Philistion of Locri

Philistion of Locri (c. 427 BC; † around 347 BC ) was one of the most famous physicians of his time. He came from the Greek populated city Locri (now Locri ) in Calabria and was a contemporary of the philosopher Plato, whom he must have met personally at his multiple visits to Syracuse.

Philistions native town of Locri then maintained a lively relationship with Syracuse, as the wife of the Syracusan tyrant Dionysius I, Doris, came from there. Maybe Philistion came to Syracuse in connection with this wedding, where he both Dionysius I and his son and successor, Dionysius II, who came from his marriage to Doris, served as personal physician. As such, he must have been involved in the operations at the death of Dionysius I, of which Plutarch and this led to the heirs of the tyrant from his second, coming from Syracuse wife Aristomache were excluded from the succession. Supposedly got seriously ill tyrant by his doctors due to a transfer of his son Dionysius II, a powerful means by which he was put to sleep before he could change his testamentary dispositions.

Philistion who must have been standing in a scientific contact with Plato, is mentioned in Plato wrongly attributed to " Second Letter ".

In his scientific ideas Philistion was influenced by the teachings of Empedocles by the four elements. He understood the human body as a mixture of these four elements. For him, the health in the correct ( numerical ) ratio of these elements was another. Plato agrees with this thesis, but differs in that it does not consider the four elements as the last units of Philistion. May establish Plato's cosmological and medical ideas on intelligence that has given him Philistion.

Text output

• Max Wellmann (eds.): Fragment collection of Greek physicians. Volume 1: The fragments of Sicelian doctors Akron, Philistion and Diocles of Carystus. Weidmann, Berlin 1901, pp. 109-116