Le Epistole pseudo-ippocratiche come esercizio letterario tra medicina, filosofia e paradossografia

Abstract

The pseudo-Hippocratic Epistles constitute a lesser-known example of ancient epistolary fiction. They could have been added to the Hippocratic corpus from the I century CE: needless to say, in this period there was a philosophical and rhetorical fervour whose traces are visible in these letters, which are characterised by several literary components. At the same time, these texts have been influenced by medical theories of that time, for example those concerning dissection, melancholy, or hellebore. Based on the classification proposed by Smith, this paper intends to examine the pseudo-Hippocratic Epistles from a twofold attempt: on the one side discussing the lexical issues and medical elements; on the other side examining Epistles 10-17 as a case study, with remarks on lexicon as well as the ties with paradoxography.