The Body Politic Atius On Alcmaeon On Isonomia and Monarchia

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Politeia in Greek and Roman Philosophy
Edited by Verity Harte, Melissa Lane
Book DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139096843
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Chapter
4 - The body politic: Aëtius on Alcmaeon on isonomia and monarchia pp
. 78-95
Chapter DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139096843.006
Cambridge University Press

ch a p te r fo ur
The body politic: Aëtius on Alcmaeon on isonomia

and monarchia
Jaap Mansfeld
I
One theme of the present volume is that political terms have resonance
beyond the strictly political domain. The occurrence of political terms in
the context of a medical doctrine, attributed in a sentence of the dox-
ographer Aëtius (to be dated to about ad ) to Alcmaeon of Croton,
who probably is to be dated to around  bc, is an instance of such
broader applications of political terms. The use of these metaphors has
generally been explained as the result of direct influence upon Alcmaeon’s
thought of the terminology connected with the democratic reforms of
Cleisthenes at Athens, in / bc, and/or his reception of the notion of
cosmic equilibrium attributed to Anaximander. However, I argue that it
is a reflection of the influence of the famous discussion regarding the best
political constitution in the historian Herodotus.
II
Famous definitions of health and disease are attributed to Alcmaeon in
the first section of the first lemma of the final chapter of Aëtius’ Placita,
The history of political philosophy is for the most part beyond the horizon of my competence, but
I have always followed Malcolm Schofield’s contributions to the subject with admiration and profit.
The only contribution to his Festschrift I can manage is a modest inquiry into the metaphorical use
of two terms of political provenance in a chapter of a late compendium.
Thanks are due to Josine Blok, David T. Runia, Mario Vegetti and members of the Cambridge
corona for criticism and advice; mistakes are mine.
 If, as is now often assumed, the synchronism of Alcmaeon with Pythagoras at Arist. Metaph. .
a– is due to interpolation, there is no evidence for a date earlier than ca.  bc. Alcmaeon
is a contemporary of the second group of Pythagoreans discussed by Aristotle in Metaphysics .. In
turn these are not later or earlier than the first group discussed in the same chapter, which includes
Philolaus; see Huffman : .
 The lemma is extant as a continuous text at ps.Plu. Plac. a, and in a more complete form in the
Arabic translation of Qusta ibn Luqa and in Psellus, Solut. div. quaest. .– Boiss. Stobaeus cut
it into two parts, citing the second section first, in his chapter on disease, Ecl. .., and the first

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Aëtius on Alcmaeon on isonomia and monarchia 
‘On Health and Disease and Old Age’. These are believed by a majority
of scholars to represent to some extent his genuine wording. Though it
has long been seen that the terminology of the lemma is doxographical
and rather late, an exception is often made for the two early attested
terms isonomia and monarchia in its first section, which are exceptional
in a medical context. I wish to argue against this privileged status for
isonomia and monarchia, and shall start with an inquiry into the history of
comparable contrasting terms. Let us look at the text first:
Alcmaeon [declares that the] containing [cause, sunektikēn] of health is the
equity of the qualities [tōn dynameōn], [viz. the] wet, dry, cold, hot, bitter,
sweet, and the rest; but predominance among these is [the] active [cause,
poiētikēn] of disease; for [the] predominance of either [opposite] produces
destruction.
The concept of a sustaining, or containing, cause (sunektikē aitia) is orig-
inally Stoic, while, after Aristotle, the term poiētikon (
, or
3, or /% ) is in general use for the efficient, or active,
cause, so also among the Stoics. The term /!# , literally ‘powers’
or ‘forces’, on this open-ended list is equivalent to
, ‘properties’
or ‘qualities’. The word
, ‘destructive’, often found in Philo
Judaeus, is not early either, and the phrase containing it is an instance of
the explanatory gloss encountered more often in the Placita.
section second, in his chapter on health, Ecl. ... For a preliminary text of the chapter see Runia
b in Mansfeld and Runia : –.
 Already Diels : – followed by, e.g., Zeller  (): i. n., Guthrie : ; cf. Von
Staden and Jouanna in Flashar and Jouanna : –, Huffmann : .
 E.g., Guthrie : –, Lloyd : , Dörrie : , Lonie : , Jouanna (ed.) :
, Nutton : . The words #
and # occur early enough (Solon fr. . West,
Alcaeus fr. sa Page), but an equally early attestation for "%
# and "%# is problematic.
 Aët. .. (lacking in ps.Galen) = Alcm. DK b =  KRS: @# #A 0 *
% "%# , /!# , 03 4 3 53 #3 3 ,
,B /- $ #
% B & C #.
Littré :  translates "%
# as ‘égale répartition’. In the Arabic translation the final chapters
of the Placita are better preserved than in the Greek tradition. The second part of Aët. .. is
attributed to Herophilus by Qusta ibn Luqa; see Mansfeld and Runia : , to be preferred to
Runia b in Mansfeld and Runia :  (it is this part in particular which is responsible for
Alcmaeon’s medical reputation). Alcmaeon is also found in the company of Herophilus at Calc. In
Tim.  = DK a.
 Gal. CC .–. = f L.-S., Clem. Strom. ..– = SVF ii., S.E. P. .; see Duhot : –;
as cause of disease not health, e.g., [Gal.] Def. med. ..– K.
 See Frede  []: –.
 Van der Eijk –: i. (Diocles fr. b) translates ‘formative properties’. In the Corp. Hipp. the
term is used inter alia for the qualities of elemental constituents: see Kühn and Fleischer –
Ind. Hipp., v. /#, i ‘vis’, sc. i.. ‘elementorum in homine’. For the Placita cf. .. /!#

