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E. Sherbakova
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE PSEUDO-HIPPOCRATIC TREATISE DE VICTU.
An episode in the early history of Greek pneumatism
В статье исследуется понятие psyche в псевдо-гиппократовом трактате De victu и принимается интерпретация, основанная на связи с дыханием.
Key words: Псевдо-Гиппократ, De victu, pneuma, Диоген Апол-лонийский, кардиоцентризм, цереброцентризм
The concept of pneuma is perhaps the most successful psychophysiological theory to have come down to us from antiquity. Its origins are usually traced back to as early as Anaximenes in the VI century BCE, it was later adopted by Plato and Aristotle, further developed by the Stoics, and managed to survive until Descartes and even beyond (it was famously mocked by Laurence Sterne in the story about Tristram Shandy's rather unfortunate conception1).
This lasting and success of a doctrine, which clearly has very ancient mythological roots2, does not seem too surprising from a modern perspective, because it posits, and provides rather straight-
1 See Laurence Sterne. The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman. Volume the First. Chapter 1.I. «I wish either my father or my mother, or indeed both of them, as they were in duty both equally bound to it, had minded what they were about when they begot me; had they duly consider'd how much depended upon what they were then doing; <. .>
- Believe me, good folks, this is not so inconsiderable a thing as many of you may think it; - you have all, I dare say, heard of the animal spirits, as how they are transfused from father to son, &c. &c.- and a great deal to that purpose: - Well, you may take my word, that nine parts in ten of a man's sense or his nonsense, his successes and miscarriages in this world depend upon their motions and activity, and the different tracks and trains you put them into, so that when they are once set a-going, whether right or wrong, 'tis not a half-penny matter».
2 More specifically the Indo-European myth of a primeval being (for example the primordial being Purusa in early Vedas, the giant Ymir in Norse and the goddess Tiamat in Mesopotamian mythology), out of whose dismembered body the world is formed: its flesh becomes earth, its bones -mountains, its blood - rivers, and its breath - winds. In fact micro-macrocosmic parallelism - as we shall see later - plays a very important role even in the most developed pneumatic doctrines.
forward albeit incorrect answers to, a surprisingly contemporary set of questions such as: what is mind? Where is mind? What is the relationship between mind and body and how does one affect the other?
And yet it must be made very clear from the start, that pneumatism is in fact not one doctrine or theory, but rather a 'family' of interrelated psycho-physiological concepts, which may appear in the context of very different doctrines: from Democritus' mechanistic physics to Stoic teleology. Thus all pneumatic theories have common elements and traits that qualify them as pneumatic although they may differ in very significant ways.
Now for obvious reasons the concept of pneuma in Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics and Galen, has received considerable attention from scholars. However in our best modern as well as ancient accounts the early history of pneumatism is patchy and incomplete and even confusing to some extent, for many reasons - the main one is of course the scarcity and uncertainty of our data and sources. For example, if the doxographical tradition is to be believed Alcmaeon of Croton (approximately 5th century BCE) was the first to localize cognition in the brain. According to him, the central organ, which receives and more importantly processes data provided by the sensory channels, or poroi. The doxography also seems to suggest that Alcmaeon posited some transmitting medium, a substance that fills those sensory channels and receives and passes on the visual and other stimuli, namely pneuma. However, as Friedrich Solmsen (1957)observed, there are two main problems with this tradition: firstly the date of Alcmaeon is uncertain, and secondly the doxography, especially the one that attributes to him the concept of pneuma, is clearly anachronistic in the sense that it projects later, mainly peripatetic, terms and concepts on a much earlier thinker.
But before we proceed to identify the lacunae in our accounts of pneumatism, we must first do some terminological and theoretical housekeeping point out the traits common to all pneumatic doctrines. These traits are as follows:
- Pneumatic theories postulate a material, substance in the body, usually gaseous, but not necessarily, which is responsible for intellectual, sensory and motor function. The term 'pneuma' to designate this substance seems to have entered the tradition relatively late: earlier authors as for example Diogenes of Apollonia (around 425 BCE) use a variety of terms, such as 'aer' or even 'psyche', but not 'pneuma', which in the Vth century typically means either 'breath, respiration' or 'wind'.
- This substance is often conceived as the only cognitive, sensory and motor 'organ' in the body, while the sensory channels are just ducts, or quite literary 'windows of the soul'3.
- This substance either enters the organism from without, or is generated directly within it (as an evaporation from the blood for example), or is a mixture of both inner and outer pneuma.
- The pneumatic substance is usually distributed within the body, but it also has a kind of 'command centre': a place where its higher intellectual and/or perceptive functions are concentrated. The common (Stoic) term for this command centre is hegemonikon or animae regale, that is 'the ruling part of the soul'. It is typically placed in the brain or the heart4, but its location may also be less specific. The pneumatic centre is typically connected to the bodily periphery through certain passages or channels, which are often not clearly identified anatomically.
- Another very important, and possibly very ancient, feature of any pneumatic theory is the parallelism between macrocosm and microcosm; the microcosmic pneumatic substance may itself be a part of, for instance, the macrocosmic air like in Diogenes of Apollonia, or it may have a macrocosmic correlate. The same goes for the command center or the hegemonikon: for example, in cardiocentric pneumatic systems the sun, where the macrocosmic pneuma is concentrated, may be conceived as 'the heart of the cosmos', i. e. a macrocosmic hegemonikon.
