Agathemerus, Claudius

(Κλαύδιος Ἀγαθήμερος), an ancient Greek physician, who lived in the first century after Christ. He was born at Lacedaemon, and was a pupil of the philosopher Cornutus, in whose house he became acquainted with the poet Persius about A. D. 50. (Pseudo-Sueton. vita Persii.) In the old editions of Suetonius he is called Agaternus, a mistake which was first corrected by Reinesius (Syntagma Inscript. Antiq. p. 610), from the epitaph upon him and his wife, Myrtale, which is preserved in the Marmora Oxoniensia and the Greek Anthology, vol. iii. p. 3811.224, ed. Tauchn. The apparent anomaly of a Roman praenomen being given to a Greek, may be accounted for by the fact which we learn from Suetonius (Suet. Tib. 6), that the Spartans were the hereditary clients of the Claudia Gens.

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