Polisemia di nòmos e l'esordio di Hipp. de genitura

Far from being, as has been said, “the bizarrest beginning of all theHippocratic writings (...) deserving of therapy”, this paper aims toshow that the opening words of the Hippocratic writing “On Generation”(νόμοϲ μὲν πάντα κρατύνει), in itself echoing a famous Pindaric motto,seem to be used first of all in order to evoke a cultural,intellectual and scientific world, in which the nòmos has become oneof the most important keywords of the time. From this point of view,the Pindaric quotation seems to be played out on the wide semanticrange of nòmos as well as on the ambiguous meaning of the verbκρατύνω, which in this embryological context denote specifically theconsolidation and hardening process of the human embryo. Also, thereis no need to correct, with some scholars, the Pindaric νόμοϲ of themss. into the incoherent νομόϲ (“nutriment”).