This thick volume contains all of Jacques Jouanna’s scholarly papers, 230 texts dating from 1961 to 2022, plus two in press, published in journals, multi-authored books and symposium proceedings, the majority in French, with a few in English and Italian. For the present publication, the texts have been typographically composed ex novo, the original pagination being indicated in the margins. Antonio Ricciardetto has overseen the physical production of the book and has compiled an index of Greek words that comprises over two thousand entries. The introduction, co-signed by Caroline Noirot and Antonio Ricciardetto, presents Jacques Jouanna and the monographs and editions of Greek texts he has published, to which this collection is now joined.
The main field of Jouanna’s research is the Hippocratic Collection, to which the first article, “Présence d’Empédocle dans la Collection hippocratique” (1961), was already devoted. Jouanna recalls the conditions in which French research on this subject was born, with the “founding meal” in 1966 (p. 1105), during which Fernand Robert launched the program to publish Hippocrates in the Collection des Universités de France, followed by the “founding colloquium” (p. 1611) organized in Strasbourg in 1972 by Louis Bourgey and Jouanna. From that point onwards, Jouanna would lead the research in this field, and his articles have branched out in many directions, which can only be listed here: the study of Greek manuscripts, indirect testimonies, and old translations; questions of authenticity; the issue of vocabulary, both to determine the precise form of words and to pinpoint their meaning; and a wide range of themes, including Europe, water, health, wine, the senses, humours, plague, famine, melancholy, diet, the embryo, measure, madness, the heart, the passions of the soul, climate, environment, epidemics, magic, and the sacred. Rhetoric is not forgotten, as it is taken into consideration in several papers bearing on oratorical lectures given by ancient physicians, polemics between practitioners and dialogues between doctors and patients. The few dozen treatises that make up the Hippocratic Corpus prove thus extremely rich. Finally, a number of articles, intended for a readership broader than that of specialists in antiquity, offer perspectives and syntheses on Hippocrates in his own time, on the birth of Western medical art, and on the part played by classical Greece in the history of medicine.
A second field of research explored in this collection is Greek tragedy. Topics such as rites, prayers, oracles, soothsayers, hymns, dreams, sleep and tombs are discussed. Here again, the Greek vocabulary is closely analyzed, as is the rhythmic structure and alternation between spoken and sung parts. Jouanna denounces the error of considering only the text, without contemplating the staging, which can lead to “hypercriticism” (pp. 88–89). He demonstrates that it is possible to better understand certain passages if we take into account the conditions of performance and theatrical constraints. Tragedy, for him, is the path “from myth to stage” (p. 1800).
In the coherence of a lifetime’s work, these two bodies of texts—medical treatises and theatrical pieces—are not only juxtaposed but give rise to investigations that intertwine and feed each other. In both, the same words and the same notions are used. Hence the title chosen for the volume, Médecine et tragédie en Grèce antique, a title that was prefigured in a 1987 article already entitled “Médecine hippocratique et tragédie grecque” and that emphasizes the complementary nature of the two fields. Medicine and tragedy deserve to be considered together, because they have many points in common, and because they also are fundamentally parallel: they are two sectors of Greek civilization that present themselves to us in a comparable way, that is, between otherness and heritage. We no longer treat ourselves as the ancient Greeks did, nor do we create tragedies similar to theirs, and yet we are indebted to them for this enduring patrimony.
Other classical Greek authors mentioned in the articles include Pindar, Sappho, Empedocles, Democritus, Thucydides, Aristophanes, Plato and Aristotle. Among the authors belonging to the imperial age, Galen occupies a prominent position in the volume. He appears first, not for himself, but insofar as he helps to establish the text of Hippocrates, thanks to the lemmas of his commentaries devoted to this master. Then comes Véronique Boudon-Millot’s project to publish Galen’s work in the Collection des Universités de France (p. 615). This led to the discovery in 2005 by Véronique Boudon-Millot and Jacques Jouanna of the treatise De indolentia (previously thought lost) in a manuscript located in 2004 by Antoine Pietrobelli (pp. 1893-1894). Several articles in the collection are devoted to this treatise and other aspects of Galen’s work.
Behind this multiplicity of authors and subjects, what remains essential is the unity of one method: philology. For Jouanna, philology is a broad and deep science. It begins with texts, and its first task is to establish them rigorously, using all available resources. Thus, the present volume studies a number of medical texts, rare or poorly understood, which are here, for the first time, edited, translated, and commented on.
But that is not all: another task of philology is the study of words. Jouanna studies their roots, their uses, and their meanings in such a way as to go beyond the most reputable dictionaries to propose new conclusions, whether they be rare and technical vocables (αἱμάλωψ, ἀνόστεος …) or more widespread terms (ἀκτίς, ἤπιος, ἰχώρ, ὄγκος …), all linguistic advances with implications for the history of ideas.
As part of the “dialogue between philologists and archaeologists” (p. 2734), archaeology is called upon, and research refers here to an ἀρύβαλλος, there to such and such a sanctuary of healing deities.
Philology, too, is part of a tradition. Jouanna takes full account of the work of scholars since the Renaissance. He revisits the editors of Hippocrates, known and less known, such as Girolamo Mercuriale, Anuce Foës, René Chartier, Coray and Émile Littré. Their contributions, and even their mistakes, are instructive and form the basis of today’s innovation. More broadly, the history of Greek studies in France, outside medicine, is discussed in relation to exceptional individuals, including the Reinach brothers, and to several institutions in which Jouanna has played and continues to play a leading role: the Association des Études Grecques, the Association Guillaume Budé and the Collection des Universités de France.
Jouanna poses the question: “Is progress being made in philology?” (p. 1049). The answer is yes, as this volume testifies. It provides a wealth of new readings and interpretations, which in turn open up new avenues of research for scholars to come.