Dioscorides extended: the Synonyma Plantarum Barbara

Andrew Dalby

The article provides a survey of the state of knowledge and research on a collection of multilingual glosses of wild plant names in Greek, Latin and other languages and healing traditions of the Roman Empire. The collection was named Synonyma plantarum barbara by Kurt Sprengel in 1829. It is known in two forms, in Greek script as part of the alphabetical recension of the Materia Medica of Dioscorides, and in Latin script as part of the Herbarius ascribed to pseudo- Apuleius. Among the regional languages prominent in this collection are Etruscan, Gaulish, Dacian and ‘Egyptian’. There has been much study of the plant names in certain individual languages in the collection, inconclusive discussion of its date, and hardly any consideration of its purpose. Its authorship has been attributed, on weak evidence, to Pamphilos of Alexandria. It is proposed here that the collection should be regarded as anonymous; that its aim was to assist the sourcing of medicinal wild plants by physicians, for example army doctors, in the Roman provinces; that its usefulness would have been greatest in the 2nd century AD, and that it was probably compiled at that period, soon after the Roman conquest of Dacia. The collection as a whole has been neglected by scholars, and would reward further study for what it can tell us of the sociolinguistics, the herbal medicine, and the competing medical traditions of the Roman Empire.

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ISBN: 978-989-26-1718-3
eISBN: 978-989-26-1721-3
DOI: 10.14195/978-989-26-1721-3_1
Área: Artes e Humanidades
Páginas: 22-35
Data: 2018

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