A PEACH (PRUNUS PERSICA [L.] BATSCH) IN ANCIENT ANd EARLY BYzANTINE MEdICINE ACCORdING TO SELECTEd SOURCES (THE 1ST–7TH C. Ad)

Abstract

Jagusiak krzysztof, kokoszko Maciej, A peach (Prunus persica [L.] Batsch) in ancient and early Byzantine medicine according to selected sources (the 1st–7th c. AD). (Brzoskwinia (Prunus persica [L.] Batsch) w antycznym i wczesnobizantyńskim lecznictwie według wybranych źródeł [I–VII w. n.e.]). The peach (Prunus persica [L.] Batsch) is a tree native to the region known today as Northwest China, where its fruits were known around 2000 BC. Inhabitants of the Mediterranean Area came into contact with the peach probably between the 6th and 4th century BC thanks to the contacts with Persian Empire. In the western part of the Mediterranean Region the peach appeared later (ca. 1st c. Ad). In the period under study there were many varieties of the peach, and they were eaten in many different ways – e.g. raw, dried, boiled etc. They could be consumed without any other ingredients, or as an element of more complicated dishes. Ancient and early Byzantine authors, who wrote their treatises between the 1st and 7th c. Ad, and dealt with medicine (dioscorides, Pliny the Elder, Galen, Oribasius, Aetius of Amida, Paul of Aegina, Athimus and others), described dietetic properties of a peach with details. Moreover, they left some information about a medical use of this fruit. This aspect of their works is an element of a wider and well-known phenomenon, i.e. an important role of all groups of aliments in the ancient art of healing. keywords: peach; ancient medicine; Byzantine medicine. In Graeco-Roman Antiquity and in the intervening centuries a number of food stuffs (unprocessed and heat – or mechanically treated, on their own or as part of compound substances) served as a basis for professional treatment of many illnesses of different etiology. It was related either to their primary destination – as an element of the diet in a wider meaning (adjusting the food to be consumed to age, season, activity and physical exercise, massage etc.) – or to their role as medicaments1. In connection to this, Greek and Latin medical sources (or those devoted in part to medicine) preserved a wealth of information on the dietary characteristics and medical properties of various groups of alimentary products (including cereals, leguminous plants, and other vegetables, fruit, 1 Cf. walther-Ast 1936: 978–984; Garcia Gaul 2000: 44–50; Jouana 2008: 53–72; Bergoldt 2008: 30–37, 41–46, 62–72; van der Eijk 2008: 283–303; kokoszko, Jagusiak, Rzeźnicka 2014: 7–28; Jones-Lewis 2016: 402–417; donahue 2016a: 611–615; donahue 2016b: 619–623. 28 k R z Y S z TO F J A G U S I A k, M A C I E J k O k O S z k O livestock products and the meals or drinks produced from such ingredients), and also a significant number of therapeutic procedures, including their use.2 The peach fruit, to which our paper is devoted, is an example of this phenomenon. As for the fundamental sources of the greatest importance for our research on the issue outlined in the title, we have to mention such Greek medical and botanical treatises as those authored by dioscorides (1st c. Ad), Galen (2nd c. Ad), Oribasius (4th c. Ad), Aetius of Amida (6th c. Ad), Alexander of Tralles (6th c. Ad) and Paul of Aegina (7th c. Ad). The Latin works to be discussed include writings dealing (solely, or among other things) with medicine by such authors as Celsus (1st c. Ad), Pliny the Elder (1st c. Ad), Gargilius Martialis (3rd c. Ad), and Anthimus (6th c. Ad). Aside from the above, other sources were also of use – some of them very important for the study of this historical period – which in the context of this particular subject were of secondary importance.3 As can be seen in the selection of the source material, the time frame is thus set from the 1st to the 7th c. Ad. Various factors have influenced the choice of the beginning and the end of the period under consideration. The first date was chosen, the 1st c. saw the emergence of the medical doctrine accepted by such authors of preserved medical works as Celsus, Pliny or dioscorides and later Galen, with the subsequent generations of medical authors inspired by their works. That doctrine was strongly connected with the activity of the earlier authors of Corpus Hippocraticum, and also of diocles of Carystus, Mnesitheos, Sextius Niger, and others, whose works (most of which are not extant) dealt with, among other things, the therapeutic properties and healing uses of alimentary products. In contrast, the 7th c., as the end of the period under study, results mainly from the great transformations of the Roman state unrelated to medicine. In the wake of these transformations the Empire, which survived in the East through the crisis which in the 5th c. destroyed its western part, marked the transition from the early Eastern Roman Empire of Late Antiquity to the middle Byzantine Empire of the early Middle Ages (according to the periodization accepted among modern Byzantinists). Incidentally, the 7th c. saw the activity of Paul of Aegina, who was the last of the notable epigones of Galen of that time dealing with the therapeutic uses of foodstuffs. After him, there came a gap of several centuries, and we do not know of any significant treatises from that period, which in itself may be important for the topic of my presentation. It is also worth emphasising that Mediterranean agriculture and food production between the 1st and the 7th century were subject to relatively subtle changes and that this time scale does 2 It is sometimes noted that Greek medicine evolved from culinary practice (cf. Nutton 2005: 96). 