Aspetti e declinazioni della paura nel Corpus Hippocraticum: il φόβος e il pericolo dell’imprevedibile

In the Corpus Hippocraticum, fear (φόβος) is regarded as a πάθος of the soul, a psychological condition common among the sick and closely linked to the role of the physician. This condition reflects the unpredictability of illness, whether physical or mental, and is described both as a symptom of phenomena that are difficult to interpret and as a reaction to the unpredictable nature of disease itself. The physician, through his knowledge, encourages not to fear what happens without reason or against reason, as such events are purely accidental: fear of the future arises from the patient’s ignorance of the causes and consequences of phenomena. However, this does not mean that knowledge eliminates the fear stemming from the uncertainty of natural and pathological phenomena, which medical practice inevitably encounters. This emotion, complex in its manifestations, thus becomes a central theme in Hippocratic treatises