Marcellus Empiricus, also known as Marcellus Burdigalensis (“Marcellus of Bordeaux”), was a Latin medical writer from Gaul at the turn of the 4th and 5th centuries. His only extant work is the De medicamentis, a compendium of pharmacological preparations drawing on the work of multiple medical and scientific writers as well as on folk remedies and magic. It is a significant if quirky text in the history of European medical writing, an infrequent subject of monographs, but regularly mined as a source for magic charms, Celtic herbology and lore, and the linguistic study of Gaulish and Vulgar Latin.Carmélia Opsomer and Robert Halleux, “Marcellus ou le mythe empirique,” in Les écoles médicales à Rome. Actes du 2ème Colloque international sur les textes médicaux latins antiques, Lausanne, septembre 1986, edited by Philippe Mudry and Jackie Pigeaud (Geneva: Librairie Droz, 1991), p. 160. Bonus auctor est (“he’s a good authority”) was the judgment of J.J. Scaliger,In the Prima Scaligerana of 1740, cited by George W. Robinson, “Joseph Scaliger’s Estimates of Greek and Latin Authors,” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 29 (1918) p. 160. while the science historian George Sarton called the De medicamentis an “extraordinary mixture of traditional knowledge, popular (Celtic) medicine, and rank superstition.”George Sarton, Introduction to the History of Science (1927), vol. 1, p. 391. Marcellus is usually identified with the magister officiorum of that name who held office during the reign of Theodosius I.
Life and political career Little is known of the life of Marcellus. The primary sources are: Marcellus’s own preface to the De medicamentis; the Codex Theodosianus (probably referring to this Marcellus); a letter written in 399 by Symmachus to a Marcellus who is likely to have been the medical writer; a letter written by the Antiochan scholar Libanius that mentions a Marcellus; an inscription in Narbonne (his association with which would require that he not be from Bordeaux; see below); an anecdote in Orosius about an unnamed Gaul (also a highly conjectural link).
The Gallic origin of Marcellus is rarely disputed, and he is traditionally identified with the toponym Burdigalensis; that is, from Bordeaux (Latin Burdigala), within the Roman province of Aquitania. In his prefatory epistle, he refers to three Bordelaise praetorian prefects as his countrymen: Siburius, Eutropius, and Julius Ausonius, the father of the poet Decimus Magnus Ausonius.Alf Önnerfors, “Marcellus, De medicamentis: Latin de science, de superstition, d’humanité,” in Le latin médical: La constitution d’un langage scientifique: réalités et langage de la médecine dans le monde romain, edited by Guy Sabbah (Université de Saint-Étienne, 1991), p. 397; Jerry Stannard, “Marcellus of Bordeaux and the Beginnings of the Medieval Materia Medica,” Pharmacy in History 15 (1973), p. 51, note 4, as reprinted in Pristina Medicamenta: Ancient and Medieval Medical Botany, edited by Katherine E. Stannard and Richard Kay, Variorum Collected Studies Series (Aldershot 1999). He is sometimes thought to have come from Narbonne rather than Bordeaux.J.F. Matthews, “Gallic Supporters of Theodosius,” Latomus 30 (1971), pp. 1084–1087. There has been an attempt to make a Spanish senator of him on the basis of Symmachus's reference to property he owned in Spain; but this inference ignores that Marcellus is said explicitly to have left Spain to return to living in avitis penatibus, or among the household spirits of his grandfathers — that is, at home as distinguished from Spain. He probably wrote the De medicamentis liber during his retirement there.Spanish origin argued by K.F. Stroheker, Spanische Senatoren der spätrömischen und westgotischen Zeit, in Madrider Mitteilungen (1963) p. 121, note 75, cited and contradicted by J.F. Matthews, “Gallic Supporters of Theodosius,” Latomus 30 (1971) p. 1085. The De medicamentis seems to refer to Theodosius II, son of the emperor who had appointed Marcellus to office, suggesting that it was not circulated until his accession in January 408; see Alan Cameron, “A New Fragment of Eunapius,” Classical Review 17 (1967) 11.
The author of the De medicamentis is most likely the Marcellus who was appointed magister officiorum by Theodosius I. The heading of the prefatory epistle identifies him as a vir inlustris, translatable as “a distinguished man”; at the time, this phrase was a formal designation of rank, indicating that he had held imperial office. Marcellus's 16th-century editor Janus Cornarius gives the unhelpful phrase ex magno officio (something like “from high office”); coupled with two references in the Theodosian Code to a Marcellus as magister officiorum,Codex Theodosianus vi.29.8 (May 395) and xvi.5.29 (November 395). Cornarius's phrase has been taken as a mistaken expansion of the standard abbreviation mag. off. The magister officiorum was a sort of Minister of the InteriorAlf Önnerfors, “Marcellus, De medicamentis,” in Le latin médical (Université de Saint-Étienne, 1991), p. 397. and the identification is consistent with what is known of the author's life and with the politics of the time.For careful and thoroughly documented conjecture about the political career of Marcellus, see J.F. Matthews, “Gallic Supporters of Theodosius,” Latomus 30 (1971) 1073–1099. His stated connection to the Ausonii makes it likely that he was among the several aristocratic Gauls who benefitted politically when the emperor Gratian appointed his Bordelaise tutor Ausonius to high office and from Theodosius's extended residence in the western empire during the latter years of his reign.J.F. Matthews. “Gallic Supporters of Theodosius,” Latomus 30 (1971), p. 1086, who points out that earlier (in the period 379–88) Spaniards had predominated in Theodosius’s court.