.
 See Mansfeld and Runia : i. on Aët. .. Diels, – on .. (phrase bracketed by Diels),
 on .. (phrase expunged by Diels),  on .. ad finem (phrase bracketed by Diels).
 Jaap Mansfeld
The metaphorical use of the two political concepts in the Alcmaeon
lemma is remarkable. A comparison not of the human person, or soul,
but of the body with a politeia, or polis, is found only rarely, and is seldom
discussed in the secondary literature. One may think of the Aesopian fable
of Menenius Agrippa, who according to our sources persuaded the plebs
to end its secessiō in  bc. There is an undeniable affinity, but the
bodily parts in the fable are members such as feet and belly, not elemental
constituents.
The only undoubtedly early text where precisely the two words, isono-
mia and monarchia, are contrasted with each other (and with oligarchia,
irrelevant for our lemma) is the famous discussion about the best political
regime among the seven Persian noblemen at Herodotus .–. There
must be a connection. The difference is that in Herodotus the two words are
used sensu proprio, while in the Aëtian lemma they constitute a metaphor.
Words or expressions need to be well known in their literal sense if they
are to be used to explain or depict something in a metaphorical way, and
becoming familiar takes some time. A metaphor works only if it refers from
less-known to better-known terms. The problem is that there is no good
pre-Herodotean evidence for isonomia even in its literal sense.
Scholars dealing with Alcmaeon for the most part seem to have limited
the inquiry to the words isonomia and monarchia, or even to isonomia
alone. But what one should do is take into account the contrast between
concepts for on the one hand a kind of dominance, or exclusiveness, and
on the other a kind of equality, or sharing. Such concepts are expressed
by a plurality of words, and such words may, but need not, derive from
 For the fable, perhaps best known from the first act of Coriolanus or La Fontaine’s Les Membres et
l’estomac (Fables .) see, e.g., Liv. ..–, D.H. ..– ( ( %8#

.) used by Plu. Coriol. ., Quint. Inst. .. and D.C. Book 4 ap. Zonar. .; cf. Nestle ,
Adrados and Van Dijk : – esp. for references. For the affinity see Allers : , Van Dijk
: . Comparisons in general terms between body and polis/politeia are at Pl. R. b, Lg. c,
between living being and polis at Arist. MA .a–b, between body and rei publicae corpore at
Cic. Phil. . (see further Béranger : –; also for the Greek background).
 See Asheri et al. : –. There are six instances of # , ten of #
, three of the
verb # and four of "%# in Herodotus. The verb /% occurs six times and
the substantive /!% once.
 Good overview concerned with isonomia at Farquharson : ii.–; see also Pease : i.–,
Baltes : , Raaflaub : –, Asheri et al. : .
 Wachtler :  n. points out ‘[p]ro "%# alibi dicitur %## %, %## ,
"%
, %#, "%#, D# etc.’ (add, e.g., E#, E#, 4, #
, "%!' ,
/ %), but fails to present something similar for # (e.g.,
0 , (#, $ , %, /% , %%!' , (%## ,
9%). Noè : – provides a useful overview of stasis and its opposites in Greek history and
historiography, esp. in Dionysius of Halicarnassus. A wealth of evidence from the Corp. Hipp. about
conflict among elemental forces, bodily functions and environmental factors is in Vegetti , who
Aëtius on Alcmaeon on isonomia and monarchia 
the domain of politics (see also below, Section iii). At Herodotus .–
, where isonomia and monarchia are opposed to each other, the words
mounarchos and tyrannos are used interchangeably (..–), and isonomia
is also opposed to basileus, ‘king’ (..). In another Herodotean passage a
tyrannis is abolished and isonomia installed in its place. In two passages in
Thucydides the contrast is between isonomia (oligarchic or democratic) and
a word that is roughly equivalent to monarchia and tyrannis, viz. dynasteia,
‘domination’. The political terminology of Thucydides is paralleled at
Plato, Menexenus e–a, tyrannides and oligarchiai against isonomia.
Two versions of a well-known skolion celebrate Harmodios and Aristo-
geiton, the two ‘tyrannicides who made Athens equitable’ (
/ "%
# ’ @ $ %! ), thus opposing the adjec-
tive isonomos to the substantive tyrannos. Their date is uncertain, and may
well be later than Alcmaeon’s.
For the metaphorical application of terms such as these we have formulas
used by doctors. That of the early Hippocratic treatise Airs Waters Places
does not occur in the immediate context of health and disease; it provides
an explanation of the temperate climate (‘blending of the seasons’) of
Asia:
Growth and freedom from wildness are most fostered when nothing is
forcibly predominant (biaiōs epikrateon), and equality of sharing reigns
supreme in every respect (isomoiria dynasteuēi).
The surprising and unparalleled oxymoron isomoiria dynasteuēi shows
that the political analogy involved was not unfamiliar to the doctor’s public.
posits that the egalitarian ideology of the polis purportedly found in the Alcmaeon lemma (see below,
nn.–) failed to influence Hippocratic medicine. The vocabulary of stasis vs. harmonia/homonoia
and related pairs of terms is studied by Loraux .
 Hdt. ...
 Thuc. .., ... Thucydides may well be the earliest author to use the word in this sense; it is
also found in S. OT  (performed  bc), where the meaning is more neutral.
 There are four versions, PMG – Page (all transmitted in Athenaeus), of which the first and
last have "%
# ’ @ $ %! as the final line. The precise date is uncertain: t.p.q.
is the murder of Hipparchus  bc, while (as Josine Blok points out to me) the quotation at Ar.
Lys. –, performed  bc, fails to provide a t.a.q. for the last line because only a first line is
quoted. For the oral tradition of sympotic poetry and instances of deliberate textual modification
for political reasons see Lardinois . On Alcmaeon’s date see above, n..
 [Hipp.] Aër. ., .. L., % , F; see further Jouanna : –. Echoed in the
Hellenistic Pythagorean Hypomnemata at D.L. ., where moreover we read that hot and cold and
dry and wet are among the "%#& ... $
%#.
 For epikratein cf. below, n., n..
 [Hipp.] Aër. ., ..– L.; Littré translates ‘où rien ne prédomine avec excès, et où tout se balance
exactement’; Diller : : ‘wenn über alles Ausgeglichenheit waltet’; Jouanna : – ‘quand
rien n’est prédominant avec violence mais que règne en tout l’égalité’. Cf. Cambiano : .
 Cf. Jouanna : .
 Jaap Mansfeld
According to the author of the Hippocratic Regimen what matters is:
whether food overpowers exercise, whether exercise overpowers food, or
whether the two are duly proportioned, for it is from the overpowering
(krateesthai) of one or the other that diseases arise, while from their being
equal to each other (isazein) comes good health.
He explains health and disease as the result of the interaction of exercise

