"You're inflaming me even though I don't want to flare up!": medicine in Herodas' mimiamb 4

Abstract

Mimiamb 4 of the third century BC Greek poet Herodas (or Herondas) tells of two women, Kynno and Kokkalo, who, together with the slave girl Kydilla, visit a sanctuary of Asclepius. Here, the women plan to sacrifice a cockerel to the god in order to thank him for healing them from some unspecified conditions. The women encounter all sorts of votive artworks in the sanctuary, which are so compelling that Kydilla cannot help but stand and stare, angering her mistress Kynno, who exclaims, “[m]ay this god here be my witness, Kydilla, you’re inflaming me even though I don’t want to flare up!” The setting of this poem in an important centre of Asclepius’ healing cult should, I suggest, alert Herodas’ learned audience to possible medical influence in the poem, and allows me to propose a new interpretation of the verses quoted. I will argue that this passage is meant as a medical joke, which perhaps makes clear what condition the women had been suffering from, and which aided Herodas in the construction of his characters in the mimiamb.