Greek Treatises Research Articles

New Research on the Origin of Mosaic Gold

This article examines the origins of the golden pigment known as mosaic gold (SnS2), formed through the sublimation of tin with mercury, sulphur, and ammonium chloride. It explores the textual transmission of mosaic gold from the earliest known written testimonies, as well as the earliest material remnants of the pigment during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Additionally, the study introduces and analyses two new recipes from an earlier date: one comes from the Greek treatise known as the Anonymous of Zuretti; and the other from the Latin alchemical work attributed to pseudo-Avicenna, De anima. The analysis of these new recipes allows for a better understanding of the origin of the pigment and its connection with the medieval alchemical tradition inherited from the Arabic world. Based on these testimonies, the study proposes a new hypothesis about the origin, development, and etymology of mosaic gold.

Euklidesowy traktat Podział kanonu i pitagorejska harmonika

The Euclidean ‘Division of the canon’ and Pythagorean harmonics: The article presents the first Polish translation of a short Ancient Greek treatise entitled The division of the canon, which is commonly dated to the 3rd century BC, with a doubtful assumption that the author of the treatise is Euclid himself. It is the oldest surviving text derived from the mathematical school of harmonics, which combined the mathematical theory of proportion with the musical laws of harmony. The main purpose of this Euclidean treatise is to describe the instrument called canon (or monochord), which consists in determining the successive notes of the Greek musical system by means of mathematical principles. The treatise essentially consists of two distinct parts: an introduction and twenty propositions in the style of Euclid’s Elements. To bring this highly esoteric text closer to the modern reader, the translation is preceded by a brief introduction, which deals with the basic issues of the transmission of the text, its structure, and the problem of authorship. The philosophical problems of the treatise and its basic concepts are also discussed. An underlying idea of both the introduction and the work on the translation is that The division of the canon is an eminently Pythagorean text, which both expressed and proved their conviction about the mathematical structure of the universe.

À propos d’une récente édition princeps

A critical review of the editio princeps of the Liber Timothei episcopi de Pascha recently published by Pierre Chambert-Protat and Camille Gerzaguet in the coll. Sources chrétiennes. The article questions the editors’ thesis, at length developed in the Introduction, that the text is only the Latin translation, also known by Gregorius of Elvira and St. Augustine, of a Greek treatise apparently due to one Timothy, bishop of Cybistra in Cappadocia during the first half of the IVth century (the translation would be a little later: the original and the version as well ought to be situated around the time of Nicaea, which applied to fixing the Easter date). It tries to show that this thesis, although not implausible, is not however as strong as its promoters imagine, and that several of their arguments are to be rejected or at least to be qualified. This discussion, which forms the main part of the article, is supplemented by two lists of proposed corrections: the first deals with the Latin text and the second, in an appendix, with its French translation.

From Iology to Toxicology: A new specialization in Ancient Alexandrian School.

Alexandria was both an important city and a place of inspiration in the history of medicine since the 3rd century BC until 7th century AD. Its fertile intellectual and scientific environment gave rise to a radical and new thinking and understanding of the disease process. King Ptolemy I (323-285 BC) established the Museion and the Great Library of Alexandria fabled in Antiquity for its treasures of wisdom. This complex interaction between Greeks and Egyptians before and under the Ptolemies gave scientists an opportunity to live and work under royal patronage with excellent repercussions. Scholars were attracted to take part in scientific research, especially in medicine and mathematics, developing different known areas and programs. Furthermore scholars in Alexandria also brought back new ideas and activities each with specialized knowledge of the subjects. As the medical science of ancient Greece plunged into political decadence and setbacks - scientific work was renewed in this city with the arriving of the greatest minds of the day. The 'Faculty' of Medicine in Alexandria seems to be an integral part of the Mouseion. In the 3rd century BC, the Ptolemaic capital caught the different trends and became the seat of divergent and independent schools. The debt of the Alexandrian physicians to the native Egyptian doctors, highly specialized, was very considerable. Coan school in this time had general professionals who recommended therapeutic and nutricional strategies and diets while Alexandria science provided academic specialization. On the other hand the court physicians, involved in high politics, could be medical specialists meanwhile the teachers of advanced medicine were sometimes left undisturbed in the pursuit of their research. Being able to commit poisoning crimes with drugs by political interests, they were scared of them. Animal and plants toxins became an accepted and divulged study, very fashionable, and Alexandrian school developed scientific research in iology, name given later to this science. Greek sources on toxicology became a special and developed branch in medical literature and from Apollodorus of Tarentum onwards, the father of iology and his book Peri thêriōn, the interest in Greek treatises spread.