and diet, not of opposites such as sweet and bitter. But the contrast between
equality and dominance is comparable to what is found in the Alcmaeon
lemma and in Airs Waters Places.
These ideas occur in Plato too. The vocabulary is different; note that
homonoia plays an important part in political discussions from the late fifth
century. The function of medicine according to the eclectic physician
Eryximachus in the Symposium is:
to make the things in the body that are most hostile (echthista) to each other
into friends (phila), and make them love (eran) one another. The things that
are most hostile to each other are those that are most opposed (enantiōtata),
cold to hot, bitter to sweet, dry to wet, and so on. It was because he knew
how to impart love and unanimity (homonoia) to these that our ancestor
Asclepius ...
Phila, eran and homonoia against echthista and enantiōtata, just as isonomia
is opposed to monarchia. A few lines later we read that something like
this, perhaps, is what Heraclitus meant with regard to music, though he
failed to speak with sufficient clarity. Eryximachus elegantly misquotes
part of Heraclitus fr. DK b: ‘The one being at variance with itself is
in agreement, like a harmony of bow and lyre.’ In Section v below we
shall see comparable passages where a Heraclitean (mis)quotation is also de
rigueur.
 Reg. ., ..– L.; compared with the Alcmaeon text by Jouanna (ed.) : –.
 See Nestle : , who refers inter alia to Antiphon’s G E#, Gorgias fr. DK ba, and
the occurrences of the term in the orators. For its importance in Dionysius’ political thought see
Gabba : –; there are twenty-six occurrences in the Antiquitates, four of which occur in
opposition to stasis.
 Pl. Smp. d–e, tr. Rowe ; for the qualities cf. also Smp. a–, where sweet and bitter are
lacking because the seasons are at issue, not the body (see below, n.). Emphasis is on erōs because of
the skopos of the dialogue (Arist. Pol. . b, $
). On this passage and its influence
see Strohm : – and below, n. and text thereto.
 Pl. Smp. a– (= Heraclit. fr.  (b) Marc.): ) added (cf. DK b, below, n.), >
or - omitted, and 0 %# % (cf. Sph. e = Heraclit. fr.  (c)
Marc.) instead of C E# for ‘agrees with itself’. For the art of misquotation see Whittaker
.
Aëtius on Alcmaeon on isonomia and monarchia 
III
Going back to the chapter in Aëtius, we should briefly look at the next two
lemmata according to Diels’ numeration, with name-labels Diocles and
Erasistratus. Aëtius .. tells us that:
Diocles (declares) that most diseases come about through a variability
(anōmalia) of the elements (stoicheia) in the body and of the constitution of
the air.
It is clear that the ‘variability of the elements’ attributed to Diocles
corresponds with the ‘predominance among the qualities’ attributed to
Alcmaeon in the first lemma. The opposed concept, not expressed totis
litteris, is of course implied. The formula, though less picturesque than its
Alcmaeonic counterpart, is equally effective.
The next lemma, .., is about another famous physician:
Erasistratus (declares) that the diseases come about through abundance
(plēthos) of food, because this is not digested and goes bad; but orderly
behaviour (eutaxia) and taking what is sufficient (autarkeia) is health.
Here the opposition is no longer between the balance and imbalance of
impersonal natural forces, but between two ways of behaving and their
consequences. But overeating and its effects bring about a disturbance
of the normal condition of the constituents of the body. Several leading
physicians saw overeating and bad digestion as the main cause of disease,
or at least an important one. The contrast between on the one hand the
first part of Aëtius .. (Alcmaeon) plus .. (Diocles) and on the other
.. (Erasistratus) is equivalent to the diaeresis (‘disagreement’, %!%)
of doctrines in Anonymus Londinensis. Erasistratus’ eutaxia and autarkeia
 = Diocl. fr.  Van der Eijk, H & % ,

% % /" (# , $
%8# % 3 % # (. I have added % and (like Runia, above
n.) (, found in both ps.Galen and Qusta ibn Luqa; where these two sources agree with each
other against the Byzantine tradition of ps.Plutarch their readings should as a rule be accepted. For
stoicheia cf. below, n., text to n., to n., to n.; for their anōmalia, e.g., An. Lond. xx.–
(Petron of Aegina); for the melancholic temperament as (8# see [Arist.] Probl. ..b–.
 Thus Van der Eijk –: i: –, who rightly adds that the report may be ‘the result of considerable
doxographic simplification’.
 = Eras. fr.  Garofalo, -2%% &
% /& </"> ( 5
, /- 4 ! * 0 . This is ps.Plutarch’s text; Stobaeus’ is
garbled.
 An. Lond. iv.– Manetti, 1 (#A) (&) * ( %)
% & & %%8#
(perissōmata) &
# ( , 1 /A & & % (stoicheia, cf. below, n. and
text thereto, text to n., text to n.). See further Manetti ; ibid. , , , , for plēthos
and its effects.
 Jaap Mansfeld
belong to the same side of the coin as isonomia, as is indeed suggested by
the diaeretic arrangement of this series of to some extent comparable doxai
about disease and health on a sliding scale in our Placita chapter.
IV
In connection with the inquiry into the Aëtian/Herodotean terminol-
ogy scholars have argued that Herodotus was inspired by traditions con-
cerned with the struggle against the Athenian tyrants remembered in the
skolion mentioned in the previous section, and even with the demo-
cratic reforms of Cleisthenes (/ bc). Furthermore, it is argued that
Alcmaeon may well have heard about these events, or else may even have
been inspired by similar struggles in his home town of Croton. The coin-
cidence that Cleisthenes is an Alcmaeonid may have impressed the scholarly
subconscious.
That a doctrine of some kind of equilibrium and disturbance is attributed
to Alcmaeon is clear. We should, however, keep in mind that isonomic
dynameis ‘while combined in the organism never completely lose their
peculiar character’. The tenet is made to anticipate a doctrine we have
already found in several Hippocratic physicians, who posit that health
is a matter of equality and disease a matter of disruption. This kind of
explanation of disease became widespread. Anonymus Londinensis cites the
views of Menecrates, Petron of Aegina and Philistion. According to, e.g.,
Menecrates, the body consists of four constituents; ‘when these are not at
odds with each other (#̣ %%'
() [note the political metaphor])
but are in a state of harmony ( ! / #()), the body is
healthy; when not, it is diseased’. Many more examples could be cited,
though often the concept of blending, or mixing (krasis, mixis, etc.), also
comes in, which is an innovation compared with the notions that are
 See now Mansfeld and Runia : pt i, –, –, .
 Above, n. and text thereto.  See below, n..  E.g., Frei : .
 Wachtler :  n.: ‘eis enim illum [sc. Alcmaeonem] vixisse temporibus quibus maxime optimates
et populares de summa rerum contenderent’; Guthrie : : the two words isonomia and
monarchia ‘would spring to the mind of one who lived when rivalry between popular and despotic
factions was a familiar feature of city-state life’; cf. Thivel : –. This is admitted as possible
by Sassi : –, but there is no evidence (in  bc Marcus Valerius at D.H. .. refers to
Solon, Appius Claudius ibid. .. to Greek cities in general, but this is fiction not history).
 Tracy : .
 Cf. Galen, below, n.; Lloyd : , who speaks of a ‘commonplace of Greek medical theory’;
Lonie : , Longrigg : . See, e.g., the passages from the Corp. Hipp. assembled at Keus
: –, who cites Alcmaeon last, and those quoted by Longrigg : –; cf. Wehrli  []:
–, Cambiano : –, Schubert : –, –, Jouanna  []: –.
 An. Lond. xix.– Manetti; on these three physicians see Tracy : –.
Aëtius on Alcmaeon on isonomia and monarchia 
attributed to Alcmaeon. Plato and Aristotle are familiar with this standard
definition. There is a Stoic parallel too, which is conceptually and even
as to part of the wording very close to Alcmaeon but again includes the
notion of krasis. A couple of short abstracts quoted verbatim by Galen
from Book  of Chrysippus’ Peri Pathōn are concerned with the analogy
between soul and body argued by Zeno:
Disease of the body is said to be the lack of symmetry (asymmetria) of what
is in it, hot and cold, dry and wet.
And a little later:

