 1907), 1.302–3Google Scholar.

37 MS Marsh 215, fol. 37v–38r. For the Arabic, see text B in the Appendix.

38 Ninth-century Graeco-Arabic translations do not render the Greek ἐπιγλωσσίς (or ἐπιγλωττίς) with a one-word Arabic equivalent. As Ullmann, M., Wörterbuch zu den griechisch-arabischen Übersetzungen des 9 Jahrhunderts: Supplement, Band I: A–O (Wiesbaden, 2006), 378Google Scholar records, in Ibn al-Biṭrīq's Arabic translation of Aristotle's Historia animalium (492b34, 504b3), the term is translated by two periphrases: ‘the part of the body at the root [of the tongue]’ (al-ʿuḍw allādhī yakūnu ʿalā aṣlihi) and ‘[the part of the body] which is at the root of the tongue and covers the head of the path of the trachea’ (allādhī yakūnu ʿalā aṣl al-lisān wa yughaṭṭī bi-raʾs sabīl qaṣabat al-riʾa).

39 I have modified the translations of Cornford (n. 4), 283–4 and Zeyl, D., Timaeus (Indianapolis, 2000), 64Google Scholar.

40 Cornford (n. 4), 284 n. 1. On this controversy, see Repici, L., ‘L'epiglottide nell'antichità tra medicina e filosofia’, History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 12 (1990), 67–104Google Scholar.

41 See PA 664b4–19. Gotthelf, A., Teleology, First Principles, and Scientific Method in Aristotle's Biology (Oxford, 2012), 386 n. 28CrossRefGoogle Scholar remarks that, although he does not mention Plato's name in PA, Aristotle is probably targeting the position in the Timaeus.

42 For the dating of these texts (which range from the late fifth century to the middle of the third centuries b.c.e.), see Craik, E., The ‘Hippocratic’ Corpus: Content and Context (London, 2015), 56, 190 and 229Google Scholar.

43 In Hist. an. (see n. 38 above), Aristotle comments on the epiglottis’ function of keeping out food and liquid from the lungs. The author of Diseases IV (§ 25.9) is also aware of this valve; however, he does not appear to know a technical name for it and instead uses the periphrasis ‘a structure like an ivy leaf which is set on the pipe to the lungs’ (ἐπίκειται τῇ σύριγγι τοῦ πλεύμονος, ὥσπερ κισσοῦ φύλλον). Heart § 2 attributes the coughing fit to the incoming liquid colliding with the breath coming out (ἀλλὰ πῶς ὕδωρ ἀναιδὲς ἐνοροῦνον ὄχλον καὶ βῆχα παρέχει πολλήν; οὕνεκα, φημί, ἀπάντικρυ τῆς ἀναπνοῆς φέρεται).

44 See PHP 8.9.8 = De Lacy, P. (ed.), Galeni De placitis Hippocratis et Platonis (Berlin, 1978–84), 534 lines 21–2Google Scholar.

45 PHP 8.9.5 = De Lacy (n. 44), 534 lines 6–9.

46 PHP 8.9.9–20 = De Lacy (n. 44), 534 line 26–536 line 30. De Lacy (n. 44), 695 observes that Galen ignores Ti. 91a4–5, which recounts how liquid travels into the lungs through a tube (i.e. trachea) that terminates in the bladder.

47 PHP 8.9.21–3 = De Lacy (n. 44), 536 line 31–538 line 1. I prefer ‘mouth’ instead of ‘opening’ for στόμιον, because Galen writes in PHP that this structure can open and close by will.

48 See PHP 8.9.24 = De Lacy (n. 44), 538 lines 4–6.

49 See SMT 11.806, 12.33, 12.201, 12.215, 12.333 and 12.359K.

50 See Schröder (n. 7), 14–26.

51 Cf. the lemmata in Ḥunayn's Arabic translation of Galen's Commentary on Hippocrates ‘Epidemics’, Book Two (Vagelpohl, U. [ed.], Galeni In Hippocratis Epidemiarum librum II, Commentariorum I–III versio Arabica [Berlin, 2016], 76Google ScholarPubMed).

52 See p. 386 above.

53 Schröder (n. 7), 8–9. For the Arabic text and an English translation of this citation in Maimonides’ Medical Aphorisms, see Bos, G. (ed.), Medical Aphorisms, Treatises 6–9 (Provo, 2007), 22Google Scholar; on this excerpt, see also Das (n. 7), 100. I mean by ‘lesser’ those organs that are not responsible for housing or carrying out directly the commands of the immortal and mortal parts of the soul.

54 On this text, see Arnzen, R., ‘On the contents, sources, and composition of two Arabic pseudo-Platonica: “Multaqaṭāt Aflāṭūn al-ilāhī” and “Fiqar ultuqiṭat wa-jumiʿat ʿan Aflāṭūn”’, Oriens 37 (2009), 7–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

55 Badawī, A.R. (ed.), Aflāṭūn fī al-islām (Tehran, 1974), 279 lines 3–6Google Scholar.

56 Arnzen (n. 54), 19.

57 Arnzen (n. 54), 21 gives a terminus ante quem of the late eleventh or early twelfth century for Gleanings of the Divine Plato.

