Zopyrus (physician)

Zopyrus (Greek: Ζώπυρος; 1st-century BCE) was a surgeon at Alexandria, and the tutor of Apollonius of Citium and Posidonius.[1] He invented an antidote, which he recommended to Mithridates VI of Pontus, and wrote a letter to that king, begging to be allowed to test its efficacy on a criminal.[2] Another somewhat similar composition he prepared for one of the Ptolemies.[3] Some of his medical formulae are quoted and mentioned by various ancient authors, viz. Caelius Aurelianus,[4] Oribasius,[5] Aetius,[6] Paul of Aegina,[7] Marcellus Empiricus,[8] and Nicolaus Myrepsus.[9] Pliny[10] and Dioscorides[11] mention that a certain plant was called zopyron, perhaps after his name. Nicarchus satirizes a physician named Zopyrus in one of his epigrams.[12] Not to be confused with Zopyron.

Notes

  1. ^ Apoll. Cit. ap. Dietz, Schol. in Hippocr. et Gal. vol. i. p. 2
  2. ^ Galen, De Antid. ii. 8, vol. xiv. p. 150
  3. ^ Celsus, v. 23. § 2
  4. ^ Caelius Aurelianus, De Morb. Chron. ii. 14, v. 10
  5. ^ Oribasius, Coll. Medic. xiv. 45, 50, 52, 56, 58, 61, 64
  6. ^ Aetius, ii. 4. 57, iii. 1. 31, iv. 2. 74
  7. ^ Paul of Aegina, vii. 11
  8. ^ Marcellus Empiricus, De Medicam. c. 22
  9. ^ Nicolaus Myrepsus, i. 291
  10. ^ Pliny, Hist. Nat. xxiv. 87
  11. ^ Dioscorides, iii. 99. vol. i. p. 446
  12. ^ Anthol. Gr. xi. 124

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Smith, William, ed. (1870). "Zopyrus". Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology.