The Doctor as Poisoner:
Medical (Mal)practice in Sophistopolis

Craig A. Gibson (University of Iowa)

The doctor suspected of poisoning is a familiar figure in ancient literature, particularly in Latin declamation.  In Calpurnius Flaccus 13, two doctors dispute over which deserves the reward for poisoning a tyrant, the one who administered the poison in the first place, or the one who lied to the tyrant, telling him that he was giving him an antidote.  In Ps.-Quintilian DMin 321, the brother of a poisoned man accuses the deceased’s heir (a doctor) of poisoning him for the inheritance.  Doctors in Latin declamation are also accused of other kinds of professional malpractice, such as failing to treat ailing stepmothers (Seneca Controversia 4.5) or vivisecting one sick twin in order to diagnose and treat the other (Ps.-Quintilian MD 8).  And this despite the claim that doctors are more valuable to society than orators or philosophers (Ps.-Quintilian DMin 268).

The Greek side of this tradition has not been as thoroughly explored.  In this paper I propose to discuss two main texts.  The first is Libanius’ Against a Physician-Poisoner (Foerster 8.182-194), an exercise in “common topics” in which the goal is to develop a generalized denunciation of a stock figure.  The second is a declamation theme with discussion and partial elaboration in Sopatros’ Division of Questions: “A wife and husband fell ill at the same time from the same disease.  They sent for a doctor who was a friend of the husband, and the husband died, while the wife recovered.  Later the doctor married the woman, and he is tried for poisoning” (Walz 8.54.13-67.2).  This theme is also recorded in the scholia to Hermogenes On Issues (Walz 5.290.13-16; 7.247.26-30, 354.6-9).  In these examples and others, we see that the doctor’s knowledge of drug therapies and access to private households becomes his rhetorical undoing.  The challenge for his accuser is to argue successfully that this pillar of the community, clothed in the outward appearance of professional respectability, has in fact betrayed the trust of his patients and their families and corrupted the profession of medicine through the use of poison.  In his own defense, the doctor must rely heavily on his personal and professional ethos to counter what in his view is merely circumstantial evidence.  While Libanius’ exercise assumes the doctor’s guilt, and thus provides a full arsenal of what one might say in court against such a criminal, the example in Sopatros provides advice on how to defend him, in each case explaining what the speaker should say and why.  Taken together, then, these exercises not only illuminate and conflate two prominent themes of Greek and Roman declamation (the doctor and poisoning), but may also reflect certain real-world anxieties about medical care and external threats to the family.