58 On Ibn al-Burqumānī, see Steinschneider, M., Allgemeine Einleitung in die jüdische Literatur des Mittelalters (London, 1902), 233 § 172Google Scholar and Ullmann (n. 5), 191. Below, I refer to his text as The Treatise for Muḥsinī.

59 Al-Muḥsinī’s birth and death dates are unknown. On his career, see Kahil, A., The Sultan Ḥasan Complex in Cairo 1357–1364: A Case Study in the Formation of Mamluk Style (Beirut, 2008), 172–81Google Scholar.

60 On this and the other MSS of The Treatise for Muḥsinī, see Savage-Smith (n. 20), 579–82.

61 See Boudon, V. (ed.), Galien: Exhortation à l’étude de la médecine, Art medical (Paris, 2002), 346Google Scholar line 10–347 line 11. Kollesch, J., ‘Anschauungen von den Arkhai in der Ars Medica und die Seelenlehre Galens’, in Manuli, P. and Vegetti, M. (edd.), Le Opere Psicologiche di Galeno (Naples, 1988), 215–19Google Scholar raised doubts about the ascription of this work to Galen, but Boudon-Millot, V., ‘L'Ars medica de Galien, est-il un traité authentique’, REG 109 (1996), 111–56CrossRefGoogle Scholar has robustly defended its authenticity.

62 MS Marsh 534, fols. 23v–24r. For the Arabic, see text C in the Appendix.

63 s.v. τὸ νεῦρον in Ullmann, M., Wörterbuch zu den griechisch-arabischen Übersetzungen des 9. Jahrhunderts (Wiesbaden, 2002), 434Google Scholar. Herophilus is credited with the discovery of the nerves, and Erasistratus seems to have refined his predecessor's understanding of the nervous system (see von Staden, H., Herophilus: The Art of Medicine in Early Alexandria [Cambridge, 1989], 240–1, 250Google Scholar).

64 See Plat. Tim. 3.6 (Schröder [n. 7], 15 lines 5–20), where Galen comments on Plato's ignorance of the sensory role of the nerves.

65 See PHP 8.4.10 = De Lacy (n. 44), 500 lines 12–15. The list of simple parts differs slightly at The Elements according to Hippocrates 10.4–5 (De Lacy, P. [ed.], Galeni De elementis ex Hippocratis sententia [Berlin, 1996], 140 lines 2–5Google Scholar), which gives arteries, veins, nerves, ligaments, membranes and flesh.

66 PHP 8.4.8 = De Lacy (n. 44), 500 lines 5–8.

67 Galen's most detailed treatment of the subject of mixture, or temperament, is in his work On Mixtures. For the Greek text, see Helmreich, G. (ed.), Galeni De temperamentis libri III (Leipzig, 1904)Google Scholar.

68 See Constitution of the Art of Medicine § 10 = Fortuna, S. (ed.), Galeni De constitutione artis medicae ad Patrophilum [Berlin, 1997], 84 line 17–86 line 17Google Scholar.

69 At fol. 23v, Ibn al-Burqumānī quotes a short statement from a Pythagoras (i.e. ‘concerning the mastery of the stomach, it brings all the parts of the body close to equilibrium’), and then he comments on its thematic links with the ‘Platonic’ material cited above. The transliteration of Pythagoras (Fitākhūras) in The Treatise for Muḥsinī does not follow the standard Arabic transcription for the philosopher, Fīthāghūras—as F. Rosenthal, ‘Fīṯhāghūras’, Encyclopedia of Islam, Second Edition (accessed online) observes, the spelling of the name can vary. Medieval Arabic writers knew another Pythagoras (sometimes Badīghūras or Fītāghūras), who was an Alexandrian physician and the author of works on uroscopy and substitute drugs. On this Pythagoras, see Ullmann, M., ‘Die Schrift des Badīġūrās über die Ersatzdrogen’, Der Islam 50 (1973), 230–48CrossRefGoogle Scholar with important qualifications from Kahl, O., The Sanskrit, Syriac and Persian Sources in the Comprehensive Book of Rhazes (Leiden, 2015), 49–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Notwithstanding the medical content of Ibn al-Burqumānī’s Pythagorean citation, his Pythagoras is probably Pythagoras the philosopher, who was the more famous of the two and to whom sayings on a variety of topics were attributed.

70 See e.g. Anatomical Procedures 1.2 (2.220–3K), where Galen encourages his readers to observe firsthand the human skeleton. He relates that he had the opportunity to do so when a flood disturbed some graves.

71 See al-Rāzī (n. 12), 15.111 lines 10–14 and 14.98 line 8–99 line 4.

72 For English translations of the passages in Differences of Symptoms and Causes of Symptoms, see Johnston, I., Galen On Diseases and Symptoms (Cambridge, 2006), 194, 220–3Google Scholar. For the relevant passages in the Synopsis and Plat. Tim., see Kraus and Walzer (n. 7), 19 lines 10–14 and Larrain (n. 7 [1991]), 29 = id. (n. 7 [1992]), 170–3.

