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Squillace (G.) Filistione di Locri. Un medico del IV secolo a. C. tra Grecia, Magna Grecia e Sicilia. (Spudasmata 170.) Pp. 266, maps. Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 2017. Paper, €48. ISBN: 978-3-487-15579-1.
The physician Philistion, born in Epizephyrian Locris, was one of the leading figures in Sicilian medicine between the late fifth century bc and the first half of the fourth. However, we know little – almost nothing – about Philistion. His doctrine is only documented at some length by the Anonymus Londinensis, while the second pseudo-Platonic letter mentions him as court physician in Syracuse. In his still relevant book Die Fragmente der sikelischen Ärzte Akron, Philistion und des Diokles von Karystos (1900), M. Wellmann provided some conceptual coordinates that were followed by subsequent scholars. For example, he notes the theoretical proximity of Philistion's medical doctrines to Empedocles’ philosophy, his presence in Syracuse, the influence of his theory of elements on Plato's Timaeus, Philistion's sojourn in Athens and his explanation of illnesses in terms of the imbalance of constitutive elements. L. Edelstein, in his entry for the first edition of the Oxford Classical Dictionary (1949), subscribed to Wellmann's approach, focusing on those sources that present Philistion as Eudoxus of Cnidus’ medicine teacher (a thesis recently endorsed by D. Manetti, ‘Philistion of Lokroi’, in P. Keiser and G. Irby-Massie [edd.], The Encyclopedia of Ancient Natural Scientists. The Greek Tradition and its Many Heirs [2008], pp. 649–50).
While Philistion is undoubtedly an important figure in the development of Sicilian culture, and in a way Athenian culture too, what was still missing was a comprehensive new study of the available sources that might add other testimonia to those collected by Wellmann and provide an overall evaluation of them. This gap has now been filled by S.’s study, which is an innovative one in two chief respects. First, S. attempts to reconstruct – as far as this is possible – the cultural and political context in which Philistion received his training, in an attempt to ascertain the reasons for his choice to move to Syracuse and for his success at Dionysius’ court.
S. then draws upon some of the conclusions reached...
