Quintus Serenus Sammonicus (died 212) was a Roman savant and tutor to Geta and

Caracalla Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (born Lucius Septimius Bassianus, 4 April 188 – 8 April 217), better known by his nickname "Caracalla" () was Roman emperor from 198 to 217. He was a member of the Severan dynasty, the elder son of Emperor ...

who became fatally involved in politics; he was also author of a didactic medical poem, ''

Liber Medicinalis In ancient Roman religion and mythology, Liber ( , ; "the free one"), also known as Liber Pater ("the free Father"), was a god of viticulture and wine, male fertility and freedom. He was a patron deity of Rome's plebeians and was part of the ...

'' ("The Medical Book"; also known as ''De medicina praecepta saluberrima''), probably incomplete in the extant form, as well as many lost works.

Works and influence

Serenus was "a typical man of letters in an Age of Archaism and a worthy successor to

Marcus Cornelius Fronto Marcus Cornelius Fronto (c. 100late 160s AD), best known as Fronto, was a Roman grammarian, rhetorician, and advocate. Of Berbers, Berber origin, he was born at Cirta (modern-day Constantine, Algeria, Constantine, Algeria) in Numidia. He was Roman ...

and

Aulus Gellius Aulus Gellius (c. 125after 180 AD) was a Roman author and grammarian, who was probably born and certainly brought up in Rome. He was educated in Athens, after which he returned to Rome. He is famous for his ''Attic Nights'', a commonplace book ...

, one whose social rank and position is intimately bound up with the prevailing passion for grammar and a mastery of ancient lore". According to

Macrobius Macrobius Ambrosius Theodosius, usually referred to as Macrobius (fl. AD 400), was a Roman provincial who lived during the early fifth century, during late antiquity, the period of time corresponding to the Later Roman Empire, and when Latin was ...

, who referenced his work for his ''Saturnalia'', he was "the learned man of his age".

Maurus Servius Honoratus Servius was a late fourth-century and early fifth-century grammarian. He earned a contemporary reputation as the most learned man of his generation in Italy; he authored a set of commentaries on the works of Virgil. These works, ''In tria Virg ...

and

Arnobius Arnobius (died c. 330) was an early Christian apologist of Berber origin during the reign of Diocletian (284–305). According to Jerome's ''Chronicle,'' Arnobius, before his conversion, was a distinguished Numidian rhetorician at Sicca Ven ...

both employed his erudition to their own ends. He possessed a library of 60,000 volumes. His most quoted work was ''Res reconditae'', in at least five books, of which fragments only are preserved in quotations. The surviving work, ''De medicina praecepta'', in 1115

hexameter Hexameter is a metrical line of verses consisting of six feet (a "foot" here is the pulse, or major accent, of words in an English line of poetry; in Greek and Latin a "foot" is not an accent, but describes various combinations of syllables). It w ...

s, contains a number of popular remedies, borrowed from

Pliny the Elder Gaius Plinius Secundus (AD 23/2479), called Pliny the Elder (), was a Roman author, naturalist and natural philosopher, and naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and a friend of the emperor Vespasian. He wrote the encyclopedic ...

and

Pedanius Dioscorides Pedanius Dioscorides ( grc-gre, Πεδάνιος Διοσκουρίδης, ; 40–90 AD), “the father of pharmacognosy”, was a Greek physician, pharmacologist, botanist, and author of '' De materia medica'' (, On Medical Material) —a 5-vo ...

, and various magic formulae, amongst others the famous abracadabra, as a cure for

fever Fever, also referred to as pyrexia, is defined as having a temperature above the normal range due to an increase in the body's temperature set point. There is not a single agreed-upon upper limit for normal temperature with sources using val ...

and

ague Ague may refer to: * Fever * Malaria * Agué, Benin * Duck ague, a hunting term See also * Kan Ague, a residential area of Patikul, Sulu Patikul, officially the Municipality of Patikul ( Tausūg: ''Kawman sin Patikul''; tl, Bayan ng Patikul ...

. It concludes with a description of the famous antidote of Mithridates VI of Pontus. It was much used in the Middle Ages, and is of value for the ancient history of popular medicine. The syntax and metre are remarkably correct. According to the unreliable ''

Augustan History The ''Historia Augusta'' (English: ''Augustan History'') is a late Roman collection of biographies, written in Latin, of the Roman emperors, their junior colleagues, designated heirs and usurpers from 117 to 284. Supposedly modeled on the si ...

'' he was a famous

physician A physician (American English), medical practitioner (Commonwealth English), medical doctor, or simply doctor, is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through th ...

and

polymath A polymath ( el, πολυμαθής, , "having learned much"; la, homo universalis, "universal human") is an individual whose knowledge spans a substantial number of subjects, known to draw on complex bodies of knowledge to solve specific pro ...

, who was put to death with other friends of Geta in December 212, at a banquet to which he had been invited by Caracalla shortly after the assassination of his brother. The first printed edition of ''De medicina praecepta'' was edited by Giovanni Sulpizio da Veroli, before 1484.Further editions include that by

Johann Christian Gottlieb Ackermann Johann Christian Gottlieb Ackermann (17 February 1756 – 9 March 1801) was a German doctor. Biography He was born at Zeulenroda, in Upper Saxony, on 17 February 1756. His parents were the physician Johann Samuel Ackermann (1705-1762) and the Eva ...

(Leipzig, 1786), and E. Behrens, in ''Poetae Latini minores'', iii.

References

Sources

August Baur August is the eighth month of the year in the Julian calendar, Julian and Gregorian calendars, and the fifth of seven months to have a length of 31 days. Its zodiac sign is Leo (astrology), Leo and was originally named ''Sextilis'' in Latin ...

, ''Quaestiones Sammoniceae'' (Giessen, 1886) * Martin Schanz, ''Geschichte der römischen Literatur'', iii. (1896) * Teuffel, ''History of Roman Literature'' (Eng. trans., 1900), 374, 4, and 383. {{DEFAULTSORT:Sammonicus, Serenus 212 deaths Ancient Roman poets Post–Silver Age Latin writers 3rd-century poets Year of birth unknown 3rd-century Roman physicians 3rd-century Latin writers