- Finally the pneumatic substance usually plays a role in reproduction, for instance as the main component of sperm.
For the first time a fully developed psychophysiology of this type is attested in Diogenes of Apollonia; his doctrine has all the essential traits that we find in later and more developed pneumatic systems. However the picture before and immediately after Diogenes is much less clear. Anaximenes with his equation of
3 This metaphor is first mentioned by Lucretius (De rer. nat. 3.359-361) in his polemics against, as some scholars believe (Cf. Heinze 1897: 350 ff.: Kenney 1971: 123 ff.) a Stoic doctrine, but probably goes back to much older. Willy Theiler (Theiler 1925: 6 ff.) attributed it to Diogenes of Apollonia and Hans Diller (Diller 1941: 376 ff.) followed the ancient Skeptical tradition and proposed Heraclitus as the most likely source.
4 There is an old doxographic tenet that goes something like this: 'what part of the body is the seat of the mind according to such and such thinker'. To quote just one of multiple examples: Plut. Stromat. 30.12 ['Ep,nsSoK^q] to Se ^ye^owkov outs sv Ks^a^i outs sv OrópaKi, áM,' sv aipmi <oisTai>. As van der Eijk (2005: 121-122) has rightly observed this doxographic cliché tends to lump together rather heterogeneous thinkers and doctrines.
external macrocosmic air and microcosmic pneuma-breath with psyche is sometimes named as an early precursor, but the period in between still remains rather obscure.
There is also another related problem: Diogenes is generally considered to be the first pneumatist and pater tou logou, but we have reliable evidence that sometime in the 5th century BCE there existed a version of pneumatism quite different from his'; as we know his system was cephalocentric, which means he placed the command centre in the brain, the other one however was cardio-centric with the centre in the heart.
The main questions are thus: (1) what happened in the period between Anaximenes and Diogenes? (2) When and how did this cardiocentric version of pneumatism originate? Is it earlier or later than the Diogenes' cephalocentrism and what is its relation to his doctrine?
I believe that with the use of the data mainly from the Hippocratic corpus we can paint a clearer picture, and if not find all the answers to the questions above, then at least mark the terrain and distinguish what we know from what we can safely hypothesise and - most importantly - from what we don't know about the early history of pneumatism.
Now, what we know for sure is that Diogenes' doctrine was quickly adopted by ancient doctors. The anonymous author of the famous Pseudo-Hippocratic treatise De morbo sacro (approx. end of the 5th century BCE) is a good example. According to him, the air we breathe is the carrier of both cognitive and motor functions. This air enters the body and is distributed within it: its 'purest part' stays in the brain (which is also the centre of cognition), while the rest travels to the bodily periphery. The author of De morbo also makes an interesting remark: there are those, he says, who posit the higher intellectual function not in the brain but in the chest region (De morbo, 17 Aeyouoi Se xive^ ro^ ^poveo^ev t^ KapSl^ Kai to aviro^evov touto eoTi Kai to ^povTiZpv to Se ouTro^ e%ei). So the question is, who are those 'Tive^' he is referring to?
I shall try to demonstrate, that there is indeed an early treatise in the Hippocratic collection, which not only has an essentially pneumatic psychology, but that this pneumatism is also cardiocentric, which would mean, if my findings are correct, that it represents a pneumatic tradition that is independent from, and perhaps earlier than Diogenes of Apollonia and De morbo. The treatise in question is called 'On Regimen' (5th/4th century BCE) or, to use the common Latin nomenclature, - De victu. This difficult
text has fascinated scholars for a very long time, at least since Johann Matthias Gesner's dissertation on Heraclitus and De victu (1752). The treatise perhaps most famous for its many allusions and imitations of Heraclitus, and has been generally considered5 a good source for reconstruction of his doctrine. However it fell out of favour with Heraclitean scholars since Kirk (1954) and Marcovich (2001), and this, to my mind unfortunate, trend of disregarding Heraclitean influence in the treatise continues on, and is clearly visible even in Joly-Byl (2003) - currently our best scholarly edition of this treatise.
In this article I shall mainly focus on De victu's psychology and the concept of psyche ('soul'), which has long been controversial, due partly to the fact that many statements about the soul, its nature and function in the body are intentionally obscure; a peculiar stylistic feature of De victu G. S. Kirk found so irritating, he declared that the author 'simply didn't know what he meant' (Kirk 1954: 21). In fact the entire philosophical doctrine in Book I, on which De victu's therapy is based, has long been and still is subject to intense debate and no scholarly consensus has been reached.
The case of De victu's Seelenlehre is even more difficult, because unlike the physiology, which is more or less coherently described in chapters 3-5, the psychology needs to be pieced together from different, sometimes contradictory statements scattered in the treatise. Naturally different scholars have interpreted these statements differently; for example R. Joly and J. Jouanna in their 'Recherches sur le traité pseudo-hippocratique Du régime' have argued, that psyche must refer simply to one of the bodily fluids, namely sperm. And it is certainly true, that psyche plays a role in reproduction6.
