Oribasius or Oreibasius (c. 320–400) was a Greek

Ancient Greece

Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...

 medical writer and the personal physician of the Roman emperor Julian the Apostate

Julian the Apostate

Julian "the Apostate" , commonly known as Julian, or also Julian the Philosopher, was Roman Emperor from 361 to 363 and a noted philosopher and Greek writer....

. He studied at Alexandria

Alexandria

Alexandria is the second-largest city of Egypt, with a population of 4.1 million, extending about along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in the north central part of the country; it is also the largest city lying directly on the Mediterranean coast. It is Egypt's largest seaport, serving...

 under physician Zeno of Cyprus

Zeno of Cyprus

Zeno of Cyprus, , was a Greek physician, a native of Cyprus, and the tutor of Ionicus, Magnus, and Oribasius. He taught and practised his profession at Alexandria, but was expelled by the Bishop George of Cappadocia, who persecuted both pagans and orthodox Christians with equal bitterness...

http://www.ancientlibrary.com/smith-bio/3652.html before joining Julian's retinue. He was involved in Julian's coronation in 361, and remained with the emperor until Julian's death in 363. In the wake of this event, Oribasius was banished to foreign courts for a time, but was later recalled by the emperor Valens

Valens

Valens was the Eastern Roman Emperor from 364 to 378. He was given the eastern half of the empire by his brother Valentinian I after the latter's accession to the throne...

.

Oribasius's major works, written at the behest of Julian, are two collections of excerpts from the writings of earlier medical scholars, a collection of excerpts from Galen

Galen

Aelius Galenus or Claudius Galenus , better known as Galen of Pergamon , was a prominent Roman physician, surgeon and philosopher...

 and the Collectiones, a massive compilation of excerpts from other medical writers of the ancient world. The first of these works is entirely lost, and only 25 of the 70 (or 72) books of the Collectiones survive. This work preserves a number of excerpts from older writers whose writings have otherwise been lost, and has thus been valuable to modern scholars. The earliest known description of a string figure

String figure

A string figure is a design formed by manipulating string on, around, and using one's fingers or sometimes between the fingers of multiple people. String figures may also involve the use of the mouth, wrist, and feet. They may consist of singular images or be created and altered as a game, known as...

, presented as the surgical sling Plinthios Brokhos by Greek physician Heraklas

Heraklas

Heraklas was a Greek physician of the 1st century AD whose descriptions of surgeons' knots and slings are preserved in book 48 of Oribasius' Medical Collections under the title From Heraklas ....

, is among the preserved material.

History has it that in 362, on behalf of his emperor Julian the Apostate, Oribasius visited the Delphi

Delphi

Delphi is both an archaeological site and a modern town in Greece on the south-western spur of Mount Parnassus in the valley of Phocis.In Greek mythology, Delphi was the site of the Delphic oracle, the most important oracle in the classical Greek world, and a major site for the worship of the god...

c oracle

Oracle

In Classical Antiquity, an oracle was a person or agency considered to be a source of wise counsel or prophetic predictions or precognition of the future, inspired by the gods. As such it is a form of divination....

, now in a rather desolate state, offering his emperor's services to the temple and, in return, receiving one of the last prophecies by the Delphic Pythia

Pythia

The Pythia , commonly known as the Oracle of Delphi, was the priestess at the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, located on the slopes of Mount Parnassus. The Pythia was widely credited for her prophecies inspired by Apollo. The Delphic oracle was established in the 8th century BC...

:
Tell the emperor, the splendid hall fell to the ground.

Phoebus no longer has his house, nor the prophesying laurel,

nor the speaking well. The speaking water has also gone out. (Passio Artemii 96.1284.45-7, Cedrenus 1.532.8-10)

External links

• Greek site providing the prophecying text in modern Greek accentuation