Marcellus Empiricus

739: 722:(“Letters by various authors on ‘quality’ and ‘observation’ in medicine”), a series of seven epistles, each attributed to a different medical writer. The epistles serve as a literary device for discussing methodology, diagnosis, and the importance of ethical and accurate treatment. They are not, or not wholly, fictional; just as Marcellus's work begins with a prefatory epistle addressed to his sons, the seven letters represent prefaces to other authors’ works, some now lost. Marcellus has detached them from the works they headed and presented them collectively, translating, sometimes taking liberties, those originally in Greek, as a kind of bonus for his sons. For instance, the “Letter from 987:, that is also not a distinction between the two; “rich layers of folklore and superstition,” writes Brown, “lie beneath the thin veneer of Hippocratic empiricism” in Marcellus. Nor does the difference lie in the social class of the intended beneficiaries, for both therapeutic systems encompassed “country folk and the common people” as well as senatorial landowners. At the Christian shrines, however, healing required submission to “socially chartered” authority; in Marcellus, the patient or practitioner, often addressed directly as “you,” becomes the agent of his own cure. 954: 246: 503: 2594: 344:, king of the Visigoths, at Narbonne regarding his intentions toward the Roman empire. John Matthews argued that Marcellus, who would have been about 60 at the time, is “clearly the most eligible candidate.” Since Orosius identifies the Gaul only as having served under Theodosius, and as a “devout, cautious, and serious” person, other figures have been put forth as the likely bearer of the Athaulf declaration. 532:, where the reference to divine mercy follows immediately after a passage on barbarian incursions. Marcellus and Augustine are contemporaries, and the use of the phrase is less a question of influence than of the currency of a shared Christian concept. Elsewhere, passages sometimes cited as evidence of Christianity on closer inspection only display the 990:

While the power of a saint to offer a cure resided within a particular shrine which the patient must visit, health for Marcellus lay in the interconnectivity of the patient with his environment, the use he actively made of herbs, animals, minerals, dung, language, and transformative processes such as

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upper class.” Historians of ancient medicine Carmélia Opsomer and Robert Halleux note that in his preface, Marcellus infuses Christian concerns into the ancient tradition of “doctoring without doctors.” That Marcellus was at least a nominal Christian is suggested by his appointment to high office by

885:(10.5). Of the dozen or so Celtic plant names, ten are provided with or as synonyms for Greek or Latin names. A preoccupation with naming rather than description is a characteristic also of medieval herbals. The problems of identifying plants may have been an intellectual attraction for Marcellus's 364:

pronounced him the “court physician” of Theodosius I, but the evidence is thin: Libanius, if referring to this Marcellus, praises his ability to cure a headache. The prevailing view is that Marcellus should be categorized as a medical writer and not a physician. A translator of the medical writings

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Marcellus would have entered his office sometime after April 394 A.D., when his predecessor is last attested, and before the emperor's death on January 17, 395. He was replaced in late November or December of 395, as determined by the last reference to a Marcellus holding office that is dated

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and informational or literary writing on a range of subjects, including philosophy, astronomy, agriculture, and the natural sciences. Although medical writing might have been regarded as a lesser achievement, it was a resource for the

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lists 262 different plant names in Marcellus; allowing for synonyms, of which there are many, the number of plants mentioned would be around 131. About 25 of the botanicals most frequently prescribed are “exotica”’ such as

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also suggest the interests and concerns of the author — the letter from Symmachus serves mainly to inquire whether Marcellus can provide thoroughbred horses for games to be sponsored by his son, who has been elected

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Given Rufinus's dealings with the Visigoths, however, it is conceivable that Marcellus should be identified with “a certain former high-ranking official from Narbonne” mentioned by Orosius as present in

442:(“my sweetest”), Marcellus expresses the hope that they and their families will, in case of sickness, find support and remedies in their father's manual, without intervention by doctors ( 1181:, son of the emperor who had appointed Marcellus to office, suggesting that it was not circulated until his accession in January 408; see Alan Cameron, “A New Fragment of Eunapius,” 478:

could neither prove nor disprove Marcellus's religious identity, noting that the few references to Christianity are “commonplace” and that, conversely, charms with references to

