Place et enjeux du traité Sur les éléments selon Hippocrate dans l’œuvre de Galien

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to give to the treatise On the Elements, According to Hippocrates, its proper place within the Galenic corpus in general, and then to situate it by comparison with the commentaries Galen wrote on Hippocrates, especially the one he wrote on Hippocrates’ On the Nature of Man. I then highlight the polemical dimension of On the Elements, which is devoted to one of the topics philosophers and doctors debated most hotly during the Roman period. The debate with Asclepiades, in particular, concerns a major issue, since what is at stake is nothing less than the explanation of how the world and the beings within it are formed and organised.

Keywords

• Galen
• Hippocrates
• Asclepiades of Bithynia
• four elements
• medicine
• philosophy