Researching Ancient Scientific Texts
Date: Wednesday, December 4, 2024
Time: 9:45 a.m. – 3:00 p.m. EST
Location: Hybrid (Zoom and House A)
Join us on Wednesday, December 4 for a seminar organized by current CHS Fellow, Simone Mucci. This seminar brings together scholars from varying backgrounds to explore the benefits of interdisciplinary approaches to specialized and often times hyper focused topics in the field of Classics.
Overspecialization is often criticized by scholars, and yet the academics of North American and European countries have little choice but respect the disciplinary boundaries (arising by the corresponding division of labor) imposed from above, in order to publish academic articles and books, secure job positions, and obtain funding for their research.
However, dealing with ancient “technical” works forces researchers to go against the grain in this respect, as several scientific works present difficult textual problems along with several interpretative issues related to the disciplinary contents of the works themselves.
The papers presented at this seminar are aimed to provide the audience with an up-to-date picture of the ongoing research on important ancient Greek medical and mathematical works (such as those by Euclides or Galen), conducted by scholars having a diverse academic background (ranging from mathematics to molecular biology and classical philology) and adopting deeply interdisciplinary and often pioneering research approaches.
As it will be shown, the traditional opposition between the humanities and the hard sciences is becoming superseded: a collaborative and unifying approach to ancient scientific texts represents a promising future for our disciplines, and allows scholars to reflect also on the pedagogical aspects of their research.
Speakers
Leonardo Boulay is a software developer and independent researcher. He holds a master degree in Mathematics from the University of Tor Vergata (Rome, Italy). He specializes in history of science, and his thesis was supervised by Lucio Russo.
Marco Cecchini is a PhD candidate in Mathematics at Sapienza – University of Rome. He holds a master degree in Applied Mathematics from Sapienza, where he was also part of the Excellence Program. He specializes in mathematical physics and is currently working on vortex confinement in Euler flows.
Tommaso Gianiorio is a high-school teacher and independent researcher. He holds a master degree in Mathematics from the University of Tor Vergata and specializes in algebraic combinatorics.
Costanza De Martino is a PhD candidate in Klassische Philologie at the Humboldt Universität zu Berlin. She holds a MA in Philology and History of Antiquity from the University of Pisa, with her thesis titled “Philumeni De venenatis animalibus eorumque remediis: traduzione e commento”. She is mostly interested in the transmission of ancient medical texts, with a particular focus on the so-called iological works, that is on venomous animals.
Manuela Marai is an independent scholar and a teacher. She has recently completed her doctoral dissertation at the University of Warwick, where she was also an Early Career Fellow at the Institute of Advanced Studies and taught Greek Language and Ancient Science in the Classics Department. Holding degrees both in Classics and Molecular Biology, she collaborated with the Warwick School of Life Sciences. She is interested in ancient medicine and, more broadly, in the history of science and technology. Her PhD project on ancient pharmacology offered an investigation on wound healing treatment in the works of the Greek physician Galen of Pergamon (129-216 AD). Manuela employs a multidisciplinary approach by combining textual analysis of ancient medical writings with experimental methods. Through her collaboration with biologists and chemists, she studies the antimicrobial properties of ancient formulations and how pharmacological substances were processed, combined, and used.
Simone Mucci is currently a fellow at the Center for Hellenic Studies. He obtained a PhD in Classics and Ancient History from the University of Warwick, UK (2023), with a thesis on the first book of Galen’s On antidotes. He specializes in the textual criticism and history of the transmission of ancient medical works, with a particular focus on Greek and Roman pharmacology.
Abstracts
Costanza De Martino
Philumenus’ On Venomous Animals within the Vat. gr. 284
Philumenus’ On Venomous Animals (2nd–3rd century CE), a toxicological treatise first published by Max Wellmann in 1908 in the Corpus Medicorum Graecorum series, offers a fascinating case study in ancient pharmacological literature. This work only survives in one manuscript (Vat. gr. 284, dated to the 10th–11th century CE), which has been shown to be a copy of a pharmacological handbook meant to provide readers with a comprehensive and easy-to-consult tool.