However this interpretation has never been fully accepted, for it is clear that psyche in De victu is also the carrier of intellectual and motor functions, and is thus unlikely to refer simply to sperm. Even Joly himself has later changed his mind; and he argues (Joly-Byl 2003: 28 ff.) that psyche can be equated to sperm only in some passages, while in others it is used in its 'sense ordinaire'7.
5 At least by earlier scholars like for example John Burnet, who used the data from De victu for his reconstruction of Heraclitus' meteorology.
6 On psyche's role in reproduction see De victu I, 28.
7 It is not clear at all what Joly means by this evasive 'ordinary sense' of psyche. In the Vth century BCE the ordinary Pythagorean sense would be something completely different from the ordinary Ionian sense of this difficult term.
Moreover in a famous passage in chapter 86 in Book IV of De victu Joly, following A. Palm, E. R. Dodds and M. Detienne8, even finds traces of a doctrine of 'Orphico-Pythagorean' and ultimately 'shamanic' origins. Joly is thus effectively torn between a purely materialistic and dualistic interpretation of De victu's psychology.
Recently Philipp van der Eijk tried to rescue the situation by declaring, that such terms as 'materialism' and 'dualism' are misleading and inadequate for the description of ancient psycho-physiological theories. However he himself seems to suggest, that De victu's doctrine is simply a weaker version of Pythagorean radical dualism, which would mean that the term psyche in this treatise describes an entity of somewhat unclear status - material, but at the same time not fully bound to the body (van der Eijk 2005: 198).
Hynek Bartos (Bartos 2009) has, I believe, successfully refuted van der Eijk's quasi-dualism, but went on to propose a rather similar explanation. According to him the author of De victu has produced a materialistic version of the Orphico-Pythagorean doctrine about the transmigration of the soul - a curious hybrid indeed.
While it is certainly true that some passages in De victu may have what we might call a generic Pythagorean flavor9, I believe, that there is no need to posit any hybrid or eclectic psychology in this treatise, and that it has an essentially pneumatic, that is materialist, concept of the soul.
To prove my point I want to start first with a puzzling passage in chapter 23 of the first book. In this chapter the author rather for some reason arranges everything by seven: just as there are seven vowels in the alphabet, there are also seven modes (o%^aTa) of perception (ai'oBnoi^); to the usual list of five senses the author adds another two: speech, probably as means of transmission of a'ioBnoi^, and - surprisingly - nveu^aTo^ Sie^oSoi eoro Kai e^ro, that is air-passages. The question is, of course, what does breath have to do with the senses?
I. Psyche as the actual sensory and motor organ
I believe, that to answer this question we need to examine how sense perception functions in De victu. It seems that, according to our author, psyche is the principal sensory and motor organ, while the eyes, ears etc. are just channels or ducts. We learn this from a passage in De victu IV, 86, which caused much scholarly
8 See below.
9 See for example De victu I, 8 on embryology.
controversy. The author says, that when the soul is awake it is 'divided into several parts': seeing, hearing, touch and locomotion, but during sleep it 'manages its own household':
De victu IV, 86 'H yap eypnyopoxi ^ev xro oro^axi
unepnxeouoa, eni no^a ^epiZp^evn, ou ylyvexai aux^ eroux^^, aAA,' anoSiSrooi xi ^epo^ ¿Kaoxro xofi oro^axo^, aKo^, oyei, yatioei, oSoinopl^, np^eoi navxo^ xofi oro^axo^- aux^ 8' emux^ ^ Siavoia ou ylvexai. 'OKOxav 8e xo oro^a ^ Kiveu^evn Kai
eypnyopeouoa* SioiKei xov eroux^^ oIkov, Kai xa^ xofi oro^axo^ np^^ia^ anaoa^ aux^ Sianp^ooexai. To ^ev yap oro^a Ka0efiSov ouk aioBavexai, ^ 8' eypnyopeouoa yivrooKei, Kai op^ xe xa opaxa Kai aKouei xa aKouoxa, PaSl^ei, yatiei, Auneixai, evBu^eixai, ev oMyro eofioa, oKooai xofi oro^axo^ un^peolai ^ x^ xafixa
navxa ^ ev xro unvro Sianp^ooexai.
*eypnyopeouoa Diels, Jones, Joly; ene^epnouoa xa oro^axa; M (Marcianus graecus 269 saec. X); eypnyopeouoa. xa np^y^axa 0 (Vindobonensis medicus gr. 4 saec. XI); ene^epnouoa xa ^epn Tofi oro^axo^ Recentiores (I, R), Littre.
Before we can make sense of the operations of psyche in this passage, we need to consider one textual problem. Most editors10 partially accept the reading of the manuscript 0, but delete xa np^y^axa as a gloss, and thus read: ^ Kiveu^evn Kai
eypnyopeouoa SioiKei xov eroux^ olKov...(The soul now awake and in motion manages its own house).
However the reading of the manuscript M ene^epnouoa is a clear lectio difficilior11; firstly, we find eypnyopeouoa in the next sentence (where it is well supported by both our principal manuscripts). Secondly, ene^epnouoa is an absolute hapax found only in De victu IV, 86, but a hapax supported by other passages: the author says three times that psyche eoepnei (slips) into the body (De victu 6, 7, 25.), which makes ene^epnouoa not only a lectio difficilior but also lectio potior.
