L’histoire de Delphes et les Asclépiades

Abstract

Abstract The object of this communication is to contribute to a rehabilitation of the Presbeutikos of Hippocrates generally considered since Littré as a legendary writing on the life of Hippocrates. Since Littré, the archaeological and epigraphic discoveries on Delphi have provided the Presbeutikos with anchoring points in reality. Three stages were important : a first, dating from the first half of the 20th century, due to Hans Pomtow, a second in the second half of the 20th century, due to Jean Bousquet and a third stage at the start of the 21st century due to Denis Rousset. These advances due to archaeologists must be put in relation with the advances of philologists which are not negligible either on the edition of the Presbeutikos after Émile Littré, in particular by the examination of the Ionian vocabulary of this speech including the rare words, which are hapax in the Hippocratic Corpus and are also attested in Herodotus. The language of Presbeutikos, by its antiquity, differs from that of more recent Letters.