Since a closer textual examination shows that Vat. gr. 284 actually transmits a synthesis of Philumenus’ On Venomous Animals and another theriological work, the so-called Theriaca, falsely attributed to Dioscorides (1st century CE), my contribution aims at proving that Philumenus’ On Venomous Animals has been edited to fit the handbook’s intentions.
The merging of Philumenus and Ps.-Dioscorides, however, represents only the first layer of a long stratification. A comparison with Philumenus’ indirect and parallel traditions – Aetius of Amida’s Libri Medicinales XIII and Ps.-Aelius Promotus’ On Venomous Beasts – reveals that new materials (such as additional recipes, adjustments to preexisting ones and “magical” remedies) were gradually incorporated into this synthesis according to the evolving needs of the handbook’s users.
In the light of these findings, any attempt to reconstruct Philumenus’ original work on the basis of the Vatican manuscript alone would prove to be unrealistic. The theriological section of Vat. gr. 284 should rather be recognized as a composite work of broader authorship, of which Philumenus represents only one source.
Leonardo Boulay and Tommaso Gianiorio
This presentation will be focused on a new approach to teaching geometry, inspired by Greek mathematics, as well as on a project concerning a new high-school geometry textbook. Such a book stems from a re-assessment of Euclid’s Elements and other Hellenistic mathematical works. This review introduces new ideas that, according to the authors, have been neglected so far in the traditional teaching of the subject. The presentation will emphasize the cultural continuity between ancient and modern times, as well as between mathematical and humanistic disciplines. Practical examples of how this approach is implemented will be provided.
Manuela Marai
The Science in Galen’s Pharmaceutical Science: The Case of Wound Treatment
The Greek physician Galen of Pergamon (129-216 AD) is a key figure in the history of medicine. In modern scholarship, his extensive production has sparked a variety of interests and investigations from different angles – philosophical, philological, rhetorical, sociocultural – due to the rich knowledge embodied in the texts. The science behind his method of healing faded in the background, fuelled by the fear of anachronistic interpretations and of comparing practices that might have been shaped by intellectual constructs and cultural settings.
This paper will offer some ideas on how the actual science behind ancient medicine can be approached and why it should be approached, using as a case study the treatment of wounds according to Galen. In particular, the paper will shed light on Galen’s explanation of wound pathology and the rationale behind the pharmacological treatment of wounds – the choice of the substances, their combination, and their processing. I will also show how an experimental approach to ancient medicine not only can provide scientific evidence for the rational use of certain substances and practices but also can represent a method of ‘practical exegesis’ (Rampling, 2014) that can enhance our understanding of texts by actively engaging with the practices and objects described in those texts.
Marco Cecchini and Simone Mucci
Algorithmic and Heuristic Approaches to Mathematics and Ancient Languages: A Pedagogic Reflection
This interdisciplinary presentation will focus on two approaches to learning: the algorithmic and the heuristic. It will argue that learning often happens in either way: for this reason, it aims to reflect on how these approaches are actually employed to teach and learn mathematics and ancient languages. It will also argue that educational systems are often biased towards the algorithmic approach, which is viewed as detrimental to the heuristic one.
Marco Cecchini will discuss examples of mathematical problems that are very difficult to solve algorithmically, that become easy to solve with the correct heuristic. Numerous basic geometric formulas, for instance, can be easily derived heuristically without the need for memorization.
Simone Mucci will discuss the possibility of understanding algorithmically and heuristically the process of learning and translating ancient languages. His presentation will be focused on real examples of high-school students adopting algorithmic approaches to (try to) translate into modern languages passages from ancient Greek and Latin authors.
This paper aims to show that the problems discussed in the presentation are relevant for the teaching and learning of several disciplines.
Schedule
| Time | Speaker | |
| 9:45 a.m. – 10:00 a.m. | Introduction | Simone Mucci |
| 10:00 a.m. – 10:45 a.m. | Paper I | Costanza De Martino |
| 10:45 a.m. – 11:00 a.m. | Break | |
| 11:00 a.m. – 11:45 a.m. | Paper II | Lorenzo Boulay, Tommaso Gianiorio |
| 11:45 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. | Paper III | Manuela Marai |
| 12:30 p.m. – 1:30 p.m. | Lunch | |
| 1:45 p.m. – 2:30 p.m. | Paper IV | Marco Cecchini, Simone Mucci |
| 2:30 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. | Conclusion |