Health in the body is a kind of good blending (eukrasia) and symmetry
(symmetria) of the aforesaid ... Symmetry or lack of symmetry (asymmetria)
in the hot and cold and wet and dry is health or disease.
The more neutral terms eukrasia and symmetria correspond with the politi-
cal term isonomia, and the more neutral asymmetria with the political term
monarchia. The Alcmaeonic qualities wet, dry, cold and hot are precisely
paralleled by Chrysippus’ hot and cold, dry and wet, though these are listed
in a different order.
There is also a parallel in the same chapter, although this, too, involves
krasis. For the formula "%# , /!# is ad sententiam paralleled
at Aëtius .. ad finem, viz. by the expression %## , ,
%, ‘the symmetrical mixture of the qualifieds’, also defining health.
When applied to Alcmaeon this phrase needlessly duplicates the formula
‘equity of the qualities’, and so gets out of tune with the proverbial terseness
of the Placita lemmata. To some extent it is also paralleled by .., ,
.% !% ! % : the ‘fleshy parts’ consist of ‘the
four elements (stoicheia) equal in mixture’, while other bodily parts are
 Jouanna (ed.) : , citing NH  and VM ; also Lloyd : –, Tracy : –.
 Pl. Smp. d–e, R. d–, Phlb. e–, Ti. e–a, cf. above, text to n., and Tracy :
–, also for Plato’s relation to the medical writers; Arist. Phys. . b–, Top. . b–,
. b; see further Tracy : –.
 Gal. PHP ..– = SVF iii., also cited in Jouanna (ed.) : . Cf. PHP ..– = SVF iii.
(also printed in DK .), where Galen interprets the symmetry of the qualities as the ‘symmetry of
the elements’, and .., where he argues that in spite of differences of vocabulary and principles
everybody, from Asclepiades via Epicurus, Anaxagoras, Chrysippus and all the Stoics, Aristotle and
Theophrastus, to Plato and Hippocrates, is in agreement: ‘For all these men the symmetry of the
elements produces health.’ Also see In Hipp. Epid. I, a..– K.
 ,, ‘qualifieds’, is an originally Stoic so-called category (Simp. In Cat. .– = SVF ii.
(cf. In Cat. .), Plot. .. = SVF ii.); cf. Diels and Zeller, above n..
 With Qusta ibn Luqa this section of the lemma is to be given to Herophilus; see above, n..
 Jaap Mansfeld
mixed in other ways. Of particular interest is .., & /’"%
#
!% : the living beings who are ‘equally-sharing (isomoira) as to mixture’
are at home everywhere, in contrast to those in whom water or air or
earth predominates (where of course predominance has nothing to do with
abnormality).
V
It is far from certain that even a non-metaphorical use of the term isonomia
can be as early as the end of the sixth century bc. On the one hand,
one reads that its purported early use as a political war cry at Athens (the
existence of which is attested by the skolion of uncertain date) is certain
because of its occurrence in the Alcmaeon fragment. On the other, one
is told that its Alcmaeonic authenticity is vouched for by its prehistory
in the context of Athenian politics, or even its conceptual antecedents in
the thought of Anaximander. In the Alcmaeon lemma isonomia would
denote an equilibrium among opposites that echoes the cosmic equilibrium
purportedly described in the difficult fragment about cosmic justice. The
first scholar to propound the dependence of ‘Alcmaeon, a contemporary
[sic] of Anaximander’ upon the Milesian was William A. Heidel. This
scholar also, as far as I know, was the first to argue that the fragment of
Anaximander is about the ‘successive encroachment of elemental opposites
 Chapter heading ‘Of Which Elements Does Each of the Principal Parts in Us Consist’; one lemma
only (Empedocles).
 Chapter heading ‘On the Generation of Living Beings, How the Living Beings Came To Be, and
Whether They Are Perishable’ (Empedocles lemma).
 Hansen : –, who however does not refer to the Alcmaeon text.
 E.g., Burkert  []:  n.: ‘ein alter, sicherer Beleg für "%# in verallgemeinerter,
spekulativer Verwendung, im Kontrast mit #, ist A lkmeon VS  B , aus der . Hälfte
des . Jh.’
 Vlastos , taking his cue from the discussion in Herodotus, strongly argues in favour of the
early occurrence and democratic connotation of "%#, and at : i.–, even argues that
Anaximander had a ‘notion which answers substantially to isonomia’, though ‘we cannot say’ he had
‘the word’. For isonomia as democratic see also Vlastos . Pleket : – convincingly rejects
this backward projection of ‘th cent. democratic ideology to the last quarter of the th century’,
and deplores ‘the harm which a rather formal kind of philology can do to the study of historical
problems’.
 Anaximander DK a/b. Thus Burnet : –; eloquently Vlastos  in : i.–, i.–
;  in : i.–; followed by many, among whom Vernant : –, Lloyd : ,
Baltes :  with n., Cambiano : –, Gentili , Longrigg : , and : 
(Anaximander’s ‘cosmic theory is adopted by Alcmaeon as the basis of his theory of health’), and
recently Huffman : . Sassi : – pertinently argues that the Anaximander fragment is
about conflict rather than justice.
Aëtius on Alcmaeon on isonomia and monarchia 
one on another in the seasonal changes of the year’, and so about an
everlasting cosmic equilibrium.
A list of Alcmaeon’s opposites is also given by Aristotle, who cites
Alcmaeon not as a doctor but as a philosopher. In order to find out what is
meant by the ‘qualities’ we should also look at this other testimony. Aristo-
tle, who knew Alcmaeon’s book, says that according to Alcmaeon ‘most
human things come in twos’, but that the contraries posited by him are
‘haphazard, not determinate, such as white black, sweet bitter, good bad,
large small’. Apart from good/bad and large/small the examples given
coincide with the ‘affective qualities and affections’ listed at Aristotle, Cate-
gories .a–: ‘sweetness and bitterness and sourness and all that is related
to these, and further warmness and coldness and whiteness and blackness’.
‘Human things’ are not the same as those that have to do with health and
disease, but of course do not exclude them. The word dynameis found in the
Aëtian lemma, denoting constitutive properties, is abundantly paralleled in
the Corpus Hippocraticum. ‘Sweet’ and ‘bitter’, terms shared by Aristotle
and Aëtius, do not make sense as cosmological or environmental factors.
The presence ‘in us’ of ‘the cold, the hot, the salty, the drinkable, the sweet,
and the pungent’ is attested for Anaxagoras. We have seen above that
Plato’s Eryximachus lists as ‘the things in the body cold and hot, bitter
and sweet, and dry and wet, and so on’. Perhaps such qualities plus ‘the
rest’ in the Alcmaeon lemma are intended to pertain to an indefinite set
of humours, as in On Ancient Medicine: ‘In man are bitter and salty and
sweet and sharp and sour and flat and countless others.’ Wachtler at any
rate believed that sweet and bitter referred to the humours in the body.
 On Alcmaeon and Anaximander see Heidel , in Tarán : – (cf. below, n. and text
thereto); for the equilibrium Heidel : –, and : –; cf. Mansfeld : –.
 For Aristotelian citations see Bonitz : a–, v. @# E I! ; a lost G &
@# ʹ of uncertain authenticity is listed in the catalogue at D.L. ..
 Arist. Metaph. J .a– = DK a, % & * / & & , (
[cited D.L. . with $%, so as pseudo-quotation from the original], & $

