[Pharmacology in ancient Rome. First appearance, development, extension].

The history of Roman pharmacology is ponctuated with ideological debates about relevance of this art. Thus, Hippocrates --a contemporary of Socrates who was teaching that "science of remedies and science of poisons are the same"--was given credit for favourable mood towards pharmaceuticals by Scribonius Largus on the basis of therapeutic complementarity. Among the Latin doctors of the late Roman Empire, Marcellus Empiricus and Caelius Aurelianus, Hippocrates appeared as an authority favourable towards medication, especially in a fictitious letter written by Marcellus to the Claudian emancipated slave Callistus.