Damigeron, Evax and the Greek lapidaries of late antiquity
The De lapidibus of Damigeron and Evax, the Orphic Lithika and other Greek lapidaries: the texts that passed the magical virtues of stones to the Middle Ages.
Alongside Pliny's encyclopedia, the Middle Ages inherited from antiquity another strand of knowledge about stones: the magical lapidaries of the Greek tradition. These were short texts, often anonymous or attributed to legendary figures, which described gems not as natural objects but as bearers of powers. The most influential of them, known in Latin as the De lapidibus of Damigeron and Evax, was the main source of Marbod's lapidary and thus of much of the Western tradition.
Who was Damigeron
We know very little about Damigeron. His name appears in the Apology of Apuleius, the speech in which the writer defended himself against a charge of magic in the second century AD, in a list of famous magicians alongside Moses, John, Apollobex and Dardanus. This shows that he was already regarded as an authority in the field, but it does not allow us to establish when he lived or whether he really existed as an author.
The treatise that has come down to us is a Latin translation of a lost Greek original, and the dating of both is uncertain. In its Latin form the text is linked to Evax, presented as a king of the Arabs who wrote to the emperor about the virtues of stones. This is a legendary frame, typical of texts that sought authority by claiming distant and exotic origins.
The Orphic Lithika and other lapidaries
Another important text is the Greek poem known as the Lithika, attributed to Orpheus. Composed in hexameters, it tells of the poet's meeting with a sage named Theiodamas, who reveals to him the virtues of stones. Its date is debated, and many scholars place it in the imperial age. Alongside it circulated other collections, such as the so-called Kerygmata and the lapidaries attributed to Socrates and Dionysius, as well as the sections on stones in the Kyranides.
These texts share a common idea: every stone has a hidden power, often linked to a deity or a star, which shows itself when the stone is worn or engraved with certain images. Unlike Pliny, their authors do not distance themselves from such beliefs but present them as reserved knowledge, handed down by authoritative masters to disciples worthy of receiving it.
The road to the Middle Ages
Through Damigeron and Evax, the knowledge of the Greek lapidaries reached the monasteries and schools of the Latin West. Marbod of Rennes, in the eleventh century, turned it into an elegant poem, citing Evax from the prologue onwards. At the same time, in the Byzantine and Arab worlds, other translations and reworkings gave rise to lapidaries that would return to Europe later, such as the one translated at the court of Alfonso X of Castile.
The lapidaries of Damigeron and the Greek authors are hard to place, lacking secure dates and often real authors. Yet their influence was enormous: it was they who passed on to the Middle Ages the idea that stones were instruments of protection and power. Reading them today means studying a mentality, one that saw nature as a set of hidden forces to be deciphered, and not as a repertoire of virtues to be tried out.