Ancient Alchemical Rabbit Holes, or how to confuse this ancient historian

Oh the messes I get myself into

If ever you want to run down an ancient history rabbit hole, I recommend looking into Greek alchemy. I made the mistake of deciding to lead a discussion on the Pseudo-Democritus work On the Making of Purple and Gold: Natural and Secret Questions. The first problem is that this work is variously referred to in secondary literature, and it took far too long for me to figure that out. It is also known by the shortened Greek title φυσικὰ καὶ μυστικά for those interested. Then there is the long debate about who the author of this work was. Add the fact that I seem to have a mental block when dealing with philosophy, I found myself in a pickle I had grown and preserved myself.

So how did I find myself in this quagmire? Well, owing to a manuscript using the name of Democritus written more than 1200 years after Democritus' birth. This manuscript, actually. This is page 272 of St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. Sang. 751. It is a compendium of 39 medical texts thought to have been written in northern Italy in the second half of the 9th Century CE. This page features a Pseudo-Plinius work (referred to Physica Plinii), and the passage highlighted is a magical spell to treat quartan fever, a type of malaria.

It recommended that you write the names of four philosophers on a scrap of parchment or cloth and appeal to them. While the manuscript does not clearly state "Democritus",  Richard Heim (page 502) interprets the manuscript as writing "Pythagoras, Democritus, Socrates, Plato" in a Greek script. To my eye, the scribe probably did not understand Greek, and was drawing an image rather than writing a text. When I first read this several years ago I had never heard of Democritus, let alone understood why his name would be used in this manner, likely as a result of my status as "philosophically challenged."

Because of my interest in magic, I was aware of Pythagoras' status as a mystic or magician. I had of course heard of Socrates and Plato, and figured they were there because of their commonality, but to me Democritus came up blank. As a result, I had to learn about him. Which more often than not led to me falling asleep.

So some basic Democritus information. He was born around 460 or 457 BCE in the Thracian town of Abdera. He proposed the theory of matter being made up of atoms. At this point I figured that I should have recognised his name, but had likely spaced out in an undergraduate class (and yes, Bob Milns is likely spinning in his grave about now). When I searched for Democritus' name in addition to that of Pythagoras, I discovered that Democritus came to be given a similar cache to that of Pythagoras as a mystic or mage owing to a similar tradition of him travelling to learn from those we would consider purveyors of magic. Now I understood his inclusion in this spell.

One of the elements which appeared multiple times during this research was an association between Democritus and alchemy, as a result of his name being coopted to provide authority to what is considered the earliest extant Greek alchemical text, the work which is the topic of the discussion I mentioned above. There has been an awful lot of discussion regarding the authorship of this work, and the other texts attributed to Pseudo-Democritus which have been wonderfully edited and translated by Matteo Martelli. I started out reading Martelli's introduction and found myself lost. This is a reflection on me, and not the work. I was having difficulty processing material for which I had absolutely no understanding. Given I was meant to be leading a discussion on this, it was more than a little scary. 

So I did what I often do when overwhelmed by new information: I looked for the most basic explanation thanks to the Oxford Classical Dictionary, and then started googling. Strangely, my brain finally started to engage with this material (finally) when I read Jackson P. Hershbell's article on Democritus and alchemy. I cannot recommend an article more for understanding why Democritus' name came to be associated with alchemy, as it points out all the concepts which Democritus studied and wrote about which align well with early Greek alchemy. Thank heavens the article arrived before this Thursday, otherwise my goose might have been cooked.

So what did I learn?

There was a tradition that Democritus travelled the eastern world and Egypt to further his studies according to Diogenes Laertius' biography of him, which also describes him as a:

pupil of certain Magians and Chaldaeans. For when King Xerxes was entertained by the father of Democritus he he left men in charge, as, in fact, is stated by Herodotus; and from these men, while still a boy, he learned theology and astronomy. (Lives of Eminent Philosophers 9.7 (34).