276:, translatable as “a distinguished man”; at the time, this phrase was a formal designation of rank, indicating that he had held imperial office. Marcellus's 16th-century editor 1011:, he celebrates ingredients from the far reaches of the empire and the known world (lines 41–67), emphasizing that the Roman practitioner has access to a “global” marketplace. 971:, Peter Brown contrasts the “horizontal” or environmental healing prescribed by Marcellus to the “vertical,” authoritarian healing of his countryman and contemporary St. 804:, which are prescribed live for pulping into a mélange. Availability is possibly a lesser criterion of selection for Marcellus than completeness and variety of interest. 454:(“caring” or perhaps Christian “charity”) to strangers and the poor as well as to their loved ones. The tone, Önnerfors concludes, is “humane and full of gentle humor.” 907:. Recipes in both Marcellus and the medieval writers tend toward “polypharmacy,” or the use of a great number of ingredients in a single preparation. Many recipes in 784:; these may have been available in Gaul as imports, but only to elite consumers. Other ingredients likely to have been rare for Marcellus’s intended audience include 861:, the plants required by drug recipes were no longer familiar, and the descriptions or illustrations provided by earlier herbals failed to correspond to indigenous 631:

of Gaul. Assuming that the man would have been a native, Matthews weighs this piece of evidence with the Athaulf anecdote from Orosius to situate the author of the

2026: 615:

An inscription dated 445 recognizes a Marcellus as the most important financial supporter in the rebuilding of the cathedral at Narbonne, carried out during the

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appointed his Bordelaise tutor Ausonius to high office and from Theodosius's extended residence in the western empire during the latter years of his reign.

328:. Marcellus's support may have been pragmatic or superficial; a source that condemns Rufinus heartily praises Marcellus as “the very soul of excellence.” 320:, the calculating politician of Gallic origin who was assassinated November 27 of that year, having failed to resist, or even facilitated, the advance of 490:

describes and sets out to explain what he sees as “the exclusively pagan tone of a book whose author was possibly a Christian writing for a largely

2133: 865:. Marcellus's practice of offering synonyms is one attempt to bridge this gap. He often provides a string of correspondences: the Greek plant name 467: 1232:

For careful and thoroughly documented conjecture about the political career of Marcellus, see J.F. Matthews, “Gallic Supporters of Theodosius,”

850:. Marcellus is seldom cited directly, but his influence, though perhaps not wide or pervasive, can be traced in several medieval medical texts. 544:, for instance, is invoked in an herb-gathering incantation, but the ritual makes use of magico-medical practices of pre-Christian antiquity. A 820: 623:. John Matthews has argued that this Marcellus is likely to have been a son or near descendant of the medical writer, since the family of an 304:

and the identification is consistent with what is known of the author's life and with the politics of the time. His stated connection to the

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edited by Guy Sabbah (Université de Saint-Étienne, 1991), p. 397; Jerry Stannard, “Marcellus of Bordeaux and the Beginnings of the Medieval

1007:(remedies that are readily available and act directly), despite the many recipes involving more than a dozen ingredients; in the concluding 895:

Another medieval emphasis foreshadowed in Marcellus is a concern for locating ingredients in their native environment, replacing the exotic

583:, the premier god of healing among the Greeks. Marcellus alludes to a Roman version of the myth in which Asclepius restores the dismembered 431:” manuals were popular among the landowning elite because they offered, as Marcellus promises, a form of self-sufficiency and mastery. 1517:(Leipzig, 1916), p. 3; discussion of general topic in Brendon Reay, “Agriculture, Writing, and Cato’s Aristocratic Self-Fashioning,” 1063:

Les écoles médicales à Rome. Actes du 2ème Colloque international sur les textes médicaux latins antiques, Lausanne, septembre 1986

2630: 2620: 446:). This emphasis on self-reliance, however, is not meant to exclude others, but to empower oneself to help others; appealing to 1472:(The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985), p. 170; Carmélia Opsomer and Robert Halleux, “Marcellus ou le mythe empirique,” in 2645: 2635: 2625: 1402:(Université de Saint-Étienne, 1991), pp. 398–399; Carmélia Opsomer and Robert Halleux, “Marcellus ou le mythe empirique,” in 1485:

Literacy among farm workers at the managerial level was perhaps not meant to be surprising; according to an interlocutor in

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from similar medical manuals, which are in effect if not fact anonymous. In the letter to his sons, whom he addresses as

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1.8; barbarian incursions are a subject relevant to Marcellus, living in 4th century Gaul under threat of the Visigoths.