The Whole is Greater than the Sum of its Parts

This paper aims at presenting the surplus value of collaboration between philologists and data scientists in the research on medieval digitized manuscripts. Both the great potential and the challenges of such a collaboration will be addressed. The following case study originates from research which is conducted in the Collaborative Research Center “Episteme in Motion. Transfer from the Ancient World to the Early Modern Period” which is located at the Freie Universit¨at Berlin and funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG). One of the goals of this collaboration is to advance research questions in which the data basis is complex or too complex for traditional research methods. The case study presented in this paper will deal with the knowledge transfer and text transmission in manuscripts of Aristotle’s ancient Greek treatises on logic, the so-called Organon, and will focus on the manuscripts of his work de interpretatione (On Interpretation) and on commentaries and explanations which are found as paratexts in the manuscripts.

Mathematical Generality, Letter-Labels, and All That

Abstract This article focusses on the generality of the entities involved in a geometric proof of the kind found in ancient Greek treatises: it shows that the standard modern translation of Greek mathematical propositions falsifies crucial syntactical elements, and employs an incorrect conception of the denotative letters in a Greek geometric proof; epigraphic evidence is adduced to show that these denotative letters are ‘letter-labels’. On this basis, the article explores the consequences of seeing that a Greek mathematical proposition is fully general, and the ontological commitments underlying the stylistic practice.

An English translation of Longinus in the Lansdowne collection at the British Library

ABSTRACT Scholarship has slowly come to recognise that the Greek treatise Περὶ ὕψους or On the Sublime ascribed to Longinus was more widely disseminated in the seventeenth century than was once thought. In this article I present a previously unstudied seventeenth-century English translation of Longinus, comprising approximately a quarter of the whole treatise, found in the Lansdowne collection of the British Library. After assessing the manuscript and its provenance, I attempt to determine the edition used for the translation, settling on the 1636 Oxford edition of Gerard Langbaine as the most likely candidate. I then consider the approach of the translator and, following some remarks on the date and authorship of the manuscript, provide a semi-diplomatic transcription of the text.

The works of George Khirobosk in Byzantine and Old Slavic philological science

The article considers the significance of George Khirobosk's works in Byzantine and Old Slavic philological science; the sources and composition of «Izbornik of Svyatoslav 1073» are described; a comparative analysis of the names of the artistic means in the Greek text of George Khirobosk «Izbornik of Svyatoslav 1073» and his Old-Slavic translation «О образѣх»; the influence of the Greek treatise on the formation of the names of poetic tropes in the literary theory of Kievan Rus is studied. Byzantine literature, new in its tasks and content, which widely used the experience of ancient literature and culture, is mentioned in this article. In Byzantine science, the figure of Georgiy Khirobosk - a writer, riter, scholar - occupies a significant place. In the translation of the treatise of Hirobosk for the first time for the Southern and Eastern Slavs was revealed the content of a number of Greek rhetorical terms, a significant number of which later became entrenched with the names of Greek origin. The translation of the work of Georgiy Khirobosk, placed in "Izbornik", testifies to the high creative possibilities of the Old Slavonic language: in this first work on literary terminology in Kievan Rus, all the Greek names of poetic terms are transmitted by means of the Slavic language. At first glance, the system of poetic terms "Izbornik" appears archaic. However, modern literary science, along with Greek, uses translated terms. Also, the article deals with the aesthetic succession in the cultural development of the Greek people and the process of assimilating Christian literature methods and forms, symbols and artistic means.

Historicodogmatic Treatise by Elias Meniates and its 18th-century Serbian Translators from Greek

