Title: Evaluating foodstuff properties in antiquity : a hierarchy of breads in De alimentorum Facultatibus : proposed by an ancient scientist
Source document: Graeco-Latina Brunensia. 2019, vol. 24, iss. 1, pp. 41-59
Extent
41-59
-
ISSN1803-7402 (print)2336-4424 (online)
Persistent identifier (DOI): https://doi.org/10.5817/GLB2019-1-4
Stable URL (handle): https://hdl.handle.net/11222.digilib/141158
Type: Article
Language
License: CC BY-SA 4.0 International
Notice: These citations are automatically created and might not follow citation rules properly.
Abstract(s)
When approaching the nature of things, Galen of Pergamon tends to use an analytic process based on the relation between different elements interacting in a particular system. With respect to ancient eating habits and health, this way of collecting information and formulating hypotheses has some potential for generating hierarchies and is attested to in De alimentorum facultatibus I, in which foodstuffs are evaluated considering the particular result expected for a subject's metabolism. This paper aims to describe the manner in which a hierarchical construction is made in respect to the qualities of bread. In order to understand how such a method serves Galen's science, it offers a systematization of his commentaries and notes on different kinds of bread and their nutritional properties in the equation: human body condition + (cereal + type of processing) = body reaction.
Note
The research for this paper was supported by fellowship SFRH/BD/93806/2013 from Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia.
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[9] Garnsey, P. (1988). Famine and Food Supply in the Graeco-Roman World: Responses to Risk and Crisis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
[10] Grant, M. (2000). Galen: on food and diet. London: Routledge.
[11] Henderson, J. (Ed.). (1934). Cato and Varro: On agriculture (transl. W. D. Hooper; rev. H. B. Ash; Loeb Classical Library, 283). London: Harvard University Press.
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[13] Jouanna, J. (2012). Dietetics in Hippocratic Medicine: Definition, Main Problems, Discussion. In P. van der Eijk (Ed.), Greek Medicine from Hippocrates to Galen. Leiden: Brill.
[14] JSTOR Global Plants. JSTOR, ITHAKA (2000‒2019) [retrieved 06.08.2017 from http://plants.jstor.org/].
[15] Kessler, D., & Temin, P. (2007). The grain trade in the Early Roman Empire. Economic History Review, 60(2), 313–332. | DOI 10.1111/j.1468-0289.2006.00360.x
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[29] Temin, P. (2013). Roman Market Economy. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
[30] Thurmond, D. L. (2006). A handbook of food processing in Classical Rome. For her bounty no winter. Leiden: Brill.
[31] Whitmarsh, T. (2005). The second sophistic. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
[32] Wilkins, J. (2002). The Contribution of Galen, De Subtiliante Diaeta (On the Thinning Diet). Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies, Supplement, 77, 47–55. | DOI 10.1111/j.2041-5370.2002.tb02278.x
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