73 Bar-Asher, M., ‘Quelques aspects de l’éthique d'Abū-Bakr al-Rāzī et ses origines dans l’œuvre de Galien (seconde parte)’, Studia Islamica 70 (1989), 119–47, at 133–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Adamson, P., ‘Platonic pleasures in Epicurus and al-Rāzī’, in id. (ed.), In the Age of al-Fārābī: Arabic Philosophy in the Fourth/Tenth Century (London, 2008), 71–94, at 83–5Google Scholar demonstrate how Abū Bakr al-Rāzī derives his theory of pleasure in Spiritual Medicine (al-Ṭibb al-rūḥānī) and On Pleasure (Fī al-Ladhdha) from Galen's Synopsis of Plato's Timaeus.

74 MS Marsh 534, fols. 65v–66r. For the Arabic, see text D in the Appendix.

75 See PHP 9.6.52–4 (= De Lacy [n. 44], 582 lines 26–33), where Galen cites the division in the Philebus of pleasure into false (i.e. corporeal) and true (i.e. intellectual) kinds.

76 Ti. 91a.

77 As King, H., ‘Once upon a text: hysteria from Hippocrates’, in ead. (ed.), Hippocrates’ Woman (London, 1998), 205–46, at 222–5Google Scholar demonstrates, ancient medical writers, including Galen, interpreted the account of the pains that an ‘unfruitful’ (ἄκαρπον) womb causes as a description of the affliction uterine suffocation.

78 On the authenticity and date of this work, see Flashar, H., Problemata physica, Aristoteles (Berlin, 1991), 303–16, 356–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For an overview of the medical content in the Problemata, see Oikonomopoulou, K., ‘The Problemata’s medical books: structural and methodological aspects’, in Mayhew, R. (ed.), The Aristotelian Problemata Physica (Leiden, 2015), 61–78Google Scholar.

79 See UP 14.1–2 = Helmreich, G. (ed.), Peri chreias moriōn (Leipzig, 1909), 2.286 lines 1–2Google Scholar. On the influence of the Timaeus on Galen's teleology, see Hankinson, R.J., ‘Galen explains the elephant’, Philosophy and Biology: Canadian Journal of Philosophy 14 (1988), 135–57, at 137–40Google Scholar and id., ‘Galen and the best of all possible worlds’, CQ 39 (1989), 206–27, at 208, 213–16Google Scholar.

80 Peri chreias = Helmreich (n. 79), 2.286 lines 9–12.

81 Translation from May, M., Galen On the Usefulness of the Parts of the Body (Ithaca, 1968), 2.621Google Scholar (modified).

82 See Character Traits 2, Kraus, P. (ed.), ‘Kitāb al-akhlāq li-Jālīnūs’, Bulletin of the Faculty of Arts of the Egyptian University 5 (1937), 1–51, at 41Google Scholar; for an English translation of the passage, see Davies, D., ‘Character traits: translation’, in Singer, P.N. (ed.), Galen: Psychological Writings (Cambridge, 2014), 135–72, at 159Google Scholar.

83 At That the Best Doctor is a Philosopher 3.4 (Boudon-Millot, V. [ed.], Galien, Tome 1: Introduction générale, Sur l'orde de ses propres livres, Sur ses propres livres, Que l'excellent médecin est aussi philosophe [Paris, 2007], 290Google Scholar lines 2–5), Galen condemns those preoccupied with sex as bestial. As I will explain below, Galen believes that sex has a therapeutic value but does not recommend that his patients rely on sex workers for sexual release. Instead, he refers favourably to the example of Diogenes the Cynic, who preferred to masturbate than to wait for a sex worker (On the Affected Parts 6.5 [8.419–20K]).

84 Boudon-Millot, V. (ed.), Galien: Exhortation (Paris, 2002), 351 lines 9–10Google Scholar. See also On the Affected Parts 6.5 (8.414–37K).

85 See Daremberg, C. and Ruelle, C.-E. (edd.), Œuvres de Rufus d’Éphèse, texte collationné sur les manuscrits, traduit pour la première fois en français, avec une introduction (Paris, 1879), 320 lines 7–9Google Scholar. For the extant fragments of On Sexual Intercourse, see Ullmann, M., ‘Die arabische Überlieferung der Schriften des Rufus von Ephesos’, ANRW 37.2 (1994), 1293–349, at 1338–9Google Scholar.

86 If Ibn al-Burqumānī utilized al-Rāzī’s book, he has not quoted it verbatim. On this text by al-Rāzī, see Pormann, P.E., ‘Al-Rāzī (d. 925) on the benefits of sex. A clinician caught between philosophy and medicine’, in Vrolijk, A. and Hogendijk, J.P. (edd.), O ye Gentlemen, Arabic Studies on Science and Literary Culture in Honour of Remke Kruk (Leiden, 2007), 115–28Google Scholar.