... /%# (& & %, K #, +
, (
, #
#
. For the text see O. Primavesi’s edition of Met. A in Steel (): .
 Cf. the definition of pathos at Arist. Metaph. ..b–: ‘black and white, bitter and sweet,
heaviness and lightness, etc.’ For sourness etc. see Arist. An. . b–.
 See above, n..  Thphr. Sens.  = DK a.
 nn.– and text thereto; earlier editors wrongly bracketed
.
 ‘quae sequntur voces +
quin de sucis corpori inclusis intelligendae sint dubitari nequit’:
Wachtler : , adducing [Hipp.] VM , ..– L., & (8
D#
, + 74, % /
, 9 # . This passage is
likened to the open-ended Alcmaeonic list by Littré : , , , then, e.g., by Thivel :
, Vegetti : , who calls attention to the Aëtian formula , ,, and Jouanna
 Jaap Mansfeld
VI
We must go back to isonomia. Parallels for a metaphorical use of this term
resembling that of the Alcmaeon lemma are late, though some of them
are (a little) earlier than Aëtius. The earliest of these is Epicurean. At the
end of Velleius’ account of Epicurus’ theology Cicero has him mention the
view that in nature all things have their exactly commensurate counterpart.
Epicurus calls this "%# (in Greek in the text), that is to say aequabilis
tributiō, ‘distribution in equal proportions’. This entails that the numbers
of immortals are equal to those of mortals, and the causes of conservation to
those of destruction. Cicero has Cotta refute this view; "%# is again
in Greek in the text, this time translated as aequabilitas, ‘equitableness’.
The question whether the term isonomia has to be attributed to Epicurus
himself or to a later follower is irrelevant in our context.
The pre-Philonian treatise On the Nature of the Cosmos and the Soul
signed Timaeus Locrus significantly modifies Plato’s account of the pro-
duction of the four elements at Timaeus a–c according to proportion
and harmony (so that there will be ‘love’ in the cosmos), by adding that
‘because they are all equal in power, their proportions are in isonomia’.
The next parallels we can put a date to are in Philo of Alexandria. The
first of these is constituted by the interpretation of the division of the limbs
of the sacrificial animal by an earlier Jewish exegete, in whose view this
indicates either that ‘all things are one’ or that they ‘come from and return
to One’ – an alternation which is called by some ‘fullness and want’, by
others ‘total conflagration’ and ‘ordering of the cosmos’, the conflagration
being the state when the supremacy (dynasteia) of heat has prevailed over
: –, Jouanna (ed.) : , who in : , of course, also notes the difference: the author
declines to attribute an important rôle to the hot, the cold, the wet, and the dry.
 Cic. ND . = Epic. fr. , p.  Us.  Cic. ND . = Epic. p.  Us. in app.
 Ti. Locr. , $ /!# .% $ !,
, $ "%# $. Baltes : 
points out that Pl. Ti. a– says the same thing in other words, adding (ibid., ) that, unlike
Philo (see Spec. leg. .), Ti. Locr. does not speak of the isonomia of the elements. Also cf. Ti.
Locr. , & & & (% ( % $ "%/# 6 (!
$ # 6 , and Baltes ad loc., : ‘TL hat hier den platonischen Timaios eindeutig
erweitert.’
 Runia :  n..
 The final formula of Heraclit. DK b ap. Hipp. Ref. .., ) ! *; Philonic parallels at
Leg. all. . = Heraclit. fr.  (a) Marc., and Spec. leg. . = Heraclit. fr.  (b) Marc.
 A modified version of the final formula of Heraclit. DK b fully quoted ap. [Arist.] Mu. .b,
$ ! ) $4 C !, also quoted in Greek at Apul. Mund.  = Heraclit. fr.  (a1 )
Marc.; applied to the cosmic cycle by Cleanthes according to Ar. Did. fr.  Diels = SVF i..
 Heraclit. fr.  (b2 ) Marc., cf. DK b; the text of SVF ii. is defective.
 For epikratein cf. above, text to n.; for stoicheia cf. above, n. and text thereto, n.; below, text
to n., to n..
Aëtius on Alcmaeon on isonomia and monarchia 
the rest, the ordering of the cosmos being the state according to the equity
of the four elements (isonomia tōn tettarōn stoicheiōn), which they concede
to each other.
The opposition between isonomia and dynasteia recalls the wording of the
two passages in Thucydides cited above, but its metaphorical application
to the domain of physics looks like a calque of the analogy of the Alcmaeon
lemma. The elements, stoicheia (restricted, to be sure, to the usual four:
fire, air, water and earth) recall the ‘qualities’, dynameis, of wet, hot, dry
and cold. The (Stoic) cosmic cycle adduced by this earlier biblical exegete
of course excludes that the ordering of the cosmos lasts forever, as would be
Philo’s own view. The presence of several Heraclitean reminiscences in the
context of a précis of this cycle provides a link with the next Philonic text,
where we find a slightly Stoicizing and rather more Platonizing interpreta-
tion of another Heraclitean fragment (of which the second half is lacking),
cited as ‘for souls it is death to become water, for water death to become
earth’. A few paragraphs up Philo had said that we should ‘understand
the equity (isonomia) in the cosmos’. He now tells us that the order
of the world must last forever. The Heraclitean fragment is explained as
follows:
for believing that pneuma is soul he [i.e., Heraclitus] intimates that the
final end of air is the coming to be (genesis) of water and that of water,
in its turn, the coming to be (genesis) of earth, while by ‘death’ (thanatos)
he does not mean complete annihilation but transmutation into another
element (stoicheion). That this self-determined equity (isonomia) should be
maintained forever inescapable and continuous is not only plausible, but
necessary, because what is unequal is unjust (to anison adikon), what is
unjust is productive of evil, and evil has been banished from the home of
immortality.
 Ph. Spec. leg. . (tr. Colson (Loeb), slightly modified). Philo’s next words, $# /, indicate that
the exegesis is not his own. Cited Marcovich :  n.. Heidel , in Tarán : –, quotes
this passage in support of his interpretation of Alcmaeon and Anaximander (above, n., below,
n. and text thereto).
 n. and text thereto.
 Cf. Ph. Aet. , also in the context of total conflagration and regeneration.
 Heraclit. DK b in the version cited by Marcovich as fr.  (b); the full version is cited Clem.
Strom. ... The emphasis on genesis in the exegesis of the fragment shows the influence of its
absent second half. Sometimes translated as ‘for souls it is death that water comes to be’ etc., but
this genesis ex nihilo seems unnecessarily complicated.
 Ph. Aet. , # $!% "%#
%# % (tr.
Colson (Loeb), slightly modified).
 Heraclitus’ three elemental forces are replaced by the four Stoic elements, among which air (but see
Betegh , who argues that this ‘air’ is Heraclitean).
 Ph. Aet. – = Heraclit. fr.  (b) Marc. (tr. Colson (Loeb), slightly modified).
 Jaap Mansfeld
That this physicalist argument is not sufficient for Philo (for whom the
indestructibility of the cosmos depends on god) is not relevant in the
context of the present paper. Philo and his exegetical predecessor depend
on the philosophical koinē of their time. Relevant for our inquiry is the fact
that a metaphorical use of the (Thucydidean) pair isonomia and dynasteia
(though not one of a pair including the equivalent term monarchia) is
found in a physicalist context in the first century bc.
A further parallel is provided by ps.Aristotle On the Cosmos, to be dated
somewhere in the first century bc or ad. It is found immediately after the
quotation of Heraclitus fr. DK b. The author argues for the eternal
preservation of the cosmos:
The cause of this preservation is the agreement (homologia) of the elements
(stoicheia), and the cause of the agreement is the equity of sharing (isomoiria)
and the fact that none of them has more power (pleon dynasthai) than each
of the others, for the heavy is in equipoise with the light, and the hot with
its opposite.
This agreement and equity of sharing of the elements, as opposed to one
of them being more powerful than the others, vividly recall the metaphors
of the Alcmaeon lemma. The picture is similar to Philo’s at De specialibus
legibus ., where as we saw the ‘equity of the four elements’ (isonomia tōn
tettarōn stoicheiōn) is contrasted with the supremacy (dynasteia) of a single
element. The parallels for the Aëtian lemma in Timaeus Locrus, Philo,
and ps.Aristotle are not as far away in time as the late sixth century bc:
Timaeus Locrus is pre-Philonian; for Philo’s exegetical predecessor we may
think of the mid first century bc; and ps.Aristotle may be a contemporary
of this predecessor or date to a century later. Parallels between Philo and
the Placita are not uncommon.
These passages convey a message that is rather different from that of
Epicurus in Cicero. Clearly, the term-and-concept may be used with
a diversity of emphasis. Whether Epicurus also referred to its opposite
(dynasteia, or monarchia, or tyrannis) we do not know. The Stoic cosmic
cycle adduced by Philo’s predecessor is compatible with both opposites,
isonomia referring to the (temporarily, but at least ideally) balanced world
 Runia : –, and : .

