Salpe was an ancient Greek

midwife A midwife is a health professional who cares for mothers and newborns around childbirth, a specialization known as midwifery. The education and training for a midwife concentrates extensively on the care of women throughout their lifespan; co ...

cited by

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 '' ...

, and a writer of a work called the ''Paignia'' mentioned in

Athenaeus Athenaeus of Naucratis (; grc, Ἀθήναιος ὁ Nαυκρατίτης or Nαυκράτιος, ''Athēnaios Naukratitēs'' or ''Naukratios''; la, Athenaeus Naucratita) was a Greek rhetorician and grammarian, flourishing about the end of th ...

' ''

Deipnosophistae The ''Deipnosophistae'' is an early 3rd-century AD Greek work ( grc, Δειπνοσοφισταί, ''Deipnosophistaí'', lit. "The Dinner Sophists/Philosophers/Experts") by the Greek author Athenaeus of Naucratis. It is a long work of liter ...

''. It is not certain whether the Salpe mentioned by Pliny and the Salpe mentioned by Athenaeus were different people.

Pliny

Pliny cites Salpe six times in his '' Natural History''. She is described by him as an ''obstetrix'', though he ascribes general remedies to her, not simply those concerned with women's health. Her remedies only survive in Pliny's references to them, not in her own words. She uses both herbal and magical remedies to cure a variety of ailments including sunburn, stiff or numbed limbs, and dog bites.

Athenaeus

In the ''

'',

mentions a Salpe as the writer of ''Paignia''. He cites Nymphodorus of Syracuse, probably writing in the third century BC, as claiming that Salpe, the writer of the ''Paignia'', was not a nickname for a Mnaseas, but was a woman from Lesbos. The ''Paignia'' is generally considered to have been a work of pornographic or erotic literature. Athenaeus associates the work with Botrys of Messana, a fifth-century author described as a "shameful writer" by

Timaeus Timaeus (or Timaios) is a Greek name. It may refer to: * ''Timaeus'' (dialogue), a Socratic dialogue by Plato *Timaeus of Locri, 5th-century BC Pythagorean philosopher, appearing in Plato's dialogue *Timaeus (historian) (c. 345 BC-c. 250 BC), Greek ...

. Botrys' work was apparently similar to the pornographic sex-manual attributed to Philaenis. The work was probably written in prose, as Botrys' earlier ''paignia'' had been. James Davidson argues that the Salpe mentioned by Athenaeus and the one cited by Pliny are likely to have been the same person. David Bain has argued against Davidson's suggestion, and I. M. Plant distinguishes between the two in his anthology of ancient women writers. More recently, Rebecca Flemming writes that "despite Bain's objections it remains tempting" to link Pliny's and Athenaeus' Salpe; she suggests that the original ''Paignia'' referred to by Athenaeus was the original source of Pliny's recipes, though he would have read them second-hand (or "more probably third- or fourth-hand").

References

Works cited

* * * * {{cite book, editor-last=Plant, editor-first=I. M., title=Woman Writers of Ancient Greece and Rome: An Anthology, year=2004, publisher=University of Oklahoma Press, location=Norman Ancient gynaecologists Ancient Greek women writers Ancient Greek women physicians Greek erotica writers People from ancient Lesbos Women erotica writers