Pedanius Dioscorides (40–90 CE)

Dioscorides was a medical botanist and physician who served in the Roman army, and is famous for his five-volume book on (mainly) herbal medicine, De Materia Medica. He was more or less a contemporary of Pliny, and although it is unknown whether they ever met, it seems plausible that they would have known of each other.

De Materia Medica is organised into five books which are not compatible with modern taxonomical botany. Book I comprises aromatic trees and shrubs, and oils and salves derived from them; Book II animals, animal products, herbs and cereals; Book III roots, seeds and herbs; Book IV further roots and herbs; and Book V vines and their products and minerals. He covers a total of around 600 medicinal plants. Typically, there is a brief botanical description, including any interesting features, aroma, some mention of origin, any adulteration if known, followed by their medical benefits and how to prepare and use them. His influence has been extremely long-lasting: it became the most important pharmacology text for over 1,500 years. It has also been copied, modified, redacted and enhanced innumerable times. The oldest extant complete copy is the ‘Vienna Dioscorides’, also known as the ‘Anicia Juliana Codex’, which dates from around 512 CE and was made in Constantinople, the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire. It is beautifully illustrated (Figure 4) and was made as a gift for the Emperor Flavius Olybrius’ daughter. Even this early copy was altered from Dioscorides’ original.

Spices and culinary herb plants include alexanders, amomum, dill, anise, celery, parsley, wormwood, asafoetida, basil, bay, bdellium, bishop’s weed, black mustard, black pepper, borage, box thorn, sweet flag, camphor, caraway, cardamom, cassia, chervil, cinnamon, comfrey, fennel, rosemary, sage, thyme, cumin, coriander, costus, cow parsley, elecampane, fenugreek, ferula, frankincense, ginger, horseradish, hyssop, juniper, laser (silphium), liquorice, long pepper, lovage, lycium, malabathrum, marjoram, mustard, myrobalan, myrrh, nard, spikenard, nigella, nutmeg, oregano, poppy, pennyroyal, rue, saffron, samphire, sesame, styrax, sugar and sumac. While this list is dominated by the plants available within the Roman Empire, there are already numerous exotics from south and Southeast Asia, which reflect increased availability via trade in the first century CE.

Although information about Dioscorides himself is scant, we can get a few clues from his preface to De Materia Medica. He dedicated his work to his friend Laecanius Areius, a physician from Tarsus (in modern Turkey), where they both probably studied (or possibly Areius may have been one of Dioscorides’ teachers). He emphasised his work as being mainly original.³³ The earliest English translation is that of Goodyer from as late as 1655.³⁴

He details the collecting and storing of plant materials and his hands-on approach is apparent. Crateuas the rhizotomist (a physician from the first to second centuries BCE) was given a certain amount of praise, and indeed appears to have been one of Dioscorides’ sources, as was Andreas the physician (third century BCE). Along with the praise came criticism – they ‘ignored many extremely useful roots and gave meager descriptions of many herbs’. Disoscorides’ work was thorough and reliable and stood the test of time. The book was never ‘lost’; it has always stayed in circulation. First translations were made to Latin in the sixth century, to Syriac in the ninth century, and Arabic in the tenth century; further translations to Italian, German, Spanish and French were made during the Renaissance, but the Goodyer English translation of 1655 was not published until centuries later. Of great interest is the large number of plant medicines still used in modern pharmacology; it is fair to conclude that De Materia Medica is one of the most influential books of all time.³⁵