Soranus of Ephesus

• 1. Introduction

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  Soranus of Ephesus was a Greek physician of the 1st and 2nd centuries AD, and Augustine called him "Medicinae auctor nobilissimus," a most noble authority on medicine. That is a remarkable tribute for a man whose biography fits in a few lines. He was born in Ephesus, worked in Alexandria, and later practiced in Rome. Yet his name travelled through the centuries in the writings of others. How do we know where he lived and when? Which of his books can still be read, and why do some survive only in another language? And what do the scraps of his lost works reveal about a doctor who wrote on bones, medicines, the soul and the life of Hippocrates?

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• 2. Two Cities, Two Emperors

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  The Suda, a Byzantine reference work, gives Soranus two separate entries and names his parents as Menander and Phoebe. It says he was a native of Ephesus who practiced medicine at Alexandria and then Rome. His working years fell under the emperors Trajan and Hadrian, whose reigns together span the years 98-138. Soranus belonged to the Methodic school of medicine, and he ranks among its most eminent physicians. One more journey is recorded. He spent time in Aquitania, a region where certain skin diseases were very common, and went there specifically to treat them.

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• 3. Dating a Shadowy Life

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  Archigenes, another physician, used one of Soranus's medicines, so Soranus lived at least as early as that man. A student also anchors him in the Roman world. Statilius Attalus of Heraclea, who served as physician to Marcus Aurelius, studied under Soranus. The final marker comes from Galen, whose work De Methodo Medendi dates to about 178. By then Soranus was already dead. Those clues are nearly everything the sources offer about his life. For the rest, we must turn to the books he left behind.

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• 4. The Gynaecology

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  The most celebrated survivor of his writing is the Gynaecology, a treatise in four volumes. It reached print only in 1838. A later edition by V. Rose appeared in 1882, paired with a Latin translation made in the 6th century by a writer named Muscio. Smaller pieces of his output also endure in part. These include sections of On Signs of Fractures and On Bandages. Both show a physician who wrote about practical treatment as well as women's health. His greatest work, however, did not fare as well in its original language.

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• 5. A Treatise Preserved in Latin

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  On Acute and Chronic Diseases was Soranus's most important work, yet only a few Greek fragments of it remain. The complete text survives because Caelius Aurelianus translated it into Latin in the 5th century. Without that translator, the book would be known today by little more than its title. This pattern recurs across his career. Caelius also quotes from several other Soranic books, and Soranus himself pointed to many further works that have vanished. Another surviving title shows how his reach extended beyond clinical writing.

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• 6. Hippocrates and the Spurious Text

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  The Life of Hippocrates probably belonged to a set of medical biographies by Soranus, which the Suda mentions. It matters enormously, because it is the only authority on the life of the great physician apart from the Suda itself and Stephanus of Byzantium. Stephanus covered the subject in his entry on Kos, the island of Hippocrates. Scholars treat one other title with suspicion. The Introduction to the Science of Medicine has long been considered spurious, so it cannot be counted among his genuine writings.

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• 7. Lost Books and Bold Claims

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  Galen mentions two works by Soranus on pharmacy and quotes passages from them, though the books themselves are gone. Tertullian cites a four-book work, De Anima, in which Soranus divided the soul into seven parts and denied that it was immortal. Tertullian still praised him as "Methodicae Medicinae instructissimus auctor," a thoroughly well-informed authority on Methodic medicine. His observations on disease also left a mark. Paulus Aegineta quotes him as one of the earliest Greek medical writers to describe the Guinea worm, a parasite that would draw attention from physicians long after Soranus.

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