21 The Author of Book 10 of the Mulomedicina Chironis and Its Greek and Latin Sources

Abstract

This chapter examines the structure, the content, and the language of Book 10 in order to determine its sources and, in particular, its connection with the Latin writer Pelagonius, whose writings may have been the source of inspiration. It conducts an onomastic study of the name of Book 10's presumed author, Claudius Hermeros/Kermeros, in order to determine the accuracy of this information. The article Hermeros in Pauly-Wissowa's encyclopaedia presents the author as the Latin translator of a text originally written in Greek which would eventually become the main source used for the Mulomedicina Chironis . Literary texts contain traces of two Hermeros: one in a text by Petronius and another in one by Martial, which establishes a date of the second half of the first century A.D. Pelagonius' Greek text and Chiron's Latin text, are far too different for one to be the translation of the other in either direction. Keywords: Book 10; Chiron's Latin text; Claudius Hermeros; Mulomedicina Chironis ; Pelagonius' Greek text