Andromachus ( el, Ἀνδρόμαχος; 1st century) was the name of two

Greek physicians Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

, father and son, who lived in the time of

Nero Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus ( ; born Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus; 15 December AD 37 – 9 June AD 68), was the fifth Roman emperor and final emperor of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, reigning from AD 54 un ...

. *Andromachus the Elder, was born in

Crete Crete ( el, Κρήτη, translit=, Modern: , Ancient: ) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the 88th largest island in the world and the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after Sicily, Sardinia, Cyprus, and ...

, and was physician to

, 54-68 AD. He is principally celebrated for having been the first person on whom the title of "

Archiater An archiater ( grc, ἀρχίατρος) was a chief physician of a monarch, who typically retained several. At the Roman imperial court, their chief held the high rank and specific title of '' Comes archiatrorum''. The term has also been used of c ...

" is known to have been conferred, and also for having been the inventor of a very famous compound medicine and antidote, which was called after his name '' Theriaca Andromachi'', which long enjoyed a great reputation. Andromachus has left us the directions for making this strange mixture in a

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

elegiac The adjective ''elegiac'' has two possible meanings. First, it can refer to something of, relating to, or involving, an elegy or something that expresses similar mournfulness or sorrow. Second, it can refer more specifically to poetry composed in ...

poem, consisting of 174 lines, and dedicated to Nero.

Galen Aelius Galenus or Claudius Galenus ( el, Κλαύδιος Γαληνός; September 129 – c. AD 216), often Anglicized as Galen () or Galen of Pergamon, was a Greek physician, surgeon and philosopher in the Roman Empire. Considered to be one of ...

has inserted it in two of his works, and says that Andromachus chose this form as being more easily remembered than prose, and less likely to be altered. Saladino d'Ascoli, a 15th-century Italian physician, insists that indeed Andromachus, and not Galen (as asserted in the ''

Antidotarium Nicolai The ''Antidotarium Nicolai'', also known as the ''Antidotarium parvum'' or small antidotarium, was a late 11th or early 12th-century Latin book with about 150 recipes for the creation of medicines from plants and minerals. It was written in the cir ...

'' ) was the creator of this theriac. Some persons suppose him to be the author of a work on

pharmacy Pharmacy is the science and practice of discovering, producing, preparing, dispensing, reviewing and monitoring medications, aiming to ensure the safe, effective, and affordable use of medicines. It is a miscellaneous science as it links heal ...

, but this is generally attributed to his son, Andromachus the Younger. *Andromachus the Younger, the son of Andromachus the Elder, may also have been an imperial physician. Nothing is known of the events of his life, but he is generally supposed to have been the author of a work on

in three books,Galen, ''De Compos. Medicam. sec. Gen.'' ii. 1. vol. xiii. p. 463 which is quoted very frequently and with approbation by Galen, but of which only a few fragments remain.

References

Sources

*Vivian Nutton, (2004), ''Ancient Medicine'', pages 177–8. Routledge * 1st-century Greek physicians 1st-century Roman physicians {{Ancient Roman medicine