A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology

Smith, William

A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology. William Smith, LLD, ed. 1890

2. The physician mentioned by Juvenal in his well-known line

" Quot Themison aegros autumno occiderit uno."

(Sat. 10.221.)

is by many commentators (perhaps by most) considered to be the same person as the founder of the Methodici. However, it seems hardly probable that Juvenal would have cared for satyrizing a physician who was not a contemporary; and therefore perhaps the old scholiast on Juvenal is right in saying that he was " archiater illius temporis," i. e. in the first century after Christ.