There was also a belief that a magus called Ostanes who accompanied king Xerxes on his invasion of Greece was welcomed into Democritus' father's home and became a tutor to the young philosopher. I do not know how long it was thought that these men were thought to have remained in Thrace, but there was at least two decades between when Xerxes passed through Thrace and when Democritus was born; this lack of correlation does not seem to prevent this story, and the reference to Herodotus 7.109 and 8.120 is considered as "free". 

When looking at quite a number of these kinds of stories, the fact that they don't chronologically add up does not seem to stop them from being circulated. There is also a tradition included in the On the Making of Purple and Gold: Natural and Secret Questions that Democritus travelled to Egypt to be taught alchemy by the Persian magus Ostanes in the temple of Ptah in Memphis. It should be noted that the actual text does not explicitly name Democritus, Ostanes or Ptah, but these details are included in a version of the story recorded by an alchemist named Synesius (referred to as Pseudo-Synesius in the Loeb volume devoted to Atomists R125b DOI: 10.4159/DLCL.atomists-reception.2016) whose commentary on Pseudo-Democritus as a letter to a priest of Serapis is preserved in some early alchemical manuscripts (see Martelli 2013 for both a discussion of his identity and a translation of this work). It has been suggested that this tradition dates to at least the third century BCE and recorded by Hermippus of Smyrna who wrote a work on the magi which has not been preserved, though was used by Pliny the Elder as a source.

Democritus and Alchemy

So why might people have believed that Democritus would be interested in the study of alchemy? Because there was a considerable overlap between his known areas of interest and what alchemy was at the time at which this text was written. Hershbell points out that Democritus was extremely interested in metals, colours, and stones, referring to his work on colours, including especially how metals change their colour and his discussion of the murex shell and how its gland was used for dying materials purple. While today we automatically assume the purpose of alchemy was to transform base metals into gold, the Pseudo-Democritus works discussed more than this. According to late antique and Byzantine alchemical writers:

He [Democritus] took his basic principles from him and composed four books on dyeing, on gold, silver, [precious] stones and purple. I stress this point: he wrote by taking his basic principles from the great Ostanes. (Pseudo-Synesius, Commentary, 1 lines 11-4)

Democritus of Abdera wrote about gold, silver, stones and purple in an ambiguous way. (Syncellus, Chronicle, 297 lines 24-8).

In addition to this, he wrote a work on magnets which also overlaps the work on stones described here. Democritus was a polymath natural philosopher who wrote about seventy works on various topics. Trying to tease apart legitimate works from various pseudoepigraphic works attributed to him is not always easy. His work on colour was contained in his discussion On Senses which was used by Theophrastus in his discussion of the same title, so it is most likely a genuine text. Looking at what is known of Democritus' work, he would have found Greek alchemy interesting, as the overlap between natural philosophy and alchemy was huge.

What was Greek alchemy?

Greek alchemy did not start out as people trying to turn lead into gold, but instead covered an array of topics which were not necessarily considered magical. As can be seen by the topics of the works written by Pseudo-Democritus, these works covered plenty of material which does not fit the concept of turning lead into gold. Looking at the text itself, the directions given are about changing the appearance of materials: how to make something look like gold or silver; how to make a stone look like a gem by dyeing it; or how to successfully dye something purple. In fact, much of the material would be considered a manual for craftsmen, rather than philosophers. 

To better wrap your head around Greek alchemy of this period, you need to disregard our modern understanding of the elements; yes, the idea of pure gold existed (consider Archimedes), but this text was interested in how the end products looked. No the directions outlined could not have changed what inherent nature of the metal, but it could give it, for example, a golden colour. In addition to this, you also need to understand that alchemy included both physical and mystical matters, as described by Paul T. Keyser. It is really easy when reading the directions to look at these works as purely scientific manuals. This makes it somewhat shocking to the modern reader when you come across the following passage:

Since our master died before our initiation was completed, while we were still devoted to investigating the matter, I tried to conjure him from Hades. As soon as I was ready to do it, I immediately conjured him be saying: “Are you giving me any gift in return for what I did for you?” So I spoke, but he kept silence. Since I conjured him several times asking how to combine natures, he replied to me that it was difficult to speak, because he was not allowed to do so by his daemon. He told me only: “The books are in the temple.”

