Anthimus

This article describes the ancient physician Anthimos, for further meanings see Anthimos

Anthimos or Anthimus (Greek Άνθιμος ; * around 450; † around 530) was a proven Greek doctor between 481 and 511, who was in the wake of Theodoric Strabo and later of Theodoric the Great . Previously, he was probably expelled from Constantinople for high treason , after he had tried to inform the Goths about the developments in Constantinople by letter, which was unsuccessful because the letter was intercepted. This is indicated by a note by the historian Malchus of Philadelphia .

From Anthimus a letter about healthy eating ( De observatione ciborum ), addressed to the king of the Franks Theuderich I , who ruled in Metz from 511 to 533, has survived . In terms of cultural history, the text is particularly noteworthy because in this case an educated Roman tried to unite late antique food culture with the taste of the new “barbaric” rulers in the west of the old empire. Because although Anthimus was based on existing Roman recipes, he converted some of them. He devoted himself to the use of bacon, which he called a Franconian specialty ( delicias Francorum ), and rejected the use of Roman fish sauce ( garum , actually an integral part of ancient Roman cuisine).

The text was included in the Lorsch Pharmacopoeia around 788 .

expenditure

• Eduard Liechtenhan : Anthimi De observatione ciborum ad Theodoricum regem Francorum epistula , iteratis curis edidit et in linguam Germanicam transtulit Eduard Liechtenhan, Teubner, Leipzig, Berlin 1928. 2nd edition Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1963 ( Corpus medicorum Latinorum 8, 1) full text .
• Paula Paolucci (Ed.): Anthimi epistulae de observatione ciborum ad Theodoricum regem Francorum Concordantiae . Olms, Hildesheim 2003, ISBN 3-487-11833-5 .

literature

• Yitzhak Hen: Food and drink in Merovingian Gaul. In: Brigitte Kasten (Ed.): Fields of activity and horizons of experience of rural people in the early medieval manorial rule (up to approx. 1000). Cologne 2006, pp. 99–110.
• Gundolf Keil: Anthimus. In: Author's Lexicon . 2nd Edition. Volume 11 (2004), Col. 119-121.

Web links

• Literature by and about Anthimus in the catalog of the German National Library
• Full Latin text by De Observatione Ciborum

Individual evidence

1. ^ Gundolf Keil : Vegetarian. In: Medical historical messages. Journal for the history of science and specialist prose research. Volume 34, 2015 (2016), pp. 29–68, here: p. 33.
2. ^ Yitzhak Hen: Food and drink in Merovingian Gaul. In: Brigitte Kasten (Ed.): Fields of activity and horizons of experience of rural people in the early medieval manorial rule (up to approx. 1000). Cologne 2006, p. 108f.
3. ↑ Gundolf Keil (ed.): The Lorsch Pharmacopoeia. Wissenschaftliche Verlagsgesellschaft, Stuttgart 1989, ISBN 3-8047-1078-6 , here ( Epistula ad Theudericum regem Francorum De observatione ciborum ): Volume 1, Pages 72-75, and Volume 2, pp. 143-149.