The 'natural' medicine of Theodorus Priscianus : between tradition and innnvation

This article argues for a close relationship between the work of the Late Antique medical writer Theodorus Priscianus (Faen. pr.-1; Physpr.) and Pliny the Elder's discussion of medicine (N.H. 26.10 ff). This relationship, rarely explored in detail, centers on the role of nature in medicine and goes beyond mere verbal reminiscences; indeed a comparison of the two authors illustrates an important aspect of the history of Roman medical science and of Late Antique culture. My arguments offer a significant qualification to an approach typical among scholars and exemplified by Margaret Beagon, who in her very useful study of Pliny ("Roman Nature", Oxford University Press 1992) observes that Theodorus wrote in a less rational age. In fact, Theodorus takes up a traditional aspect of Roman thought to be found both in Pliny and in Cato the Elder (where it is linked with anti-Greek sentiment): a direct, natural medicine based on herbs is preferred to a more complex theoretical approach. In the specific context of Late Antique technical treatises (cf. M. Formisano, "Tecnica e Scrittura", Carocci 2001), this tradition takes on a new form in writers like Theodorus, whose tendency to disassociate technical from theoretical knowledge and to privilege practical applicability over eloquence is characteristic of his time, as is his paradoxical presentation of precisely these arguments in a highly rhetorical style as seen, for example, in the prosopopoeia of Nature herself at Faen. 1.2