But even if we adopt ene^epnouoa instead of eypnyopeouoa, this does not solve all the problems with the transmitted text, because ene^epnouoa is followed in the manuscript M by the
10 Diels 1910: 146-147; Jones 1931: 475; Joly 1960; Joly-Byl 2003: 219.
11 The participle sypnyopsouaa from sypnyopsro (unlike the common sysipouaa from sysipro) is indeed unique in the Corpus Hippocraticum: LSJ [ad loc.] reports sypnyopsro for the first time in Xen. Cyn. 5.11, where it is a lectio falsa, and then again in Arist. Pr. 877 a 9, while LSJ does not mention De victu at all.
incomprehensible xa oró^axa. Thus I believe Émile Littré made the right decision in adopting the reading of the recentiores: (psyche) éne^épnouoa xà ^épn xoù oà^axoç 12 . He translates: 'l'âme ...parcourant les parties du corps'. However éne^épnouoa may and, I think, should be taken in a perfective sense: 'having traversed the limbs (and stopped in a certain place)'13. To sum up, I think Littré was right to adopt the reading of the later manuscripts and we should adopt the following reading: 'Otóxav Sè xo orô^a ^
Kweu^évn Kai éne^épnouoa xà ^épn xoù oà^axoç Sioikeï xov éroux^ç oÎkov (When the body is at rest, the soul is set in motion and having traversed the limbs of the body manages its own house).
But now that we have solved the textual problem, we are faced with an interpretative one, namely what does 'the soul manages its own household' mean exactly?
Carl Fredrich thought that it is simply an 'ionisches Sprich-wort'14, which must mean something like 'the soul minds its own business', however in the next sentence the author remarks, that psyche during sleep is contained in some narrow space: év óMyro éoùoa. It seems to me, that it is this small space, that the author has in mind when he speaks about the oikos of the soul. However already Stephen Mack15 was puzzled by this phrase and thought it safer to change év ó^íyro to évi ^óyro - an unfortunate and unnecessary emendation which was later accepted by Jones in his Loeb edition of Hippocrates, despite the manuscript evidence and the perfect intelligibility of év óMyro.
12 I must admit that my own previous conclusion, that the phrase should be emended to ^ yux^ Kivsupsvn Kai sns^spnouaa SioiKsi tov srournq oIkov was probably incorrect: it does not substantially improve the text and is no better than the actually attested reading of the recentiores. Contra: Sherbakova 2012.
13 Cf. Hdt. 4. 9; Id. 7.167 to nav yap sns^s^Osiv SiC^psvov rs^rova. Also De victu I, 25 offers an excellent parallel of a Praes. act. participle + preverb in a perfective sense: ooTiq StivaTai n^sioTouq avOpronouq Tps^siv, ouToq iaxupoq- <>.no/xin6vT0)v Se TotiTrov, q^toc dgQsvsgTspoc). The participle ¿rcoisircovTrov, although used in the present tense, clearly refers to a completed action, the results of which are still relevant in the present. The perfective aspect is strengthened by the preverb ¿no-.
14 In fact, this idea along with some parallels from Euripides (Iph. in Aul. 331) was suggested to him by Wilamowitz himself.
15 See his Hippocratis Opera Omnia cum variis lectionibus.. .ex Cornarii, et Sambuci codd... studio et opere Stephani Mackii. Vol, 1-2. Viennae, 174349.
So, what happens to the soul during sleep according to De victu? And what does ev oMyro refer to?
Marcel Detienne (Detienne 1963: 71 ff.), following Palm and Dodds, explains this passage (and more generally the concept of soul in De victu IV, 86) by comparing it to another famous passage in Plat. Phaed. 67 c 5-67 d: KaBapoi^ Se elvai apa oti touto ou^Palvei, onep na^ai ev tS ^oyro ^eyeTai, to xropl^eiv oti ^a^ioTa ano tou oro^aTo^ T^v Kai e0ioai auT^v Ka0' auT^v
navTa%o0ev eK tou oro^aTo^ ouvaye(peo0a( Te Kai a0po(Zeo0ai, Kai oiKeiv KaTa to SuvaTov Kai ev tS vuv napovTi Kai ev tS eneiTa ^ov^v Ka0' auT^v, eK^uo^ev^v roonep [eK] Seo^rov eK tou oro^aTog
Indeed there seems to be a similarity not only in the general line of thought (psyche is at least partially liberated from the body: T^v yu%^v...auT^v Ka0' auT^v navTa%o0ev 16 eK tou oro^aTo^ ouvaye(peo0a( Te Kai a0po(Zeo0ai), but also in metaphor (Cf. oiKeiv/SioiKei).
Based on this comparandum Detienne concludes, that the passage in De victu reflects an 'Orphico-Pythagorean' or even 'shamanistic' doctrine of the soul, which becomes autonomous during sleep and thus acquires prophetic powers.
Joly partially accepts this Pythagorean interpretation but with some reservations. He takes into account Giuseppe Cambiano's important article (Cambiano 1980), who argues that the parallel with Plato is false and there are no traces of Pythagorean dualism in De victu, according to which psyche purely material (a mixture of fire and water), and its relationship to the body is friendly and cooperative; it is never conceived as a either 'prison' or 'grave' for the soul, like it is in the Pythagorean passages in Phaedo.
