Galen’s Surgical Commentaries in Oribasius’ Collectiones medicae. An Overview and Some Remarks

In books 46–49 of the Collectiones medicae, Oribasius collects a remarkable number of text excerpts, varying in size, from Galen’s commentaries on Hippocrates’ surgical treatises (In the surgery, On fractures, and On joints). Besides being a witness of indirect tradition for the surviving Greek text of the commentaries, these excerpts offer good overall specimens of Oribasius’ writing method. The paper analyzes some significant examples, in order to highlight Oribasius’ compilatory technique and the strategies he adopted to overcome the difficulties in building a continuous text moving from a non-continuous one.