The article discusses the history of translation by the 18th-century Serbian translators of the Greek treatise “Πέτρα σκανδάλου” (“Rock of Offence”) written by the theologian and preacher Elias Meniates (1667–1714) in which he deals with the causes of interconfessional polemic between the Orthodox and the Catholic Churches. The history of these translations is placed within the context of interest in Meniates’ works, evidenced in Europe and in the Christian East throughout the 18th century. The vivid style and argumentation of Meniates inspired Stefan Pisarev, inter alia, to translate “Πέτρα σκανδάλου” into Russian, which he did in 1744. In the focus of our research are manuscripts stored in several Serbian libraries and archive collections, namely, manuscripts of “Πέτρα σκανδάλου” translations made by Jovan Mladenović (in 1742) and Vićentije Rakić (in 1797/98). In the study we present, the biographies of the two authors of these unpublished translations are traced and defined more accurately. At the final stage of the study, we correlate the historical settings and probable reasons motivating Mladenović and Rakić to make the Serbian translations of the Greek treatise “Πέτρα σκανδάλου”, on the one hand, and the factors leading to the emergence of a Russian translation of the same treatise by Pisarev, on the other. As believed by the author of this article, the aforementioned translations will serve as a valuable linguistic source for historians of Slavic languages and letters in their comparative studies.

The Theory of the Sublime from Longinus to Kant

The Theory of the Sublime from Longinus to Kant

The Physiologus and the Greek Papyri

In Greek literary papyri coming from Egypt we can find only a few evidences of works about animals, for example fragments of Aristotelian works or works linked to the scientific production. Only in recent years two papyri were published that contained a “bestiary” in a broad sense. The first papyrus is a fragment of the Physiologus, one of the most important ancient Greek treatises devoted to the animals: it is a fragment small in size, but of great importance since it testifies the spreading of this work. The second papyrus full of animal figures is the so-called Artemidorus Papyrus, which on one side bears the drawings of many animals. In some cases it is possible to trace them back to the animals described in the chapters of the Physiologus, and determine connections between such different products, an illustrated scroll belonging to the first century AD and a Christian essay of the third century AD.

The Physiologus and the Greek Papyri

In Greek literary papyri coming from Egypt we can find only a few evidences of works about animals, for example fragments of Aristotelian works or works linked to the scientific production. Only in recent years two papyri were published that contained a “bestiary” in a broad sense. The first papyrus is a fragment of the Physiologus, one of the most important ancient Greek treatises devoted to the animals: it is a fragment small in size, but of great importance since it testifies the spreading of this work. The second papyrus full of animal figures is the so-called Artemidorus Papyrus, which on one side bears the drawings of many animals. In some cases it is possible to trace them back to the animals described in the chapters of the Physiologus, and determine connections between such different products, an illustrated scroll belonging to the first century AD and a Christian essay of the third century AD.

Dreams, Healing, and Medicine in Greece: From Antiquity to the Present ed. by Steven M. Oberhelman (review)

Reviewed by: Dreams, Healing, and Medicine in Greece: From Antiquity to the Present ed. by Steven M. Oberhelman Ido Israelowich Steven M. Oberhelman, ed. Dreams, Healing, and Medicine in Greece: From Antiquity to the Present. Surrey, UK: Ashgate, 2013. xiv + 341 pp. Ill. $119.95 (978-1-4094-2423-9). This volume offers a diachronic collection of articles concerning the role of dreams in medical practice in ancient Greece and beyond. It contains fourteen articles, which discuss a wide spectrum of subjects, but the result is a unified volume that offers a coherent overview of the subject and the current scholarly trends. [End Page 742] Steven M. Oberhelman offers a firm grid to the subject in his introduction to this volume. Starting from the methodological tools now available from the fields of anthropology and sociology, alongside their merits and shortcomings, Oberhelman guides his readers through this complicated body of knowledge. He then proceeds to discuss the types of sources available, set a chronological framework for the volume, and demonstrate how valuable diachronic study can be. The interpretation of dreams, Oberhelman explains, fell into the hands of various authorities. This current volume concerns the role of the understanding of dreams in the field of medicine, and the introduction offers an informative sketch of ancient medicine, in terms of ideas and authorities. The second chapter, by Maithe A. A. Hulskamp, discusses the value of dream diagnosis in the medical praxis of Hippocrates and Galen (pp. 33–68). Hulskamp begins with the Hippocratic corpus with particular focus on Regimen 4 and its relation to other Hippocratic treatises. She then discusses the physiology of dreams in the Hippocratic corpus (pp. 48–51) and dreams as symptoms (pp. 51–53). The second section of the chapter discusses dreams in the work of Galen (pp. 54–68) with specific attention to their connection with the humor system and their function in diagnosis. The third chapter, by Louise Cilliers and François Pieter Retief, focuses on dream healing in Asclepieia in the Mediterranean (pp. 69–107). This subject, which has been extensively discussed before, is presented here with remarkable clarity. The authors begin with a source analysis and the interrelation between the cult of Asclepius to medicine at large (pp. 69–74). They continue with an examination of the profile of the patients and the types of therapy offered. The second part of the chapter examines the cult of Asclepius from a medical point of view, which, unlike many other works, does not exclude modern medical notions. The fourth chapter, by Lee T. Pearcy, examines the writing of medical dream in the Hippocratic Corpus and at Epidaurus (pp. 93–107). Pearcy offers an intriguing account of the rise of medical dreams in the context of the rise of technical medicine, and the classification of certain dreams as medical, as an indication of the victory of doctors who claimed possession of techne (p. 94). The fifth chapter, by Janet Downie, offers an account of dream hermeneutics in Aelius Aristides’s Hieroi Logoi (pp. 109–27). Through an analysis of the syntax of the narrative of the Hieroi Logoi and an examination of two cases of an interpretative failure, Downie shows that Aristides was aware of a method of dream interpretation. She concludes that “Aristides brings into focus a fundamental problem that haunts Greek treatises on dreams hermeneutics: the difficulty of determining a dream’s horizon of interpretation” (p. 127). The sixth chapter, by Christine Walde, concerns illness and its metaphors in Artemidorus’s Oneirocritica: a negative list (pp. 129–57). The aim of Walde is “to provide an overview of how disease figures in the Oneirocritica and to describe its associations” (p. 130). The result is an impressive analysis of all mentioning of illness in the work of Artemidorus and their interpretation. The next five essays focus on Byzantium. Chapter 7, by Ildikó Csepregi, considers who is behind incubation stories—the hagiographers of Byzantine dream-healing [End Page 743] miracles (pp. 161–87). The aim of Csepregi is to draw a distinction between narrative and narrator in the relevant materials and to bring to light some of the unique problems hagiography entails. The eighth chapter, by Stavroula Constantinou...

