{"id":11052,"date":"2013-05-13T19:57:12","date_gmt":"2013-05-13T18:57:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/?p=11052"},"modified":"2013-05-13T19:57:12","modified_gmt":"2013-05-13T18:57:12","slug":"scribonius-largus-an-authorial-table-of-contents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/2013\/05\/13\/scribonius-largus-an-authorial-table-of-contents\/","title":{"rendered":"Scribonius Largus – an authorial table of contents"},"content":{"rendered":"

Scribonius Largus was a physician in the time of Claudius.[ref]A note on his career will be found at Lacus Curtius<\/a>.[\/ref]\u00a0 He\u00a0was the author of a collection of medical recipes, written in 47-48 A.D.<\/p>\n

The work begins with a preface; then there is an index; and then the recipes.[ref]I owe my knowledge of this instance of ancient book summaries to the Google Books preview of Bianca-Jeanette Schroder, Titel und Text<\/em>, De Gruyter 1999, p.107<\/a>.[\/ref]<\/p>\n

At the end of the preface, Largus writes[ref]I grabbed a random 1786 edition here<\/a>, page 7<\/a>.[\/ref]:<\/p>\n

\n

Primum ergo ad quae vitia compositiones exquisitae et aptae sint, subiecimus et numeris notavimus, quo facilius quod quaeretur inveniatur.\u00a0 Deinde medicamentorum, quibus compositiones constant, nomina et pondera vitiis subiunximus.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I.e.<\/p>\n

\n

So firstly,\u00a0the illnesses for which medicines are sought-for and found, we have subjoined and numbered, so that the seeker may find more easily.\u00a0 Then we have subjoined the names and amounts of the medicaments which the medicines for illnesses consist of.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The second list has not been preserved, but these words are followed in the edition by a list of illnesses, and for each a numeral.<\/p>\n

What this demonstrates is that the concept of producing a numbered table of contents did exist in the time of Claudius, and, therefore, probably earlier.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Scribonius Largus was a physician in the time of Claudius.[ref]A note on his career will be found at Lacus Curtius.[\/ref]\u00a0 He\u00a0was the author of a collection of medical recipes, written in 47-48 A.D. The work begins with a preface; then there is an index; and then the recipes.[ref]I owe my knowledge of this instance of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[19],"tags":[391],"class_list":["post-11052","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-from-my-diary-announcements","tag-chapter-titles"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11052","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11052"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11052\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}