Marcellus would have entered his office sometime after April 394 A.D., when his predecessor is last attested,Codex Theodosianus vii.1.14. and before the emperor's death on January 17, 395. He was replaced in late November or December of 395, as determined by the last reference to a Marcellus holding office that is dated November 24 and by the dating of a successor.Codex Theodosianus xvi.5.29. The timing of his departure suggests that he had been a supporter of Rufinus, the calculating politician of Gallic origin who was assassinated November 27 of that year, having failed to resist, or even facilitated, the advance of Alaric and the Visigoths. Marcellus's support may have been pragmatic or superficial; a source that condemns Rufinus heartily praises Marcellus as “the very soul of excellence.”Alan Cameron, “A New Fragment of Eunapius,” Classical Review 17 (1967) 10–11.
Given Rufinus's dealings with the Visigoths, however, it is conceivable that Marcellus should be identified with “a certain former high-ranking official from Narbonne” mentioned by OrosiusOrosius 7.43.4: virum quendam Narbonensem inlustris sub Theodosio militiae, etiam religiosum prudentemque et gravem. as present in Bethlehem in 415 A.D. While visiting Jerome, Orosius says he heard this Gaul relate the declaration made by Athaulf, king of the Visigoths, at Narbonne regarding his intentions toward the Roman Empire.For the text of that declaration in English translation, see article on Ataulf. John Matthews argued that Marcellus, who would have been about 60 at the time, is “clearly the most eligible candidate.”J.F. Matthews, “Gallic Supporters of Theodosius,” Latomus 30 (1971), pp. 1085–1086. Since Orosius identifies the Gaul only as having served under Theodosius, and as a “devout, cautious, and serious” person, other figures have been put forth as the likely bearer of the Athaulf declaration.For instance, David Frye, “A Mutual Friend of Athaulf and Jerome,” Historia 40 (1991) 507–508, argues for the Gaul named Rusticus who is mentioned in Jerome’s epistles.
Medical background It is not unreasonable but also not necessary to conclude that Marcellus was a practicing physician. In his dissertation, the intellectual historian of magic and medicine Lynn Thorndike pronounced him the “court physician” of Theodosius I,Lynn Thorndike, The Place of Magic in the Intellectual History of Europe (New York 1905), p. 99, but the evidence is thin: Libanius, if referring to this Marcellus, praises his ability to cure a headache.Lynn Thorndike, History of Magic and Experimental Science (Columbia University Press 1923), p. 584, without citing the specific letter. The prevailing view is that Marcellus should be categorized as a medical writer and not a physician.Jerry Stannard, “Marcellus of Bordeaux and the Beginnings of the Medieval Materia Medica,” Pharmacy in History 15 (1973), p. 48; Alf Önnerfors, “Marcellus, De medicamentis,” in Le latin médical (Université de Saint-Étienne, 1991), pp. 398–399; Carmélia Opsomer and Robert Halleux, “Marcellus ou le mythe empirique,” in Les écoles médicales à Rome, (Geneva: Librairie Droz, 1991). A translator of the medical writings of Isidore of Seville characterizes Marcellus as a “medical amateur” and dismisses the De medicamentis as “nothing more than the usual ancient home remedies,”William D. Sharpe, introduction to “Isidore of Seville: The Medical Writings. An English Translation with an Introduction and Commentary,” Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 54 (1964), p. 14. and the historian of botany Ernst Meyer seems to have considered him a dilettante.E.H.F. Meyer, Geschichte der Botanik (Königsberg 1854–57), vol. 2, p. 300, cited by Önnerfors, p. 398.
Like Ausonius and later Sidonius Apollinaris, Marcellus is among those aristocratic Gauls of the 4th and 5th centuries who were nominally or even devoutly Christian but who fashioned themselves after the Republican ideal of the Roman noble: a career in politics balanced with country villas and informational or literary writing on a range of subjects, including philosophy, astronomy, agriculture, and the natural sciences.Thomas Habinek, The Politics of Latin Literature: Writing, Empire, and Identity in Ancient Rome (Princeton University Press, 1998); Roland Mayer, “Creating a Literature of Information in Rome,” in Wissensvermittlung in dichterischer Gestalt (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 2005), pp. 227–241. Although medical writing might have been regarded as a lesser achievement, it was a resource for the pater familias who traditionally took personal responsibility for the health care of his household, both family members and slaves.Elizabeth Rawson, Intellectual Life in the Late Roman Republic (The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985), p. 170; Carmélia Opsomer and Robert Halleux, “Marcellus ou le mythe empirique,” in Les écoles médicales à Rome (Geneva: Librairie Droz, 1991), p. 178.
Prescriptions for veterinary treatments dispersed throughout the De medicamentis also suggest the interests and concerns of the author — the letter from Symmachus serves mainly to inquire whether Marcellus can provide thoroughbred horses for games to be sponsored by his son, who has been elected praetor — and of his intended audience, either the owners of estates or the literate workers who managed them.Literacy among farm workers at the managerial level was perhaps not meant to be surprising; according to an interlocutor in Varro’s De re rustica (2.18), a master ought to require his cattleman to read veterinary excerpts from the work of Mago the Carthaginian, available in Latin and Greek translations. “Do-it-yourself” manuals were popular among the landowning elite because they offered, as Marcellus promises, a form of self-sufficiency and mastery.De medicamentis prefatory epistle 3, edition of Maximillian Niedermann, Marcelli de medicamentis liber, vol. 5 of the Teubner Corpus Medicorum Latinorum (Leipzig, 1916), p. 3; discussion of general topic in Brendon Reay, “Agriculture, Writing, and Cato’s Aristocratic Self-Fashioning,” Classical Antiquity 24 (2005) 331–361.