3 Among them are such important sources as Deipnosophistae written by Athaenaeus of Naucratis (3rd c. Ad), Latin agronomical treatises of Cato, Varro, Columella, and Palladius (composed between 2nd c. BC and 4th c. Ad) and the anonymous culinary work entitled De re coquinaria (probably 4th or 5th c. Ad, see footnote 22). A P E A C H (P R U N U S P E R S I C A [L .] B AT S C H) 29 not constitute a distinct period in the history of agronomy or nutrition. Instead, it was quite coherent in terms of its technological development and the resources of available species of plants and animals. As a result, the realities described by Celsus and Paul of Aegina are similar in this regard, despite the difference of about six hundred years in between. Coming to the actual subject of our article, we believe that we should begin with a short presentation of the natural history of the peach, its nomenclature in Graeco-Roman antiquity, and its cultivars known at the time. The peach (Prunus persica [L.] Batsch) is a tree species belonging to the Rosaceae family. It reached the Mediterranean probably from modern-day China, where it had been known and used in agriculture since about two thousand years BC.4 Today it is difficult to determine when the inhabitants of the Mediterranean first came into contact with this particular tree or its fruit. It seems to have happened not earlier than in the 6th c. BC and not later than in the 4th c. BC, during the lively contacts (often in the form of military expeditions) with the peoples of the Near East and Mesopotamia under Persian control. This chronology is supported by etymological considerations. In the language of the ancient Greeks the peach tree was known in the classical period by the name of meléa persiké (μηλέα περσική), and its fruit was called mélon persikón (μῆλον περσικόν).5 In the age of Roman domination, Galen noted that his contemporaries speaking Greek often shortened the name to one word: persiké or persiká.6 Long or short, all these names were connected to the idea that the peach came to the area inhabited by Greeks via the territories of Achaemenid Persia, or was seen as having come this way by Greek merchants, travellers or soldiers in unspecified locations within the boundaries of Persian rule. Considering that the Persian Empire existed from the 6th to the 4th c. BC, it is plausible that it was in this period that the peach appeared in the Eastern Mediterranean. By contrast, the popular view on the matter which attributes the reception of the peach tree in the Mediterranean to the ephemeral empire of Alexander the Great should be treated with considerable caution.7 Centuries later, in Byzantine times, another name of the peach occurred in sources written in Greek, namely rhodákinon (ῥοδάκινον),8 until then associated with a nectarine. The Romans were also aware of the eastern provenance of the peach tree. The Romans referred to the peach by using the adjective (malum) persicus, or 4 Cf. de Candolle 1959: 221–222; Steier 1937: 1022; Falkowski, kostrowicki 2001: 324; zohary, Hopf 1993: 172; Sadori et al. 2009: 45; Hancock, Scorza, Lobos 2008: 9; zheng, Crawford, Chen 2014: 1–9. 5 Cf. Steier 1937: 1022; Abramowiczówna 1962: 525. 6 Gal. SMT 76, 7–9, vol. XII; Gal. Alim.Fac. 592, 11, vol. VI. 7 Cf. dalby 1996: 84; dalby 2003: 252, and remarks published by dr. Sean Caugher in the article adopted from his blog Ancient medicine (Caugher 2016, n.p.). 8 Trapp et al. 2011: 1508. 30 k R z Y S z TO F J A G U S I A k, M A C I E J k O k O S z k O persicum, or simply by the noun persica.9 while the Greeks came to know this fruit no later than in the final decades of the 4th c. BC, the Latin sources tell us nothing about it before the 1st c. Ad, which suggests that this plant (and fruit) was not widely known in Rome before then, but it does not necessarily mean that it was completely uncommon on the Roman market.10 The peach was relatively difficult to store after picking and was very prone to rotting, so in comparison with other species of fruit it was rather rarely available in Rome: the demand for it was high, which was also reflected in its considerable price (even after the 1st c. Ad, when it finally appeared in the Latin sources).11 Nevertheless, the plant became widespread in the Roman world, with a number of cultivars, although the process, as Pliny the Elder tells us, did not take place without difficulty.12 It grew in v