Oreibasios

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Oreibasios ( ancient Greek Ὀρειβάσιος Oreibásios , Latinized Oribasius ; * around 325 in Pergamon (probably not in Sardis ); † 403 ) was an important Byzantine doctor, medical historian of late antiquity and a student of Zeno of Cyprus, who was a member of the "Dogmatics" medical school.

Life

The pagan Greek Oreibasios came from a wealthy family from Pergamon. He studied in Alexandria but then settled in his hometown. He enjoyed such a good reputation that he was appointed as personal physician by the Caesar and later Emperor Julian in 355 , whereby Oreibasios was also responsible for Julian's library. In the following years a friendship developed between the two men. Oreibasios became a close confidante of the emperor who, after his accession to the throne in 361, worked towards a restoration of the pagan cults.

On Julian's orders, Oreibasios prepared an important encyclopedia in 72 volumes from the works of Pedanios Dioscurides , Galenus and other Greek doctors (Συναγωγία ἰατρική Synagōgía iatrikḗ "medical meeting"), of which he wrote a brief overview 20 years later for his son Eustathios Synopsis ) in nine books (Σύνοψις Sýnopsis ). Only individual books of the work, which was written in Greek, have survived. Oreibasios is said to have visited the oracle of Delphi on Julian's orders in 362 to offer the emperor's support. The Byzantine historian Kedrenos and the late antique Artemii Passio report on this . The Pythia prophesied for the last time and told him that the oracle would be silent forever:

Εἴπατε τῷ βασιλεῖ, χαμαὶ πέσε δαίδαλος αὐλά, οὐκέτι Φοῖβος ἔχει καλύβην. Οὐ μάντιδα δάφνην, οὐ παγὰν λαλέουσαν, ἀπέσβετο καὶ λάλον ὕδωρ.

Announce the emperor, the splendid hall has fallen, Phoibos no longer has [his] house. Neither the prophetic laurel nor the murmuring spring; The murmuring water has also fallen silent.

After Julian's death in 363, Oreibasios wrote a memorandum , a kind of summarizing account of the emperor, which Eunapios of Sardis , for example regarding Julian's Persian War , and perhaps - mediated through Eunapios - Zosimos had used, where Zosimos probably also used Magnus von Karrhai . Some researchers see Oreibasios, others in Magnus, a possible common source for Zosimos and Ammianus Marcellinus , although Ammianus incorporated his own experiences into his work.

Eunapios dedicated an entry to Oreibasios in his work Vitae sophistarum ("Life of the Sophists"), which is an important source, but is very uncritical and should therefore only be used with caution. Eunapios apparently intended to transfigure Oreibasios into a "pagan martyr". Julian's successors Flavius ​​Valens and Valentinian I banished Oreibasios. It is unclear where Oreibasios was staying at this time, but it is possible that he went into exile to the Goths or to Persia (such as Alexander Demandt and, more recently, Udo Hartmann ). However, he was later recalled and reportedly married to a wealthy woman.

literature

Text output

Translations

  • Mark Grant: Dieting for an Emperor: A Translation of Books 1 and 4 of Oribasius' “Medical Compilations” . Brill, Leiden et al. 1997, ISBN 90-04-10790-8 .
  • Maximilian Haars: The general potential effects of simple drugs at Galen. Oreibasios, “Collectiones medicae” XV. Introduction, translation and pharmaceutical commentary. Scientific publishing company, Stuttgart 2018, ISBN 978-3-8047-3899-7 .

Overview representations

  • Véronique Boudon-Millot , Richard Goulet: Oribase de Pergame. In: Richard Goulet (ed.): Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques . Volume 4. CNRS Éditions, Paris 2005, ISBN 2-271-06386-8 , pp. 800-804
  • Elżbieta Szabat: Oreibasios. In: Paweł Janiszewski, Krystyna Stebnicka, Elżbieta Szabat (eds.): Prosopography of Greek Rhetors and Sophists of the Roman Empire. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2015, ISBN 978-0-19-871340-1 , pp. 411 f.
  • Karl-Heinz Leven : Oreibasios. In: Werner E. Gerabek , Bernhard D. Haage, Gundolf Keil , Wolfgang Wegner (Hrsgg.): Enzyklopädie Medizingeschichte. De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2005, ISBN 3-11-015714-4 , p. 1076 f.

Investigations

  • Udo Hartmann : Oreibasios in Persia . In: Robert Rollinger, Brigitte Truschnegg (Hrsgg.): Antiquity and the Mediterranean . Stuttgart 2006, pp. 343–364 (good overview with references).

Web links