 Both Philo texts are listed by Farquharson : ii.–.
 Cf. above, n.. This passage (like those in Philo) is also influenced by Smp. c–a; see Strohm
: –. Plato already refers to Heraclitus; cf. above, nn.– and text thereto.
 [Arist.] Mu. .b–a. For the contrast between isomoiria and pleon dynasthai cf. above, text
to n.. David Runia reminded me of this passage.
 See Runia , in Mansfeld and Runia : –.  Above, n., n..
Aëtius on Alcmaeon on isonomia and monarchia 
of our experience, dynasteia to the monopoly of fire during total con-
flagration. The Heraclitean/Platonic cosmology that is closer to Philo’s
preferred view strongly emphasizes the everlastingness of elemental isono-
mia. The contrasting term here is to anison, the ‘inequality’, of the elements
of course, which ad sententiam equals dynasteia, or monarchia, or tyrannis;
and inequality, which equals evil, has been excluded right from the start.
The author of On the Cosmos, strongly in favour of the eternity of the world,
opposes homonoia and isomoiria of the elements to the pleon dynasthai of
any of them.
These late accounts of a perpetual cosmic balance very much resemble
the cyclical and stable equilibrium of elemental forces in an indestruc-
tible cosmos attributed by a majority of scholars to Anaximander, whose
opposites are said to pass forever away into and come to be from each
other, just as the Heraclitean elements cited by Philo. The interpretation
of Anaximander that dominates today is a combination of Zeller’s belief
that the Anaximandrean opposites change into each other (but Zeller did
not exclude that the cosmos will in the end be destroyed), and of Heidel’s
and Jaeger’s conviction that this process of transformation lasts forever.
Elsewhere I argue against this interpretation, because there is no evidence
that Anaximander spoke of a transformation of the elemental forces into
each other, while the assumption of an unending equilibrium clashes with
the doxographical evidence concerned with the beginning and end of the
cosmos.
Our earliest evidence relating to elemental transformation is about Her-
aclitus, as for instance in the fragment cited above from Philo. And so,
I believe, is the evidence for an everlasting balance in the cosmos because
of this transformation, since according to Heraclitus ‘the everliving fire
is kindled in measures (#) and quenched in measures’. That these
‘measures’ are equal follows from another verbatim Heraclitean fragment,
which, in spite of being mutilated, tells us that ‘fire’, ‘sea’ and ‘earth’, when
changing back into each other, are ‘measured so as to form the same propor-
tion (ton auton logon) as existed before’. Heraclitus, moreover, speaking
 Influentially argued by Kahn .

