Le baccar et la thérapie de la suffocation hystérique : les enjeux des choix lexicaux d’Arétée de Cappadoce
The baccar and the therapy of the hysterical suffocation: how does Aretaeus of Cappadocia choose his words?

Summary/Abstract: The aim of this paper is the study of the lexical creativity of an author from imperial times, Aretaeus of Cappadocia. This physician, known mostly as an imitator of the Hippocratics, often uses rare words. The noun βάκκαρις is one of them: attested only in the fragments of the most ancient iambographers and the authors of the Corpus hippocraticum, it disappears completely from later texts and will reappear only with the imperial Greek literature. We will try to show that Aretaeus’s use of this noun is twofold: on one hand, he seeks to define himself as a Hippocratic, not only by his words but also ideas, renewed in order to treat imperial patients, and on the other he is keen to perpetuate Hellenistic writing aesthetics. This example shows then that Aretaeus’s writing in some respects follows an ornamental as well as a doctrinal goal, and in some other it represents a basis for a renewed Hippocratic medical practice.

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