Crateuas (111–64 ), also known as Cratevas (

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...

), Krateuas, or Kratevas ( grc-gre, Κρατεύας), was 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 ...

doctor Doctor or The Doctor may refer to: Personal titles * Doctor (title), the holder of an accredited academic degree * A medical practitioner, including: ** Physician ** Surgeon ** Dentist ** Veterinary physician ** Optometrist *Other roles ** ...

and

pharmacologist Pharmacology is a branch of medicine, biology and pharmaceutical sciences concerned with drug or medication action, where a drug may be defined as any artificial, natural, or endogenous (from within the body) molecule which exerts a biochemic ...

. He was distinguished from others of the same name by the

epithet An epithet (, ), also byname, is a descriptive term (word or phrase) known for accompanying or occurring in place of a name and having entered common usage. It has various shades of meaning when applied to seemingly real or fictitious people, di ...

"Rootpicker" or "Rhizotomist" (, ''ho rhizotómos'') after the Greek name of his principle work, the ''Herbology''.

Life

Little is known of Crateuas's life. Although he is often closely linked with

Mithridates VI Mithridates or Mithradates VI Eupator ( grc-gre, Μιθραδάτης; 135–63 BC) was ruler of the Kingdom of Pontus in northern Anatolia from 120 to 63 BC, and one of the Roman Republic's most formidable and determined opponents. He was an e ...

of Pontus in various histories, surviving sources from antiquity only attest that they were in correspondence with one another and that Crateuas credited the Pontic king with the discovery of a plant named ''mithridation'' in his honour. The exact plant described remains unknown, although some scholars have connected it to ''Dorstenia tambourissa'' or ''Erythronium denscanis''.

Works

Crateuas is known to have written a scholarly three-volume herbal in Greek known as the ''Rhizotomica'' (, ''Rhizotomoúmena''). In it, he described the medicinal properties of various plants known to the Greeks. He also produced a simplified work on the same subject for general readers, with the plants

alphabetized Alphabetical order is a system whereby character strings are placed in order based on the position of the characters in the conventional ordering of an alphabet. It is one of the methods of collation. In mathematics, a lexicographical order is t ...

and illustrated in colour.

Pliny the Elder Gaius Plinius Secundus (AD 23/2479), called Pliny the Elder (), was a Roman author, naturalist and natural philosopher, and naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and a friend of the emperor Vespasian. He wrote the encyclopedic ' ...

credits Crateuas with Dionysius and Metrodorus as the first to provide such illustrations with their descriptions of various plants, although he complains that the images he knew of were frequently misleading. Only two direct fragments of these works are known to have survived into the present day. Luigi Anguillara claimed to have consulted a complete illustrated manuscript of Crateuas's guide in

Istanbul ) , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = 34000 to 34990 , area_code = +90 212 (European side) +90 216 (Asian side) , registration_plate = 34 , blank_name_sec2 = GeoTLD , blank_i ...

for his 1561 ''Semplici'', although Max Wellmann subsequently established that Anguillara's source must have been a Latin version of Dioscurides's ''De Materia Medica''. The ''Rhizotomica'' was well regarded in its time, however, and was one of the main sources for Dioscurides's work, which was the primary herbology for Europe during the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...

. The early 6th century "

Vienna Dioscurides The Vienna Dioscurides or Vienna Dioscorides is an early 6th-century Byzantine Greek illuminated manuscript of an even earlier 1st century AD work, '' De materia medica'' (Περὶ ὕλης ἰατρικῆς : Perì hylēs iatrikēs in the ori ...

" produced for Anicia Juliana in

Constantinople la, Constantinopolis ota, قسطنطينيه , alternate_name = Byzantion (earlier Greek name), Nova Roma ("New Rome"), Miklagard/Miklagarth (Old Norse), Tsargrad ( Slavic), Qustantiniya (Arabic), Basileuousa ("Queen of Cities"), Megalopolis (" ...

includes numerous images captioned with short texts beginning with the name Crateuas. Wellmann and

Singer Singing is the act of creating musical sounds with the voice. A person who sings is called a singer, artist or vocalist (in jazz and/or popular music). Singers perform music (arias, recitatives, songs, etc.) that can be sung with or withou ...

believed these were based on now-lost manuscripts of Crateuas dating to the 2nd or 3rd century, although others have argued that it may only be the text which derives from Crateuas's work.

Legacy

Linnaeus Carl Linnaeus (; 23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after his ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné Blunt (2004), p. 171. (), was a Swedish botanist, zoologist, taxonomist, and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the ...

named a

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nom ...

Capparaceae The Capparaceae (or Capparidaceae), commonly known as the caper family, are a family of plants in the order Brassicales. As currently circumscribed, the family contains 33 genera and about 700 species. The largest genera are ''Capparis'' (about ...

caper ''Capparis spinosa'', the caper bush, also called Flinders rose, is a perennial plant that bears rounded, fleshy leaves and large white to pinkish-white flowers. The plant is best known for the edible flower buds (capers), used as a seasoning ...

s ''

Crateva ''Crateva'' is a genus of flowering plants in the caper family, Capparaceae. Species Accepted species include: * '' Crateva adansonii'' DC. * '' Crateva excelsa'' Bojer * '' Crateva greveana'' Baill. * '' Crateva humblotii'' (Baill.) Hadj-M ...

'' in memory of Crateuas.

References

Citations

Bibliography

* . (German) * . (German) * . (Latin) * . * . * . (Ancient Greek) * . * . * . * . (German) * . (German) * . * . * . (Latin) * . (Latin) * . (German) * . (German) * .

External links

The 'Vienna Dioscurides'

{{Authority control 1st-century BC Greek physicians Ancient Greek pharmacologists 2nd-century BC births 1st-century BC deaths