 Zeller  (): . Interpretations may survive their original setting.
 For Heidel see above, n. ad finem, and text thereto; Jaeger  speaks of an ‘ewiger Ausgleich’
according to the ‘Rechtsnorm’, thus emphasizing the juridical and normative aspect of the process
and leaving to one side the possibility of a sequence of events that would allow for major disturbances,
or for the disappearance of the cosmos. Cf. Jaeger  []: ; and : –.
 Mansfeld , with references to the literature.  n. and text thereto.  fr. DK b.
 fr. DK b. In general see, for instance, Kirk, Raven and Schofield : –, Graham :
–.
 Jaap Mansfeld
of ‘universal war’, says that ‘all things come about through strife’: eternal
conflict. The link of Alcmaeon’s view of health with Anaximander’s pur-
ported view of the justice (or, according to Vlastos , quasi-isonomia)
obtaining in a perennial struggle between cosmic opposites as equals, itself
connected in an influential modern exegetical tradition with the ideology
constructed around the Greek polis as the wellspring of rational thought,
should be severed.
If one really wants to follow the doxographer and to attribute to
Alcmaeon a doctrine of health as a balance between conflicting opposites
and of disease as a disturbance of this balance, one should think for this
balance-in-motion of the influence of Heraclitus rather than of Anaximan-
der. Heraclitus, moreover, tends to present natural processes and situations
by means of similes derived from the world of morality, human experience
and myth: fire acts like a judge (Heraclitus fr. DK b, ), lightning
‘steers’ (DK b, "' ), and the Erinyes, helpmates of Dikē, will arrest
the sun if it transcends its measures (DK b).
This reception of the cosmological idea of balance, or equilibrium
(assuming that this is what happened), is a creative one. Health can never
be more than a temporary equilibrium. One could argue that this is one
of the reasons why Alcmaeon is said to have believed that ‘humans die
because they are incapable of joining the beginning to the end’. Health
will be followed by disease (or worse), but the converse is not always true,
and in the end not true at all.
A perhaps even better parallel for the doctrine ascribed to Alcmaeon
is provided by the achievements of the contrasting forces of Love (or
Harmony) and Strife in Empedocles. These effects do not pertain to health
and disease, but to cosmology and, in one case, to the life and death, the
coming to be and passing away of living beings:
This is very clear in the mass of mortal limbs: at one time they [i.e., the
elements] come together into one in Love, limbs in possession of a body in
the peak of a flourishing life; at another time, severed by evil Quarrels, each
drifts apart in the breakers of life.
I do not argue that Alcmaeon is influenced by Empedocles. For one thing,

