Rewriting of Pharmacological Treatises in Byzantium

Abstract

This chapter argues that for Byzantine scholars, rewriting pharmacological recipes served not only as a common didactic practice but also as a necessity due to scientific discoveries. The contents of treatises were reorganized: ineffective remedies were deleted, while successful ones were developed in various ways. Byzantine authors dedicated significant effort to refining these texts, stripping the language of personal comments and restricting it to what was strictly necessary to make it understandable and easy for purposes of consultation. The chapter examines the strategies used in rewriting and adapting pharmacological treatises from the early (fourth–seventh centuries) to the later (ninth–fourteenth centuries) Byzantine periods with the aim of identifying the reasons underlying the differences and the main characteristics of the intended readership.