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30 (1971), p. 1086, who points out that earlier (in the period 379–88) Spaniards had predominated in Theodosius’s court.

838:. Although the contents of the recipes — their names, uses, and methods of treatment — derive from the medical texts of 2650: 713: 709: 2475: 2460: 1922:

Marco Formisano, “Veredelte Bäume und kultivierte Texte. Lehrgedichte in technischen Prosawerken der Spätantike,” in

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Le latin médical: La constitution d’un langage scientifique: réalités et langage de la médecine dans le monde romain,

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who traditionally took personal responsibility for the health care of his household, both family members and slaves.

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is most likely to have possessed the wealth for such a generous contribution. The donor had served for two years as

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November 24 and by the dating of a successor. The timing of his departure suggests that he had been a supporter of

2088:, p. 116: “Il devient sujet actif de sa guérison. … L’homme est engagé, corps et esprit, dans sa propre guérison.” 1650:

On the interpenetration of Christianity and traditional religion and culture in the 4th century, see for instance

2598: 2119: 823:, which Marcellus contrasts to his prose assemblage of prescriptions by asserting his originality in writing it. 738: 2470: 1432: 479: 388:, Marcellus is among those aristocratic Gauls of the 4th and 5th centuries who were nominally or even devoutly 374: 55: 2256: 308:

makes it likely that he was among the several aristocratic Gauls who benefitted politically when the emperor

857:. As texts associated with Mediterranean medicine traveled west and north with the expanding borders of the 352:

It is not unreasonable but also not necessary to conclude that Marcellus was a practicing physician. In his

2655: 58:. It is a significant if quirky text in the history of European medical writing, an infrequent subject of 2316: 1896:, as cited by Jerry Stannard, “Marcellus of Bordeaux and the Beginnings of the Medieval Materia Medica,” 1000: 753:, consisting mainly of recipes both pharmacological and magical, and arranged by convention anatomically 427:— and of his intended audience, either the owners of estates or the literate workers who managed them. “ 2465: 2450: 1494: 138: 1135:, edited by Katherine E. Stannard and Richard Kay, Variorum Collected Studies Series (Aldershot 1999). 227:; but this inference ignores that Marcellus is said explicitly to have left Spain to return to living 2445: 2371: 1559:

Alan Cameron, “A New Fragment of Eunapius,” p. 11; J.F. Matthews, “Gallic Supporters of Theodosius,”

1452:(Princeton University Press, 1998); Roland Mayer, “Creating a Literature of Information in Rome,” in 1169:(1963) p. 121, note 75, cited and contradicted by J.F. Matthews, “Gallic Supporters of Theodosius,” 2660: 2543: 2455: 2142: 1311:

virum quendam Narbonensem inlustris sub Theodosio militiae, etiam religiosum prudentemque et gravem

843: 801: 301: 1893: 560:

often include nonsense syllables and more-or-less corrupt phrases from “exotic” languages such as

2485: 2361: 2206: 670: 487: 1854:, edited by Ruth Morello and A.D. Morrison (Oxford University Press, 2007), pp. 218–219 and 230. 1712:

II, 18.5 (1995), p. 3435; see also David E. Aune, “Magic in Early Christianity: Glossolalia and

1028: 2226: 2211: 1486: 1083: 839: 723: 180:

The Gallic origin of Marcellus is rarely disputed, and he is traditionally identified with the

82: 2376: 2351: 2101:(University of Chicago Press, 1981) p. 118; Aline Rousselle, “Du sanctuaire au thaumaturge,” 1744:

15.106, p. 121 in Niedermann; Gustav Must, “A Gaulish Incantation in Marcellus of Bordeaux,”

1493:(2.18), a master ought to require his cattleman to read veterinary excerpts from the work of 208: 1352:

40 (1991) 507–508, argues for the Gaul named Rusticus who is mentioned in Jerome’s epistles.

1280: 1263: 1203: 1199: 2341: 2336: 2321: 2191: 1995: