Antonius Musa

Antonius Musa was a freedman and physician to the Roman emperor Augustus.

Musa belonged to the school of the beginning of the 1st century BC in Rome acting physician Asclepiades of Bithynia. He could heal the rest of his life ailing Augustus 23 BC with a cold water treatment of a serious illness and was honored with a statue, which Augustus had erected next to the healing god Asklepios of. He was also active in the field of pharmacology; a treatise On the vettonische plant ( De herba vettonica ) is handed down under his name, but probably dates only from the late antiquity.

Musa's brother Euphorbus is attested as a personal physician to the Mauritanian King Juba II.

Writings

• Florianus Caldani (ed.): Antonii Musae, qui fuit Augusti Caesaris Medicus, Fragmenta, quae extant. Remondini, Bassani 1800 ( digitized ).
• Ernst Howald, Henry E. Sigerist (ed.): Antonii Musae De herba vettonica liber. Pseudoapulei Herbarius. Anonymi taxa de liber. Sexti Placiti liber medicinae ex animalibus etc. Teubner, Leipzig 1927 ( Corpus medicorum Latinorum, 4).