'We are all Greeks. Our laws, our literature, our religion, our arts, have their root in Greece', the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley once wrote. It is in Greek that the questions which shaped the destiny of Western culture were asked, and so were the first attempts at an answer, and the search for a method of investigation. This book tries to rediscover the propulsive force that for over two millennia spread, and still lives in our system of thought. By systematically quoting the very words of the leading actors and by tracing their sources, it leads the reader along a path where they will be able to observe the establishment of philosophical ideas and language, in an updated and balanced picture of archaic lore, of the thought of the classical and hellenistic ages, and of the philosophy of late antiquity. The book looks closely at the progress of scientific thought and at its increasing autonomy, while following the evolution of the fruitful yet problematic relationship between the Greek world and the Near East.

'We are all Greeks. Our laws, our literature, our religion, our arts, have their root in Greece', the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley once wrote. It is in Greek that the questions which shaped the destiny of Western culture were asked, and so were the first attempts at an answer, and the search for a method of investigation. This book tries to rediscover the propulsive force that for over two millennia spread, and still lives in our system of thought. By systematically quoting the very words of the leading actors and by tracing their sources, it leads the reader along a path where they will be able to observe the establishment of philosophical ideas and language, in an updated and balanced picture of archaic lore, of the thought of the classical and hellenistic ages, and of the philosophy of late antiquity. The book looks closely at the progress of scientific thought and at its increasing autonomy, while following the evolution of the fruitful yet problematic relationship between the Greek world and the Near East.

Menodotus of Nicomedia (II AD) has usually been considered as one of the most important among the physicians of the so-called Greek Empirical school, as well as, according to an-cient testimonies, a leading figure of Skepticism and, at least until mid-20th century, a fore-runner of modern experimental science. This book offers the first scientific monograph en-tirely devoted to an empirical doctor, together with a collection of fragments in the form of a "running commentary." In the resulting frame, a more reliable historical position is re-covered for Menodotus (and, through him, for the last development of Greek empirical medicine), and the usual picture is substantially altered. Main lines of the work are the problem of sources, which can be identified almost exclusively with the famous doctor Galen, and of their trustworthiness; the misunderstood role of Menodotus as a source of Galen for his picture of Empiricism; the mutual relationship between the concepts of reason and experience, and the problematical acceptance of the former into the empirical doctrine; the relationship of Menodotus to his forerunners, not only inside the school but also in the post-Aristotelian history of medicine and philosophy, starting from Diocles of Carystus and up to Heraclides of Tarentum and to the Epicureanism of Philodemus. The Introduction tries a.o. to understand the role of Greek Empiricism in the history of science. The book also contains a detailed bibliography and five Indexes, as well as an Epilegomenon, in which the authenticity of some works of Galen concerning Empiricism is discussed.