Necromancy just casually mentioned when the student was upset that he thought he had not been taught everything. 

Greek alchemical texts are an amalgam of craftsmen's manuals, philosophical discussion, and magical writings. It is because of this mix that there are frequent mentions of eastern knowledge being taught in relation to this. The rabbit hole I had found myself in was because of so much discussion of late antique and later still alchemy which was built upon the early Pseudo-Democritus text among others which have not survived. Alchemy became a huge are of study in the Byzantine period, among the Greeks and the Persian/Syrica/Arabic scholars. It is this wealth of later material which makes alchemy so confusing, at least to me at this moment in time. Especially when you realise that there is an Persian/Arabic tradition also feeding into this work.

For example, the tradition of Ostanes is huge when you approach it from the Persian perspective. K. T. Van Bladel (pages 50-4), and according to the Encyclopaedia Iranica, Ostanes becomes a legendary mage in classical and medieval literature. Because studies of these eastern accounts of Ostanes also use Greek and Roman texts, it was very easy for me to get lost with regard to when and how alchemy developed and what traditions were relevant for the discussion I am meant to lead. Added to this is how the Four Books also includes a "hidden texts" narrative which is a common topos in the Byzantine period used by Abbasid period writers and Greek writers of that period (I discuss this "Bang For His Buck" 2017  https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004349070_006). 

It also does not help that the first century CE Roman writer on farming, Columella, suggests that a work called "Χειροκμητα" Manufactured Products, which Diogenes Laertius attributed to Democritus, was actually the work of the Egyptian Bolus of Mendes (circa 250-115 BCE): 

The celebrated writer of Egyptian race, Bolus of Mendesium, whose commentaries, which in Greek are called Manufactured Products, is of the opinion..." (On Agriculture, 7.5.17)

This Bolus is considered by Van Bladel as responsible for transmitting or creating the legend of Ostanes teaching Democritus. There has been great discussion on whether the Pseudo-Democritus work Four Books, should be identified as Bolus' Manufactured Products, but Martelli and Hershbell both argue that the Four Books date to the first century CE, but conflicting arguments did not help my early confusion. 

Democritus as Authority

The use of Democritus as an authority figure was openly discussed in the Roman period. Aulus Gellius wrote stridently about the use of Democritus in his work:

Many fictions of this kind seem to have been attached to the name of Democritus by ignorant men, who sheltered themselves under his reputation and authority. (Attic Nights 10.12. 8)

This kind of use of a name as an authority explains why Democritus was included in the spell to treat malaria which I discussed at the start of this rambling blog. In addition to this, the section of the text that I am going discuss includes a mini-rant on how some of the same concepts used to underpin alchemy were also used in relation to pharmacology. There is another tradition that Democritus was visited by Hippocrates when people thought he was mentally unhinged. There is much to make Democritus a sought-after authority in relation to health.

Conclusion

Writing this blog was just an exercise to order my confused thoughts in preparation for Thursday afternoon. I think it was somewhat successful. Hopefully, as a result of this, I won't make a complete idiot of myself. I might follow up with an actual discussion of the text after Thursday.

Referred Works

This is by no means a complete bibliography, but just the few papers and books I refer to above.

• Martelli, Matteo, 2013. The Four Books of Pseudo-Democritus. Maney Publishing: Leeds.
• Heim, Richard, 1893. Incantamenta magica Graeca Latina. Teubner: Leipzig.
• Hershbell, Jackson P. 1987. "Democritus and the Beginnings of Greek Alchemy." Ambix vol. 34, pp. 5-20.
• Keyser, Paul T. 1990. "Alchemy in the Ancient World: From Science to Magic." Illinois Classical Studies, vol. 15, pp. 353-378.
• Van Bladel, K. T. 2009. The Arabic Hermes from pagan sage to prophet of science. Oxford University Press: Oxford.
• Hunt, Yvette, 2017. "Bang For His Buck: Dioscorides as a Gift of the Tenth-Century Byzantine Court." In Byzantine Culture in Translation, Brill: Leiden.