The Cosmology of ‘Hippocrates’, De Hebdomadibus

Abstract

Several of the treatises and lectures that make up the Hippocratic corpus begin with more or less extended statements about the physical composition and operation of the world at large, and approach the study of human physiology from this angle. We see this, for example, in De Natwra Hominis, De Flatibus, De Carnibus, De Victu; it was the approach of Alcmaeon of Croton, Diogenes of Apollonia, and according to Plato (Phaedr. 270 c) of Hippocrates himself.The work known as De Hebdomadibus would appear to be a prime example of the type. The first twelve chapters are cosmological. They are dominated by two ideas: that everything in nature is arranged in groups of seven, and that the human body is constructed on the same pattern as the whole world. In the later part of the book (13–52) we pass to the subject of fevers, their causation and treatment. But as Roscher observed, the cosmology and the pathology do not belong together.

Evolving views of Ageing and Longevity from Homer to Hippocrates: Emergence of Natural Factors, Persistence of the Supernatural

“…28 Solon's hebdomadic metric of life history became widely used, for example in the Hippocratic De Hebdomadibus and many other texts. 29 Seven also appears in the Pythagorean School system of mystic numbers, which had major infl uence from the fi fth century. 30 However, I have not found indications that numbers given to life span were associated with the Pythagoreans.…”

Hippocratic Holisms

“…Jouanna 1999, andCraik 2015), there is less agreement on the dating of On Sevens. Earlier commentators and editors of the text suggested dating between the sixth century (Roscher 1913, Lommer 1938) and the first half of the fourth century bce (West 1971), while Mansfeld (1971) argues for the first century ce and Jouanna (1999, 412-13) suggests that 'the rare passages preserved in Greek do not justify assigning an early date and associating it with the ancient core of the Hippocratic Collection.' Nonetheless, 'there is nothing to rule out a date in the fifth century BCE' (Craik 2015, 128).…”