On Medicine

28; 221, 29; 229, 2; 231, 28; 234, 13, 36; 236, 23, 31; 246, 37; 251, 12; 258, 18. — see, moreover, the Index of Greek words), so that, excluding a few places that are fairly easily circumscribed, that Latin habit can be preserved. Indeed, there are others which the context of the speech itself orders to be written in Greek letters.

However, this question recalls to my mind another more general one, by which it must be inquired to what extent Celsus varied his Latin speech with Greek words. It is certainly established, as the learned Des Étangs rightly noted in his Introduction, with all learned men agreeing, that in the age of Celsus, medicine in Rome was nearly entirely dependent on Greek physicians, whether they were free or slaves. It is likewise established that Celsus, in his work, wished to free medicine from foreign servitude and educate the Romans in this very discipline; for our treatise is entirely of such a nature that it can hardly be sold as a mere exercise in good speaking or the fruit of scholarly leisure. Celsus was undoubtedly forced to draw from Greek books both the medical discipline itself and very many locutions regarding the art of healing, to which no words of the Latin language corresponded. But he sought Latin readers, not Greek ones. He wanted to adapt the speech of the Quirites Roman citizens to Greek science; nor did the vernacular speech lack quite a few locutions and periphrases of words regarding the healing art, which had long since been received into usage, which, of course, either some indigenous plebeian medicine or constant commerce with the learned art of the Greeks had introduced. And there is no doubt that Celsus eagerly adopted these expressions or locutions, as often as they accurately represented either the things themselves or his own thoughts about these things. It is therefore not to be wondered that Celsus not infrequently spoke in Greek; yet you must beware of believing that he resorted to the Greek language either rashly or more often than the logic of the facts themselves demanded. Nor is it to be thought, if you surely trust the manuscript codices, that he occasionally did not know the genuine Greek expressions; furthermore, it is wonderful that Greek words are desired where they are most expected: for example, where the matter of calvariae suturis cranial sutures is discussed (VIII, 1), and in that place where those words are read (p. 264, 16): The ancients used to call this a tunic; for it is certain that Celsus had the Greeks, not the Romans, in mind.