As for the 'Orphic' theory of sleep, Cambiano has conclusively shown, that according to Orphic ideas, the activities of soul and body are inversely proportional: wile the body is asleep, the soul becomes active and autonomous, while in De victu it is active both in sleep and during wakefulness.
In response to this Joly like many others has opted for a rather strange compromise: he accepts both dualism and a material soul in De victu. However I don't see any possibility, how in this case the idea of soul being an immortal daimon, or a different substance, can be reconciled with the idea that the soul is a mixture of fire and
16 Interestingly navTaxoOsv a0poiZso0ai seems to suggest, that the soul is distributed within the body, before it gains autonomy through katharsis.
water, - the same stuff, that constitutes the body of according to De victu.
It is telling that Joly offers no explanation for oiKoq ^uyfiq/ev oMyro, he does not even seem to recognize that the phrase is problematic and needs clarifications. I think, this obscure remark is indeed best explained by a parallel, and not with Plato's Phaedo, as many have thought, but with a passage from a short treatise attributed to Galen titled De dignotione ex insomniis (On diagnosis from dreams) 6. 833, 17 eoiKe yap ev Toi; unvou; ei^ to Pa0o^ rofi oro^aTo^ ^ eioSfioa Kai rrov skto^ ano%rop^oaoa aio0nrrov
rqg Kara to oro^a Sia0eoero^ aio0aveo0ai... This short excerpt describes a recess of the soul from the periphery into the depth (pa0o^) of the body, and is clearly influenced by a Stoic concept of sleep as a retreat of the soul from the periphery to the centre of
• • 17
cognition .
I believe that both phrases in De victu - ev oMyro eofioa and o!ko^ - actually refer to something similar: a recess
somewhere inside the body, where the soul retreats during sleep. The author does not say, where exactly this recess is situated, at least not in chapter 8618. However, as I shall try to demonstrate, this place can be tentatively identified on the evidence of another passage - De victu I, 9.
II. What is the 'soul' according to De victu?
We have established that psyche in De victu is the thing that perceives, feels, thinks and moves the body, but what is it and where does it come from?
First of all, it is material, and, just like the body, it consists of two elements - fire and water. Its higher intellectual functions seem to be associated with fire, but a right balance of the fire/water mixture is also required for it to function properly19. This balance may be affected by different factors, including - quite un-
17 Compare for example the definition of sleep in the Stoically influenced treatise Definitiones medicae 19.381.15 'Tnvoç éaTiv avsaiç уихл? ката фиагу ало töv nspaTrav éni то ^yspoviKÔv, wrongly attributed to Galen.
18 Besides, it should be noted, that, if my interpretation is correct, De victu IV, 86 shows a striking similarity to a much later (Stoic) doctrine. A similarity, which I believe, may not entirely coincidental, and probably indicates a common source.
19 Cf. De victu I, 35 Ei 5é Tivi évSssaTépnv T^v 5uvapiv то nûp ^aßoi той uSaToç, ßpa5uTEp^v avayK^ TauT^v sivai, Kai Ka^éovTai oi ToioÛToi ■^MGici.
surprisingly, considering De victu is a treatise on dietetics - food and diet: De victu I, 36 Пер! ^ev ouv 9povi^ou Kai aqipovoc "Л ouyKpnciC afrrn aixin eoxiv <...>Kai fluvaxai. ¿к x^c Sialxnc Kai fte^xirnv Kai ye.ipov y(.vea6ai..
Other qualities however, such as character traits, depend not on the status of the fire/water mixture, but rather on the state of the channels, through which psyche travels inside the body20. These channels or poroi may be obstructed by bodily secretions caused by diet and exercise, and this blockage in turn affects the movements of psyche. The authors never identifies these channels with any specific organs or cavities, but I think Huffmeier (1961: 71) was right in assuming, that they need not correspond to anything particular - the author is notoriously vague in their anatomical descriptions - but are most likely blood vessels and air passages.
Apart from being responsible for intellectual and other mental functions, psyche also clearly plays a crucial role in reproduction, in fact an embryo is formed, when two psychai are mixed together (cf. De victu I, 29-28).
This is a surprising statement considering the fact that in several passages the author suggests psyche enters the organism from without, quite possibly with breath, otherwise I do not understand the remark in De victu I, 25: ¿cepnei ¿c anav Zroov, о xi пер
avanvei (the soul...slips into every animal, that breathes)21.
I believe this paradox can only be explained if we consider it this way: psyche is a fire/water mixture, which is already present in the embryo, but when the organism is fully formed and starts
20 Cf. De victu ibid. oiov o^tiOupoc, paOupoq, So^ioc, an^ou^ Suapsv^c, swou^ Trov ToiotiTrov anavTrov ^ ytiaic Trov noprov Si' rov ^ yuy^ nopstisTai, amn saTV Si' OKoirov yap ayysirov anoxropsi Kai npoq ¿Kola Tiva npoaninTsi Kai OKoioic Tiai KaTapiaysTai, ToiauTa ^povsouai
21 See for instance De victu I, 25 'H Se yux^ tou avOpronou, roansp poi Kai sipnTai, atiyKpnaiv syouaa nupoc Kai uSaToc <-..■> saspnsi sc anav Zroov, 5 Ti nsp avanvsi, Kai S^ Kai sc avOpronov navTa Kai vsroTspov Kai npsaPtiTspov. For the connection of psyche with outside air see for example De victu II, 38 Ta S' a^a Trov nvsupaTrov OKoaa nvsi ano Trov nposipnpsvrov, ro^s^si, tov ts ^spa KaOapov Kai s&iKpivsa napsxovTa Kai Tro T^c yux^c Osppro iKpaSa SiSovTa. Winds provide moisture to the soul's heat. However at the same time in one passage in book III, ch. 62 the author rather surprisingly talks about atip^uTov Osppov, by which he means 'inborn heat' presumably of the soul. On the first glance this may seem paradoxical: does psyche come in from the outside or is it atip^uTov? I would suggest, that it is probably both.
