A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology. By various writers. Ed. by William Smith. Illustrated by numerous engravings on wood.

HIPPOCRATES. HIPPOCRATES. 487
the first three sections agrees almost word for word In the fourth class are placed those works which
with passages to be found in his acknowledged were certainly not written by Hippocrates himself,
works; while in the remaining sections we find which were probably either contemporary or:but
sentences taken apparently from spurious or doubt- little posterior to him, and whose authors have
ful treatises; thus adding greatly to our difficulties, been, with more or less degree of certainty, disinasmuch as they sometimes contain doctrines and covered. The works De Natura Hominis, and De
theories opposed to those which we. find in the Salubri Victus Ratione, are supposed by M. Littri
works acknowledged to be genuine. And these to have been written by the same author, because
facts are (in the opinion of the critics alluded to) it is said by Galen that in many old editions these
to be accounted for in one of two ways: either two treatises formed but one; and this author he
Hippocrates himself in his old age (for the Apho- concludes to have been Polybus, the son-in-law of
risms have always been attributed to this period of Hippocrates (vol. i. pp. 46, 346, &c.), because a
his life) put together certain extracts from his own passage is quoted by Aristotle (Hist. A.im. iii 3),
works, to which were afterwards added other sen- and attributed to Polybus, which is found word for
tences taken from later authors; or else the col- word in the work De Natura Ilominis (vol. i. p.
lection was not formed by Hippocrates himself, but 364). For somewhat similar reasons, Euryphon
by some person or persons after his death, who has been supposed to be the author of the second
made aphoristical extracts from his works, and and third books De Morbis, and the work De
from those of other writers of a later date, and the Natura Muliebri [EURYPHON]; and also (though
whole was then attributed to Hippocrates, because with much less show of reason) a certain Leohe was the. author of the sentences that were most phanes, or Cleophanes (of whom nothing whatever
valuable, and came first in order. This account of is known), to have written the treatise De Superthe formation of the Aphorisms appears extremely foetatione (Littr6, vol. i. p. 380).
plausible, nor does it seem to be any decisive ob- In the fifth class there is one treatise (De Dijection to say, that we find among them sentences aeta) in which an astronomical coincidence with
which are not to be met with elsewhere; for, the calendar of Eudoxus has been pointed to the
when we recollect how many works of the old writer by a friend, which (as far as he is aware)
medical writers, and perhaps of Hippocrates himself, has never been noticed by any commentator on
are lost, it is easy to conceive that these sentences Hippocrates, and which seems in some degree to
may have been extracted from some treatise that is fix the date of the work in question. If the cano longer in existence. It must however be con- lendar of Eudoxus, as preserved in the Apparentiae
fessed that this conjecture, however plausible and of Ptolemy and the calendar of Geminus (see
probable, requires further proof and examination Petav. Uranol. pp. 64, 71), be compared with part
before it can be received as true. of the third book De Diaeta (vol. i. pp. 711-715),
The second class is one of the most unsatisfac- it will be found that the periods correspond so
tory in the writer's own opinion, and affords at exactly, that (there being no other solar calendar
the same time a curious instance of the impossibility of antiquity in which these intervals coincide so
of satisfying even those few persons in Europe whose closely, and all through,but that of Eudoxus), it seems
opinion on such a matter is really worth asking; a reasonable inference that the writer of the work
for, upon submitting the classification to two friends, De Diaeta took them from the calendar in quesone of whom is decidedly the most learned phy- tion. If this be granted, it will follow that the
sician in Great Britain, and the other one of the author must have written this work after the year
best medical critics on the continent, he was ad- B. c. 381, which is the date of the calendar of Euvised by the one to call this class "Works probably doxus; and, as Hippocrates must have been at
written by Hippocrates,"' and by the other to trans- least eighty years old at that time, this conclusion
fer them (with one exception) to the, class of will agree quite well with the general opinion of
" Works certainly not written by Hippocrates." ancient and modern critics, that the treatise in
The amount of probability in favour of the genuine- question was probably written by one of his imness of all these works is certainly by no means mediate followers.
equal; e. g. the two little pieces called the " Oath," The sixth class agrees with the sixth class of
and the " Law," though commonly considered to M. LittrY, who, with great appearance of probabe the work of the same author, and* to be in- bility, supposes it to -form a connected series of
timately connected with each other, seem rather to works written by the same author, whose name is
belong to different periods, the former having all quite unknown, and of whose date it can only be
the simplicity, honesty; and religious feeling of an- determined from internal evidence that he must
tiquity, the latter somewhat of the affectation and have lived later than Hippocrates, and before the
declamatory grandiloquence of a sophist. How- time of Aristotle.
ever, as all of these books have been considered to The works contained in this and the seventh
be genuine by some critics of more or less note, it class have for many centuries formed part of the
seemed better to defer to their authority at least Hippocratic Collection without having any right to
so far as to allow that they might perhaps have such an honour, and therefore are not genuine;
been written by Hippocrates himself. but, as it does not appear that their authors were
The two works which constitute the third class, guilty of assuming the name of Hippocrates, or
and which are probably the oldest medical writings that they have represented the state of medical
that exist, have been supposed with some proba- science as in any respect different from what it
bility to consist, at least in part, of the inscriptions really was in the times in which they wrote, there
on the votive tablets placed in the temple of Aescu- is no reason for denying their authenticity. And
lapius by those who had recovered their health, in this respect they are to be regarded with a very
which certainly constituted one of the sources from different eye from the pieces which form the last
which the medical' knowledge of Hippocrates was class, which are neither genuine nor authentic, but
derived. mere forgeries; which display indeed here and
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