A Life in Fragments: The Physician Heras of Cappadocia and his Narthex Between Indirect Tradition and Papyrus Evidence

Abstract

This article reconstructs a profile of the physician Heras of Cappadocia and of his book of medical remedies, the Narthex, from the surviving fragments of direct and indirect sources (papyri and literary sources). Heras was one of Galen’s most valued sources of medical recipes. The Narthex has been quoted extensively by him and other medical authors (e.g. Aelius Promotus, Aetius). Recipes ascribed to Heras are also preserved on four papyrus fragments. Of particular interest are some recipes against alopecia, preserved in different versions on a Berlin papyrus and by several medical authors: the divergent versions of these recipes will be compared in order to illustrate the flexibility and variability of ancient medical recipes and the problematic issues connected with the study of their textual tradition.