breathing, it is as it were replenished by the macrocosmic fire/water mixture, that is - air.
Armed with this knowledge we can finally answer the question we asked at the beginning of this chapter: why are air-passages called ways of aisthesis? I think this is because psyche, which, as we have established, is the actual agent of perception, enters the organism through them.
III. Is there a center of cognition in De victu?
In chapter 10 of the first book the author describes the formation of the body by a special kind of fire, akin to the Stoic creative fire, or nùp T£%vix6v. Now, according to De victu the organism is constructed by this fire in imitation of the cosmos: the belly corresponds to the sea, the flesh to earth etc. There are also three concentric circuits, or periodoi - one closer to the stomach, another closer to the outer periphery, and a third one in the middle, - which correspond to the moon, stars and sun respectively:
De victu I, 10 'Evi Sè navxa SieKoo^oaTo rata Tp6nov aÙTÔ érouTrô Ta év tô oro^aTi to nùp, àno^l^noiv toù ô^ou, p,Kpa npôç ^eya^a Kai ^eya^a npôç ^iKpa- Koi^l^v ^èv T^v ^eyloT^v, ûSaTi ^nPÔ Kai ùyprô Ta^eîov, Soùvai nàoi Kai ^apeîv napa navTrov, Ba^aoonç Suva^iv, Çrorov ou^6prov Tpo^ôv, àou^96prov Sè 90op6v- nepi Sè TauTnv ûSaToç yu%poù Kai ùypoù ouoTaoiv Sié^oSov nveu^aToç yu%poù Kai 0ep^où- àno^l^noiv rrçç y^ç, Ta éneioninTovTa navTa à^oiouonç. Kai Ta <^èv> ava^loKov Ta Sè au^ov oKéSaoïv ûSaToç ^enToù Kai nupôç énoi^oaTo ^eplou, à^avéoç Kai ^avepoù, ànô toù ^uveornK6Toç àn6Kpioiv, év ro 9ep6^eva navTa éç tô ^avepôv à^iKveÎTai eKaoTa ^olp^ nenpro^év^. 'Ev Sè toutm énoi^oaTo <tô> nùp* nepi6Souç Tpiooaç, nepaivouoaç npôç à^^aç Kai e'ioro Kai e^ro- ai ^èv npôç Ta KoUa tôv ùyprôv, oe^^vnç Suva^iv, ai Sè [npôç T^v e^ro nepi^op-rçv]** npôç tôv nepié%ovTa nayov, aoTprov Suva^iv, ai Sè ^éoai Kai e'ioro Kai e^ro nepaivouoai <rçMou Suva^iv £%ouoi>***. Tô 0ep^6TaTov Kai io%up6TaTov nùp, ônep navTrov KpaTeî, Siénov anavTa KaTa ^uoiv, a0iKTov Kai ôyei Kai yauoei, év toutm voùç, 9p6vnoiç,
aû^noiç, KÎvnoiç, ^elrooiç, Sia^a^iç, ûnvoç, éyp^yopoiç- toùto navTa Sia navTÔç KuPepvà, Kai TaSe Kai éKeîva, oùSéKoTe àTpe^lÇov.
*<tô> nùp Joly; nup6ç M, 0, Littré; igni P. ** [npôç T^v e^ro nepi^op^v] secl. Fredrich *** <rçMou Suva^iv £%ouoi> add. Joly; npôç Taç ¿Tépaç ^Mou Suva^iv Diels-Kranz. Cf. De victu IV, 89
aoTprov ^ev ouv ^ e^ro neploSog ^(ou Se ^ ^eo^, oeA/qvq^ Se ^
npo^ Ta Koi^a.
The passage ends with a description of what the author calls 'the hottest and strongest fire', where votig ^pov^oi^ are placed,
which is very strange, since psyche in De victu is generally described as a fire and water mixture. So why is it, that in this passage it seems to be associated exclusively with fire?
To explain this seeming discrepancy we need to take a closer look at this 'hottest and strongest fire'. Joly takes it to be identical with the fire that organizes the body. I believe however, that the superlative 0ep^oTaTov Kai io%upoTaTov clearly indicates, that this fire is associated with the three circuits (nepioSoi) in the body. In fact, both our manuscripts M and 0 read: 'Ev Se TouTro (in the cavity above the stomach) enoi^oaTo [scil. to nup] nupo^ nepioSou^ Tpiooag nepaivouoa^ npo^ Kai e'ioro Kai e^ro ktL (Here it
[i.e. the fire] has created three concentric circuits of fire). While the Latin translation, preserved in the Xth century manuscript P, reads 'igni', possibly to avoid the form 'ignis' because of its ambiguity: it may be taken either as the Nominative or the Genitive case, while 'igni' is to be understood as a Dativus commodi, i.e. 'for the fire', which roughly gives the same sense: 'the fire has created three circuits for the fire'.