How to Create the Ideal Son: The unhidden curriculum in pseudo-Plutarch On the Training of Children

This article enquires into the curriculum advocated in the only ancient Greek treatise concerning education that has survived in its entirety, entitled On the Training of Children. The treatise was highly influential in Europe from the Renaissance to the nineteenth century, and thus exhibits certain assumptions concerning the purpose of curriculum that lie behind the development of western education and may still be influential today. The inquiry is conducted in three stages: the intended recipients of the curriculum are identified; its elements are enumerated and evaluated; and its aims are inferred from the text. I conclude that the curriculum was intended for wealthy, privileged boys, that philosophy (though not independent theorising) was the most valued subject of study and that the aim of the curriculum was to instil in the recipients aristocratic values and modes of behaviour. Finally, some topics are suggested for reflection, in response to these conclusions, upon existing curricula.

Early Muslim Medicine and the Indian Context: A Reinterpretation

Abstract The past few decades have witnessed a remarkable shift in the way scholars study the field of sciences in Muslim societies. Up to the 1980s, research focused on Muslim scientists’ role as transmitters of science to the West, and as contributors to Western science. The Muslim world was commonly viewed as a link between ancient Greece and Latin Christendom, its scholars serving as translators of Greek treatises, and as preservers of Greek knowledge. Recently, the theme of Indian-Muslim cultural-scientific relations has attracted growing attention. Following this trend, we maintain that the eighth and ninth centuries reveal an interaction between Indian and Muslim medicine and physicians. Building on the past work of scholars such as Michael W. Dols and more recently Kevin van Bladel, we reinterpret medieval Arabic sources to reveal that the interest in Asian science was not a brief and untypical phenomenon that lacked long-lasting implications. By rereading Arabic chronicles and biographical dictionaries, we will portray how a rather brief contact between ʿAbbāsid Iraq and India proved to yield enduring influences. We will focus on two aspects of Muslim medical practice for demonstrating the Indian connection: the presence of Indian physicians in Baghdād in and around the ʿAbbāsid court, and the emergence of early Muslim hospitals.

Le sifflement du serpent : du son inarticulé à la mise en musique

The hissing of the snake: how is it possible to set an inarticulate sound to music ?For a Greek mind animal cries cannot be associated to human logos, for being inarticulate sounds. One of the best examples is the snake, whose cry is usually transcribed by the consonant [s], without any vocalizing. Therefore, snakes seem not to be musicians: melody is produced by vocals, according to Greek treatises on music. However, snakes are considered as musician animals by Greeks, like cicadas. The word syrigma, that Greeks used to define the hissing of the snake, means also the sound of the Pan flute. Moreover, Pytho's hissing becomes a theme of a musical composition that every musician has to make and to perform at the Pythian Games, the nomos pythikos: in one of its parts, he has to depict, with his Pythian aulos, the hissing Pytho gives when it is killed by Apollo's arrows. By consequence, he has to set to music something that is properly not musical.

