IGII2 3783 Honours for Argaios the doctor

Honours for Argaios the doctor

IG II² 3783 Date: 2nd century BC

If an old human mind (noos) once found anything in a skill (technai),^[1] I say that you perceived all with your ingenious intellect (prapasi) by judging doctors’ wise teachings and plucking the superlative material from books with the eye of the soul (psuchēs),^[2] (5) and that you, Argaios, provided the liquid of the refreshing vine to mortals, thereby warding off paralytic pains.^[3] On account of this, your skill’s lovely glory (kleos) will never perish, but will be more brilliant than the stars in heaven.

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References:

IG II² 3783 (Translated text) (PHI)

Samama, Médecins 8b

Translation by: Chris de Lisle

Images: Agora Excavations - (1)

Monument type: Fragment

Inscription type: Statue base, Metrical (elegiac couplets)

Findspot: Church of St. Demetrios Katephores (Ag. I 851)

Transliterations on Places on

[1] This inscription commemorates the doctor Argaios, who is also known from IG II² 3782 (possibly part of the same monument). The epigram, in elegiac couplets, praises him for his discerning use of medical writings to cure gout (cf. A. Roselli, Aion 30, 2008, 155-63). For another inscribed poem relating to the doctor's art, see IG II³ 4, 849, ll. 13-32.

The stone was found in the section of the Post-Herulian Wall beneath the Church of St Demetrios Kataphores, in the nineteenth century and then lost. It was rediscovered and delivered to the American excavations in the Agora in 1933, by which time the left and right portions of the stone had been lost. On the basis of the original findspot, it has been suggested that it derived from a hypothetical sanctuary of Asklepios in the nearby Diogeneion, the main gymnasium of Athens by this period (see IG II³ 4, 871 with notes). On the date, see M. Haake, ZPE 153, 2005, 127-30. [2] The ‘eye of the soul’ is a Platonic expression referring to rational induction (e.g. Republic 508d). [3] It is unclear whether the ‘liquid of Bacchic vine’ literally means that he used wine as medicine or if the enlivening power of the wine is a metaphor for the impact of the medicine (see J. Lougovaya in N. Reggiani, Greek Medical Papyri, 2019, 151-152 and J. Jouanna, Greek Medicine from Hippocrates to Galen, 2012, 173-93 on wine in Greek medical thought).

Added: 19 Aug 2025
Updated: 19 Aug 2025
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ID: AIO_3462