Now Littre keeps the MS reading nupo^ nepioSoug while Jones and Joly are unable to find any sense in the transmitted phrase 'fire has created three circuits of fire', and accordingly emend nupo^ to nup, i.e. 'the fire has created 3 circuits of unspecified nature'. The text however is perfectly intelligible without emendation: this three nepioSoi in fact correspond on the macrocosmic level to the sun, moon and stars - all forms of cosmic fire - of which 'the hottest and strongest' one is of course the fire of the sun. Thus, I believe, psyche is associated with this strongest fire and also with the central nepioSog that is with the chest region22, but this still does not explain its connection with this central fire.
Yet if we take into account, that it is the fiery part of psyche, which is associated with intelligence and perception in De victu, then it becomes much clearer, how and why soul along with vou^ and 9pov^oi^ are located in the fire.
22 Strictly speaking, the central circuit (psan nspioSoq) is not identified with the sun expressis verbis. The text however is clearly corrupted in this place and has been emended both by Diels and Joly. The identification of the central circuit with the sun is confirmed by De victu IV, 89 Kai aaTprov psv ouv ^ s^ro nspioSoq, ^Mou Se ^ psan, as^qvnc Se ^ npoq Ta Koila.
In fact it is not uncommon for pneumatic doctrines to associate higher intellectual and regulatory functions with some higher, purer form of the pneumatic substance; De morbo sacro23 and the later Hippocratic treatise De corde both provide excellent parallels24. This higher form of pneuma is concentrated in a specific place in the body, usually the heart (like in De corde) or the brain (in De morbo).
I believe that De victu also follows exactly this pattern: the higher functions (intellectual - vofi^ and ^pov^oi^, motor- and broadly speaking regulatory - unvo^, eyp^yopoi^) are located in this special kind of fire - the author calls it 'hottest and strongest fire, inaccessible to touch or sight', - which is placed in the central circuit of the heart, which in turn correspond to the macrocosmic sun. I would assume that the rest of the fire-water mixture, that is psyche, is spread within the body, moving from its periphery to the this central fire, located in the chest/heart region, or ^eoai nepioSoi; this means that this 'middle circuit' is the 'command centre' of De victu's pneumatic system.
IV. The origins of De victu's pneumaism. Some preliminary remarks.
Now let us recapitulate our observations about De victu's psychology: 1) psyche is a material substance, a mixture of fire and water 2) it enters the organism with breath and generally is connected with macrocosmic air 3) it is also the main 'organ' of perception and locomotion 4) its fiery part is associated with higher intellectual functions and is concentrated in the 'middle circuit' in the chest region, which on the macrocosmic level corresponds to the heart 4) it moves within the body through 'channels' (nopoi) 5) and plays a crucial role in reproduction.
The most important question now is: where does De victus' doctrine come from? Can this version of pneumatism be traced back to any specific thinker or thinkers?
I would cautiously suggest, that the source or at least one of the sources of De victus' psychology is none other than Heraclitus.
23According to De morbo I, 17 inhaled air first reaches the brain, where it leaves its &Kp,-q: oK6xav yap onao^ xo nvsupa rovOpronoq sq srouxov, sq xov syKE^a^ov nproxov a^iKvssxav, Kai ouxroq sq xo ^ovnov oropa oKiSvaxav o a^p, Kaxa^vnrov sv xro syKs^a^ro srouxou x^v aKp,^v Kai o xv av s^ q)povip,6v xs Kai yvro^^v sxov.
4 In the admittedly much later De corde I, 10 intelligence (yvro^n) is located in the left ventricle, from where it rules the 'other soul': yvro^n Yap q xou avOpronou tcs^uksv sv xfl ^avn Kov^vn, Kai apxsv x^q a^nq V^x^q.
An overwhelming majority of both Heraclitean and Hippocratic scholars agree that there is a clear Heraclitean influence in the first 'philosophical' chapters of De victu, but there is still much debate about the extent of this influence, especially on the dualistic firewater cosmology in chapter 3 25. I myself firmly believe that it demonstrably goes back to Heraclitus, but even if this is true and I am right about De victu's cosmology, this does not necessary mean that the same goes for its Seelenlehre.
However I would suggest that in the few chapters dedicated to psyche there are parallels between De victu and Heraclitean doxography and fragments, which point to Heraclitus as a likely source. We shall presently focus on only the most important parallels.
Firstly, the notion of the soul as a mixture of fire and water, which can become more fiery or more watery due to factors such as diet, is even on superficial inspection very similar to what Heraclitus himself said about the soul's capacity of becoming wet (from alcohol consumption) or dry (DK 117).
Secondly, just as we have seen in De victu Heraclitus clearly associates dryness with intelligence26.