the conditions represented by the words isonomia and monarchia are not
 fr. DK b.  Most spectacularly Vernant ; for criticism see Sassi , Laks .
 fr. DK b ap. [Arist.] Probl. ..a–.
 Emp. b.– = Pap. Strasb. ens. c.–, pace Primavesi reading %
# ’ in line  with
Simplicius and the second hand of the papyrus against the %
# ’ of the first hand. For the
relation to living beings see Primavesi : –.
Aëtius on Alcmaeon on isonomia and monarchia 
hypostasized as separate qualities. But in view of the fact that, quite possibly,
these men are contemporaries, the parallel between the salutary vs. the
unpleasant results linked in the one case with contrasting qualities and
with contrasting terms in the other may well be significant.
The ancient doxographical tradition and our own comparative method-
ology invite us to accept as well as to construct strong links among the
ideas and words contained in the scarce reliquiae of early philosophy and
medicine. This is unavoidable. Yet we tend to forget that there is so very
much we do not know, and perhaps never will. The resemblance between
the definition of health and disease of our Aëtian lemma and the notions
of other physicians need not imply descent of the views of the latter from
a doctrine of the philosopher from Croton. It is quite possible that early
doctors who saw health and disease in terms of equality and disturbance
were influenced by philosophical ideas about natural processes indepen-
dently. It is true that the combination of lemmata in Aëtius ..– seems
to turn Alcmaeon into an archegete, a sort of Thales of medicine, in so
far as the definition of health and disease by doctors is concerned. This,
however, may be a matter of interpretatio. And Alcmaeon is conspicuously
absent from the rich Aristotelian doxography in Anonymus Londinensis. In
both Aristotle and Aëtius he is present as a physikos, just like Empedocles,
not as a doctor.
VII
The use of isonomia in a physicalist context, most remarkable in the Aëtian
lemma on Alcmaeon, is, as we have seen, not so very extraordinary in
texts dating to the Hellenistic and early Roman period. Its presence in the
Aëtian lemma need not go back to the philosopher of Croton, although
one cannot, of course, prove that the quotation is not verbatim. What
made scholars attribute the term to Alcmaeon himself is its noteworthy
combination, in the lemma, with monarchia – a combination which ad
litteram is spectacularly paralleled in the famous passage in Herodotus. We
have seen, however, that in contexts comparable to the Alcmaeon lemma
a term that is more or less equivalent to isonomia may be combined with
a term, or formula, that is more or less equal in force or meaning to
monarchia, while in such contexts isonomia itself is late. What (perhaps
paradoxically) has to be explained is the presence not of isonomia, but of
monarchia instead of dynasteia, vel sim.
 Above, n..  See Runia b, in Mansfeld and Runia : –.
 Jaap Mansfeld
I suggest that someone who, either at first hand or at one or more
removes, knew the Herodotean discussion of the best constitution replaced
whatever term originally figured in the report about Alcmaeon with its
perhaps more striking Herodotean equivalent. This suggestion is less
hazardous than would seem at a first glance. The fact that the name-label
Herodotus occurs in the Placita, viz. in the chapter on the Nile, shows that
his name, and a doctrine, were present in the doxographical tradition. His
work was present in the rhetorical schools of antiquity until the very end.
Some examples: Strabo quotes him thirty-three times by name, mostly at
second hand. For Cicero he is ‘the first who gave distinction to this genre’,
sc. to history (De oratore ., qui princeps genus hoc ornavit). Plutarch’s
essay The Malice of Herodotus shows him to be a living force around
ad , and he is also frequently cited by Plutarch elsewhere. The De dea
Syria and De astrologia ascribed to Lucian emulate Herodotus’ language
and presentation. What may be equally or even more important is that
the Histories are present in the Anthology of Stobaeus: no fewer than forty-
two abstracts, plus one misattribution (Anthology .) and two indirect
quotations, one via Plutarch, one via Porphyry. ‘Stobaeus’ enormous work
is in part based on ... a tradition of accretion’, and has absorbed earlier
collections.
Among these Stobaean abstracts is the Herodotean discussion of isono-
mia versus monarchia, a purple passage edited and cut into two parts the
better to suit the structure of the Anthology. First, at Anthology ..,
the sentence which introduces the speech of Otanēs plus the speech of
Darius (Herodotus ., .) in defence of monarchia; next, at Anthol-
ogy .., the greater part of the speech of Otanēs (Herodotus .)
in defence of isonomia. This inverted sequence results from the order
of Stobaeus’ chapters. Chapter . is entitled ‘That Monarchy is the
Best’ (L !% #), Chapter . ‘Censure of Tyranny’
(5
/). We may note that the speech of Megabuzos in
defence of oligarchy is absent. Herodotus was judged to be inferior to
 MN
/ E % (‘Herodotus the historian’), Aëtius at ps.Plu. a–.
 For the reception of Herodotus in antiquity see Riemann , e.g. – on Strabo.
 Cf. Cic. Leg. ., ‘the father of history’, patrem historiae; Orat. .
 Mansfeld and Runia : , where also references to the literature; Searby : .
 MN/
1% H / # , pp. .– + .– Rosén –; the
last phrase has been omitted by the anthologist.
 MN/
1% / # -?!, beginning with the second sentence, pp. .–
. Rosén –.
 Cf. above, n..
Aëtius on Alcmaeon on isonomia and monarchia 
Thucydides at public speeches (/ # , contiones), so the selec-
tion for the Anthology of precisely the speeches of Otanēs and Darius as
/ # is significant. For the Herodotean terminology and contrast
of isonomia and monarchia in later historians, see an earlier contempo-
rary of Philo, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Antiquitates romanae ..–,
isonomia versus monarchoumenoi, and, much later, Cassius Dio, Histo-
riae romanae .. and .., isonomia versus monarchia. We must add
that in the speech of Appius Claudius in reply to that of Marcus Valerius
at Dionysius, Antiquitates romanae .., a part of the speech of Dar-
ius at Herodotus .. is echoed: a clear instance of the reception of
Herodotus’ / # .
The assumption of the influence of the Herodotean passage upon the
wording of the doxographical placitum, either directly or via an anthology
or later historians, and consequently of the presence of a Herodotism in
Aëtius, is in my view to be preferred to speculations about the influence of
a vocabulary connected with the democratic reforms of Cleisthenes on the
physicist of Croton. The Aëtian lemma also belongs with the Nachleben of
the Herodotean passage.
 D.H. Thuc. , Quint. Inst. ., Marcellin. Vit. Thuc. ; see Riemann : . These two
abstracts are the only examples of / # from Herodotus in Stobaeus; there are no fewer
than twenty-seven from Thucydides.
 For Herodotus as household word and example see D.H. Pomp. , on which Riemann : –.
 For a similar pair of opposites see above, n..
 One of the numerous Herodotisms collected by Ek; see : .

The Body Politic Atius On Alcmaeon On Isonomia and Monarchia

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Cambridge Books Online

Politeia in Greek and Roman Philosophy

Edited by Verity Harte, Melissa Lane

Book DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139096843

Online ISBN: 9781139096843

Hardback ISBN: 9781107020221

4 - The body politic: Aëtius on Alcmaeon on isonomia and monarchia pp

Chapter DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139096843.006

Cambridge University Press

The body politic: Aëtius on Alcmaeon on isonomia

He explains health and disease as the result of the interaction of exercise

 = Diocl. fr.  Van der Eijk, H & % ,

And a little later:

 Runia : –, and : .

 Influentially argued by Kahn .

I do not argue that Alcmaeon is influenced by Empedocles. For one thing,

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The Body Politic Atius On Alcmaeon On Isonomia and Monarchia

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The Body Politic Atius On Alcmaeon On Isonomia and Monarchia

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Cambridge Books Online

Politeia in Greek and Roman Philosophy

Edited by Verity Harte, Melissa Lane

Book DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139096843

Online ISBN: 9781139096843

Hardback ISBN: 9781107020221

4 - The body politic: Aëtius on Alcmaeon on isonomia and monarchia pp

Chapter DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139096843.006

Cambridge University Press

The body politic: Aëtius on Alcmaeon on isonomia

He explains health and disease as the result of the interaction of exercise

 = Diocl. fr.  Van der Eijk, H &  %  , 

And a little later:

 Runia : –, and : .

 Influentially argued by Kahn .

I do not argue that Alcmaeon is influenced by Empedocles. For one thing,

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 = Diocl. fr.  Van der Eijk, H & % ,