202 Astek History; MACcER 
How much Macer revered the authors he quoted we may in- 
fer from his scrupulous regard for their utterances, and from his 
manner of mention of Hippocrates, whom he calls, /ppocras, medi- 
cinae maximus auctor (508); of Dioscorides, whom he elevated to 
distinction by an Ipse—J/pse Dioscorides ait, 1628 ; and of Palladius, 
whom he calls peritus, 802, saying of rose-oil, ‘I will quote what 
Palladius wrote of it, Palladius the skilled,’”— 
Dicam Palladius quid scripserit inde peritus. 
With Pliny, ‘ Galienus,” Oribasius, and Asclepius he used the ap- 
pellative auctor, evidently a mark of great dignity. The one Latin 
whom he quotes besides Pliny and Palladius, Cato, he refers to as 
Romanus Cato testator, 1205 ; words however strange on the lips 
of one who also felt himself a Roman, very natural for a Calabrian 
Was hein service of France under Charlesthe Bald’s long reign, 840-877, as ambassador 
to whom Strabus died, in 849? and did Strabus carry a copy of his Hortulus with him 
the French king’s court, there soon to be seen by Macer, though too late for conference 
with its author ? and so did Lac:oix’s assignment of Macer to the France of ( harlemagne 
have this measure of justification? This may yet prove true ; but the French chronicles 
might be expected then to have mentioned his name; the French court was a fairly 
continuous court, till near Hugh Capet’s accession, 987; yet the first chronicler to 
mention Macer, Sigebert of Gembloux, himself esteemed a Frenchman, and living 
1030-1112, knew nothing of Macer as Frenchman or French court physician, catalogued 
him as if living 500 A. D., and evidently knew only the poem, not the man. Therefore 
and the subsequent disintegration of that northern part where Sigebert Gem 
originated, then rent asunder from the ancient capital at Metz into the numerous 
duchies of Brabant, Limburg, etc. In this way Sigebert may have found some ~*~ 
Macer derived from one at Metz, but yet may have known nothing of his personality: : 