Spokój czy smutek? Koncepcja starości w pismach Marka Tulliusza Cycerona

One of the great authorities in the antiquity who wrote about old age was Marcus Tullius Cicero, the author of „Cato Maior De senectute [Cato the Elder on Old Age]”. The famous orator wrote this work in 44 BCE and dedicated it to his friend Atticus. The author himself was almost 62 years old at that time, and Atticus 65. Cicero wrote the work in a dialogue form, setting the action in 150 BCE, the speakers being Marcus Porcius Cato the Elder, who in this case presented the views of Cicero, Publius Cornelius Scipio the Younger and Gaius Laelius Sapiens. Cicero followed the example of a Greek treatise on old age, probably written by a third-century BCE Peripatetic philosopher, Aristo of Ceos. The concept of the presentation of the treatise is based on comparison of two different views on old age. In one, sorrow and anxiety are visible. Through Cato’s words, Cicero names four reasons why people regard old age as an unhappy period of life: a). it moves us away from active life; b). it weakens physical strength, c). it deprives us of all sensual pleasures, d). it is close to death. The other view, represented by Cato, disproves the ob­jections against old age, recommending calmness, activity, and moderation. Interestingly enough, apart from philosophical or medical arguments, Cicero also refers to political, religious, social and cultural aspects. The apologia for old age presented by Cicero was not always reflected in the reality. Roman sources, especially legal documents, inform about attempted suicide or euthanasia by the elderly. The fundamental reason was the condition of health and physical pain as well as mental illnesses, but the direct motive associated with old age was taedium vitae – weariness of life.

Old Recipes, New Practice? The Latin Adaptations of the Hippocratic Gynaecological Treatises

There were two main gynaecological traditions in the early Middle Ages: the Soranic and Hippocratic traditions. This article focuses on the latter tradition, which was based on the translations into Latin of the Greek treatises Diseases of Women I and II. These translations, referred to here as Latin Diseases of Women and On the Diverse Afflictions of Women, contain a wealth of recipes, which are examined in detail. I ask whether recipes that had been first written down in the fifth century BC could still form the basis of gynaecological practice in the Middle Ages, and whether the act of translation transformed medical practice.

Plinio il Vecchio e la sua Storia dell’arte antica

The literature on ancient art that appeared in the 6th century BC alongside the first art treatises, and later expanded its scope and diversity, has been almost completely lost. Only three works have been fully preserved, and even these only from the Roman period: Vitruvius’ treatise De Architectura, Pliny the Elder’s encyclopedia Naturalis Historia, which includes an excursus on ancient art in individual chapters, and Pausanias’ Description of Greece intended for Roman educated travelers. In addition to these three works, two other types of texts are classified as literary sources of art history: the essays that belong to the genre of ekphrasis (rhetorically perfected descriptions of artistic objects, real or imaginary), and the corpus of excerpts by selected authors of Antiquity that generally wrote about other themes, but in places also talked about ancient art. When Pliny the Elder composed his chapters on ancient art forms he used original works of art or Greek and Roman art history literature. When he was writing the Naturalis Historia he used information from numerous authors that he cited in the first book and also some parts of the text. The Roman encyclopedist drew his knowledge of technical aspects of art primarily from Greek treatises published between the 6th and 4th centuries BC by numerous artists; among them, the sculptor Polykleitus of Argos and the painter Pamphilus of Amphipolis are worthy of mention. Art history literature that coincides at least in part with the modern concept of art history had its beginnings in the early Hellenistic period. Pliny based his work on three authors from this period: Duris of Samos, Xenocrates of Athens, and Antigonus of Carystus. Duris of Samos (close of the 4th century BC) designed his two works – which have the generic titles On Painters and On Sculptors – as a series of biographies, in which he highlighted the apex of every artist’s life, coinciding with the creation of his most important work. In his essays, Xenocrates of Athens (second quarter of the 3rd century BC) presented the history of ancient art as a continuous evolutionary line in which great artists played the role of the first inventors. Thus art followed the development towards naturalism; that is, perfection personified, in Xenocrates’ opinion, by Lysippos among the sculptors, and Apelles among the painters. Antigonus of Carystus (last quarter of the 3rd century BC) enriched the work of his two predecessors with his own epigraphic studies. In the middle and late Hellenistic period, Xenocrates’ developmental view of the world was a generally accepted idea. Individual authors differed only by the period in which they placed the apex of development. The most influential among them, Appolodorus of Athens (2nd century BC), put the Athenian artists of the Age of Pericles to the forefront; especially Phidias. Appolodorus’ nostalgic and retrospective vision (in contrast to Xenocrates, who recognized the masters of Sicyon school, to which he also belonged, to be the pinnacle of art history development) coincided with the renewal of Attic art around 150 BC, known also as the Classicism of Athens or neoAtticism. In the late Hellenistic period, various compendiums were popular (mainly periegeses and lists of artists), among which Pasiteles’ (first half of the 1st century BC) essay entitled Mirabilia is the most interesting. Although Pliny the Elder based his history of ancient art on all the authors mentioned above, the writings of classical philologists and archeologists often imply that he might not have always used the art history literature mentioned as primary sources, but rather cited a great deal of information from the works of his predecessor, the famous Roman encyclopedist Marcus Terentius Varro (beginning of the 1st century BC).

