188 Aster Hisrory; SIMEON SETH 
The contents of the work show that the author was a contem- 
porary. Sprengel deemed him to be the same Simeon to whom 
in 1034 the Emperor Michael IV. (the Paphlagonian) resigned the 
government when he became a monk. Meyer doubts his being 
the same, as there were 38 years between the two periods of activ- 
ity. Simeon Seth’s work is a well made compend, fide Meyer, 
from Aetios, Paulus Aegineta, Oribasius, Rufus Ephesios, Galen, 
Dioscorides, Theophrastus and Hippocrates, also showing knowl- 
edge of physicians of Persia, Arabia and India. From its first 
Latin translation Fuchs (edn. 1542, p. 500; also edn. 1551, P. 
485) quotes, “ex Symeone Sethi,” under Melissa officinalts, in 
such a manner as to suggest origination from Aster Atticus, 
Simeon Seth saying of the plant “ Bubones laedit,” 2. ¢., it dis- 
perses inguinal tumors; representing Dioscorides’ remark of his 
pskosoguidov, “Strumas discutiunt, ulcera purgant.” Dioscor- 
ides’ recommendation of his melissophyllon for ulcers and tumors s 
seems to have been borrowed from the ulcer-curing power of his 
other bee-loving plant, Aster Atticus; confusion between the two 
seems evident in later centuries ; see supra, Palladius, p. 175- 
XXXI. SrepHanos Macneres,+ who wrote ¢ about 1100 A. D. 
on medical plants§ and added their Arabic names ||; claimed { that 
Dioscorides’ chapter on Chrysanthemum is a later addition, being 
* Dioscorides, remarking that many persons confused the me/issophyllon with his 
Ballota ox black horehound, ascribes to the latter also these same curative powers. 
1842) to the same emperor. 
t His Commentary 
