The <i>Presbeutikos Logos</i> and the Hippocratic Corpus

This paper aims to shed new light on the construction of the image of Hippocrates in the Hellenistic period, focusing on the so-called Presbeutikos logos. It shows how the Hippocratic Corpus, as collected in third-century BCE Alexandria, was instrumental in shaping the Presbeutikos’ narrative of how Hippocrates and his circle cured the plague that threatened Greece. The paper draws attention in particular to the travel itineraries of Hippocrates’ circle, showing how they are derived from the place names found in the Hippocratic Epidemics 2 and 4–7. This also allows us to see the relevance of other Hippocratic texts to the narrative, and to date the Presbeutikos considerably later than recent scholarship has argued.