Plinio il Vecchio e la sua Storia dell’arte antica

The literature on ancient art that appeared in the 6th century BC alongside the first art treatises, and later expanded its scope and diversity, has been almost completely lost. Only three works have been fully preserved, and even these only from the Roman period: Vitruvius’ treatise De Architectura, Pliny the Elder’s encyclopedia Naturalis Historia, which includes an excursus on ancient art in individual chapters, and Pausanias’ Description of Greece intended for Roman educated travelers. In addition to these three works, two other types of texts are classified as literary sources of art history: the essays that belong to the genre of ekphrasis (rhetorically perfected descriptions of artistic objects, real or imaginary), and the corpus of excerpts by selected authors of Antiquity that generally wrote about other themes, but in places also talked about ancient art. When Pliny the Elder composed his chapters on ancient art forms he used original works of art or Greek and Roman art history literature. When he was writing the Naturalis Historia he used information from numerous authors that he cited in the first book and also some parts of the text. The Roman encyclopedist drew his knowledge of technical aspects of art primarily from Greek treatises published between the 6th and 4th centuries BC by numerous artists; among them, the sculptor Polykleitus of Argos and the painter Pamphilus of Amphipolis are worthy of mention. Art history literature that coincides at least in part with the modern concept of art history had its beginnings in the early Hellenistic period. Pliny based his work on three authors from this period: Duris of Samos, Xenocrates of Athens, and Antigonus of Carystus. Duris of Samos (close of the 4th century BC) designed his two works – which have the generic titles On Painters and On Sculptors – as a series of biographies, in which he highlighted the apex of every artist’s life, coinciding with the creation of his most important work. In his essays, Xenocrates of Athens (second quarter of the 3rd century BC) presented the history of ancient art as a continuous evolutionary line in which great artists played the role of the first inventors. Thus art followed the development towards naturalism; that is, perfection personified, in Xenocrates’ opinion, by Lysippos among the sculptors, and Apelles among the painters. Antigonus of Carystus (last quarter of the 3rd century BC) enriched the work of his two predecessors with his own epigraphic studies. In the middle and late Hellenistic period, Xenocrates’ developmental view of the world was a generally accepted idea. Individual authors differed only by the period in which they placed the apex of development. The most influential among them, Appolodorus of Athens (2nd century BC), put the Athenian artists of the Age of Pericles to the forefront; especially Phidias. Appolodorus’ nostalgic and retrospective vision (in contrast to Xenocrates, who recognized the masters of Sicyon school, to which he also belonged, to be the pinnacle of art history development) coincided with the renewal of Attic art around 150 BC, known also as the Classicism of Athens or neoAtticism. In the late Hellenistic period, various compendiums were popular (mainly periegeses and lists of artists), among which Pasiteles’ (first half of the 1st century BC) essay entitled Mirabilia is the most interesting. Although Pliny the Elder based his history of ancient art on all the authors mentioned above, the writings of classical philologists and archeologists often imply that he might not have always used the art history literature mentioned as primary sources, but rather cited a great deal of information from the works of his predecessor, the famous Roman encyclopedist Marcus Terentius Varro (beginning of the 1st century BC).