Finally, as we have established in De victu the fiery part of the soul is concentrated in the chest region, or middle circuit, which is identified with the macrocosmic sun. And there is a doxographic report of clearly Stoic origin, according to which Heraclitus had a cardiocentric pneumatic system; drew a parallel between the heart as the microcosmic- and the sun as the macrocosmic hegemonikon; and placed the sun in the centre of the cosmos27. This account is partially supported by the Peripatetic doxographic tradition, which also puts
25 See for example Joly in: Joly-Byl 2003, who although he tends to minimize Heraclitean influence gives an adequate summary of different views on this matter.
26 As for the soul being the actual 'organ' of perception as well as the carrier of moral qualities, in 107 DK Heraclitus arguably suggests something similar, when he says: каког p,âpxupsç àvOpranoiaiv офба^рог каг юта ßapßapouq yuxàç syovTrav. The sensory organs are 'bad witnesses' because it is the soul that receives and interprets sensory data.
27 Cf. Hisdosus Scholasticus (Chalcid. Plat. Tim. cod. Paris. l. 8624 s. XII f. 2) alii autem dicunt quod mundi medietas est sol, quem cor totius mundi esse volunt. Quemadmodum enim inquiunt anima hominis sedem et domicilium in corde habet unda per membra corporis vires suas spargens <...> ita vitalis calor a sole procedens omnibus quae vivunt vitam sub-ministrat. cui sententiae Heraclitus adquiescens optimam similitudinem dat de aranea ad animam, de tela araneae ad corpus.
the Heraclitean sun in the centre of the cosmos and calls it a receptacle for anathymiasis.
Now, although it is unclear whether the term itself is authentic, anathymiasis (exhalation) is a crucially important concept in Heraclitus. According to the Peripatetic doxography he believed, that evaporation is a process, which happens on the microcosmic- as well as on the macrocosmic level28. Macrocosmic exhalation29 causes the change of day and night and the change of seasons, the mechanism seems to be that it rises up from the waters and is then concentrated and ignited in the sun.
The microcosmic exhalation, on the other hand, is none other than - psyche. As we know from Heraclitus own words the soul is the carrier of intellectual and moral qualities, it is also material, and like the macrocosmic anathymiasis, it is an exhalation from the bodily liquids.
Thus, since anathymiasis is, as it were, a micro-macrocosmic concept, it can easily be inferred, that the receptacle of this exhalations - the sun, also had a microcosmic correlate, i. e. the heart (at least according to the above mentioned Stoic doxography).
It is obvious that the adduced parallels between Heraclitus and De victu appear superficial. And they must be, because a thorough comparison between De victu's concept of psyche and Heraclitus' psychology would require a complete reconstruction of the latter from the extant fragmentary doxographic evidence30 . Such a reconstruction must necessarily be attempted for its own sake and for the sake of writing a full history of pneumatism, however our purpose here is much more modest; we have attempted to
28 See ps.-Arist. Problem. 908 a 30 roonsp xvvsq xrov qpaK^smipvxrov q)aoiv 5xv avaOupvaxav, roonsp sv xro Kai sv xro oropaxv.
9 Or were there two exhalations? Diogenes Laertius' report, which clearly goes back to Theophrastus, indicates, that Heraclitus spoke not of one but of two exhalations: bright and dark (D. L. 9. 9 yivsoOav Ss avaOupvaosvq an6 xs yqq Kai Oa^axxnq, aq psv ^apnpaq Kai KaOapaq, aq Ss oKoxsvvaq). This question (were there two or just one exhalation) is still debated among scholars, but we cannot discuss it here at length, nor do we need to in this preliminary observations.
0 For example, we haven't considered some very intriguing parallels between the notion of sensory channels in De victu and Sextus Empiricus' report about Heraclitus' notion of psyche, which, as he says, 'peeks through' of our sensory organs as if 'through windows'. Also De victu's peculiar pneumatic theory of sleep needs to be compared to Heraclitus' own fragments dealing with the matter (and it certainly does not help that both 26 DK and 21 DK are probably corrupt) as well as with extant doxography.
demonstrate only, that De victu has a pneumatic concept of psyche and that this pneumatism is of the cardiocentric type. This observation, if it is correct, does have some important philosophical consequences. Firstly this means that the tradition of cardiocentric pneumatism emerged at least simultaneously with Diogenes' cephalocentrism; or - if our hypothesis about Heraclitean influences in De victu is correct - even earlier. Secondly, this means, that probably somewhere towards the end the Vth century BCE this complex type of pneumatism, just like Diogenes' more straightforward version, was adopted by Hippocratic doctors, and the two pneumatic traditions were further spread through their influence.
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E. Sherbakova. The Psychology of the Pseudo-Hippocratic Treatise De Victu. An Episode in the Early History of Greek Pneumatism
In my article I examine the concept of psyche in the pseudo-Hippo-cratic treatise On Regimen (De victu). I have attempted to demonstrate, that, contrary to what most scholars believe, this treatise espouses not a dualistic but a pneumatic view of the soul, since it has all the attributes, peculiar to pneumatism of the cardiocentric type, i.e. it postulates a gaseous substance inside the body, which is responsible for all its sensory and motor functions, and posits the centre of cognition, a place where this substance is concentrated, in the heart.
Key words: Pseudo-Hippocrates, De victu, pneuma, Diogenes of Apollonia, Cardiocentrism, Cephalocentrism.
