Nicander
{{Short description|2nd century BC Greek scientist and poet}}
{{otheruses|Nicander (name)}}
Nicander of Colophon ({{langx|grc|Νίκανδρος ὁ Κολοφώνιος|Níkandros ho Kolophṓnios}}; fl. 2nd century BC) was a Greek poet, physician, and grammarian.
The scattered biographical details in the ancient sources are so contradictory that it was sometimes assumed that there were two Hellenistic authors with the same name.{{sfn|Malomud|2024|pp=5-7}} He may have been born at Claros (Ahmetbeyli in modern Turkey), near Colophon, where his family is said to have held the hereditary priesthood of Apollo. The chronological indications range from the middle of the 3rd century BC until the late 2nd century BC.{{sfn|Malomud|2024|p=6}}
He wrote a number of works both in prose and verse, of which two survive complete. The longest, Theriaca, is a hexameter poem (958 lines) on the nature of venomous animals and the wounds which they inflict. The other, Alexipharmaca, consists of 630 hexameters treating of poisons and their antidotes.{{EB1911 |wstitle=Nicander |volume=19 |page=642 |inline=1}} Nicander's main source for medical information was the physician Apollodorus of Egypt.{{efn |Apollodorus, physician to a Ptolemy, was "likely enough" the same man as Apollodorus of Alexandria.{{cite book |last=Dalby |first=Andrew |authorlink=Andrew Dalby |title=Food in the Ancient World from A to Z |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KdR4jRJCxEsC&pg=PA18 |year=2013 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-135-95422-2 |page=18}}}} Among his lost works, Heteroeumena was a mythological epic, used by Ovid in the Metamorphoses and epitomized by Antoninus Liberalis; Georgica, of which considerable fragments survive, was perhaps imitated by Virgil.Quintilian 10.1.56; but this may simply mean that Virgil, like Nicander, wrote a poem on farming.
The works of Nicander were praised by Cicero (De oratore, i. 16), imitated by Ovid and Lucan, and frequently quoted by Pliny and other writers (e.g., Tertullian in De Scorpiace, I, 1).
List of works
= Surviving poems =
= Lost poems =
- Cimmerii
- Europia
- Georgica ("Farming")
- Heteroeumena ("Metamorphoses")
- Hyacinthus
- Hymnus ad Attalum ("Hymn to Attalus"){{Cite journal|last=Nelson|first=Thomas J.|title=Nicander's Hymn to Attalus: Pergamene Panegyric|date=December 2020|url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/cambridge-classical-journal/article/nicanders-hymn-to-attalus-pergamene-panegyric/7CEF27AAE606FBE5A3814275866A88D5|journal=The Cambridge Classical Journal|language=en|volume=66|pages=182–202|doi=10.1017/S1750270519000083|s2cid=211927577|issn=1750-2705}}
- Melissourgica ("Beekeeping")
- Oetaica
- Ophiaca
- Sicelia
- Thebaica
= Lost prose works =
- Aetolica ("History of Aetolia")
- Colophoniaca ("History of Colophon")
- De Poetis Colophoniis ("On poets from Colophon")
- Glossae ("Difficult words")
Notes
{{Notelist}}
References
{{Reflist}}
Bibliography
- Nicander ed. and tr. A. S. F. Gow, A. F. Scholfield. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1953.
- Earlier editions by JG Schneider (1792, 1816); O. Schneider (1856) (with the Scholia).
- The Scholia (from the Göttingen manuscript) were edited by {{Citation |editor=G. Wentzel |title=Abhandlungen der Königlichen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften in Göttingen |chapter=Die Göttinger Scholien zu Nikanders Alexipharmaka |volume=48 |publisher=Göttingen der dieterichschen Buchhandlung |year=1892 |chapter-url=http://gdz.sub.uni-goettingen.de/dms/load/img/?PPN=PPN250442582_0038&DMDID=DMDLOG_0009 |pages=131–226 |url=http://resolver.sub.uni-goettingen.de/purl?PPN250442582_0038 |lang=de}}
- {{cite book |last=Malomud |first=Anna |date=2024 |lang=de |title=Der geographische Raum in den Werken des Nikander von Kolophon |trans-title=Geographical space in the works of Nicander of Colophon|publisher=Mohr Siebeck| location=Tübingen|isbn=978-3-16-162619-7|url=https://doi.org/10.1628/978-3-16-164024-7}}
- H. Klauser, "De Dicendi Genere Nicandri" (Dissertationes Philologicae Vindobonenses, vi. 1898).
- {{Citation |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/cambridge-classical-journal/article/nicanders-hymn-to-attalus-pergamene-panegyric/7CEF27AAE606FBE5A3814275866A88D5/share/04fe9dc20269c04097e8e8154d600eee92aa35a1 |last=Nelson |first=Thomas J. |year=2020 |title=Nicander's Hymn to Attalus: Pergamene Panegyric' |journal=Cambridge Classical Journal |volume=66 |pages=182–202 |doi=10.1017/S1750270519000083|s2cid=211927577 }}
- W. Vollgraff, Nikander und Ovid (Groningen, 1909 ff.).
External links
{{commons category}}
- [http://www.attalus.org/poetry/lives.html#nicander0 An ancient Life of Nicander, from the scholia]
- [https://books.google.com/books?id=Lq1fAAAAMAAJ Theriaca et Alexipharmaca] recensuit et emendavit, fragmenta collegit, commentationes addidit Otto Schneider. Accedunt scholia in Theriaca ex recensione Henrici Keil., scholia in Alexipharmaca ex recognitione Bussemakeri et R. Bentlei emedationes, Lipsiae sumptibus et typis B. G. Teubneri, 1856.
- Poetae bucolici et didactici. Theocritus, Bion, Moschus, Nicander, Oppianus, Marcellus de piscibus, poeta de herbis, C. Fr. Ameis, F. S. Lehrs (ed.), Parisiis, editore Ambrosio Firmin Didot, 1862, [https://archive.org/details/poetaebucoliciet00amei pp. 127-163].
- English translations of [http://attalus.org/poetry/theriaca.html Theriaca] and [http://attalus.org/poetry/nicander.html Alexipharmaca].
:Scholia
- {{cite book |title=Scholia in Theocritum |chapter=Scholia et paraphrases in Nicandrum et Oppianum |first=Friedrich |last=Dübner |editor=U. Cats Bussemaker |location=Parisiis |publisher=Ambrosio Firmin Didot |year=1849 |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/scholiaintheocri00buss/page/170/mode/2up |pages=173–242 |lang=el}}
{{Authority control}}
Category:2nd-century BC Greek physicians
Category:2nd-century BC Greek poets
Category:2nd-century BC Greek historians
Category:Ancient Greek epic poets
Category:Ancient Greek grammarians
Category:Ancient Greek priests
Category:Historians from Hellenistic Anatolia