A note on Erasistratus of Ceos

Abstract

In an article entitled ‘The Career of Erasistratus of Ceos’ in Rendiconti del Istituto Lombardo (Classe di Lettere e Scienze Morali e Storiche, 103, 1969, pp. 518–37, abbreviated as RL) and more briefly in his three-volume work on Ptolemaic Alexandria (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1972, Vol. 1 pp. 347 ff. and relevant notes in Vol. 2 pp. 503 ff., abbreviated as PA I and PA II), P. M. Fraser has recently re-examined the evidence concerning the life and work of the important third-century B.C. physician, anatomist and physiologist Erasistratus of Ceos. Fraser's analysis of the testimonies for the various Chrysippi is valuable; his insistence that there are no good grounds for rejecting the story, told in several ancient writers, that Erasistratus cured King Antiochus is not misplaced, and the conclusion that at some stage, at least, Erasistratus worked at Antioch should surely be accepted.