Asclepius restores the dismembered Virbius to wholeness; as a writer, Marcellus says, he follows a similar course of gathering the disiecta … membra ("scattered body parts") of his sources into one corpus (whole body). In addition to gods from the Greco-Roman pantheon, one charm deciphered as a Gaulish passage has been translated to invoke the Celtic god Aisus, or Esus as it is more commonly spelled, for his aid in dispelling throat trouble. Christian benefactor? An inscription dated 445 recognizes a Marcellus as the most important financial supporter in the rebuilding of the cathedral at Narbonne, carried out during the bishopric of St. Rusticus. John Matthews has argued that this Marcellus is likely to have been a son or near descendant of the medical writer, since the family of an inlustris is most likely to have possessed the wealth for such a generous contribution. The donor had served for two years as praetorian prefect of Gaul. Assuming that the man would have been a native, Matthews weighs this piece of evidence with the Athaulf anecdote from Orosius to situate the author of the De medicamentis in the Narbonensis, but this is a minority view. The Book of Medicaments Marcellus begins the De medicamentis liber by acknowledging his models. The texts he draws on include the so-called Medicina Plinii or “Medical Pliny,” the herbal (Herbarius) of Pseudo-Apuleius, and the pharmacological treatise of Scribonius Largus, as well as the most famous Latin encyclopedia from antiquity, the Historia naturalis of Pliny the Elder. The work is structured as follows: Epistolary dedication, addressed to Marcellus's sons, a prose preface equivalent to seven paragraphs. Index medicalium scriptorum, or table of contents for the medical topics, listing the 36 chapter headings. A short tract on metrology, with notes in Latin on units of measure and a conversion chart in Greek. Epistulae diversorum de qualitate et observatione medicinae (“Letters by various authors on ‘quality’ and ‘observation’ in medicine”), a series of seven epistles, each attributed to a different medical writer. The epistles serve as a literary device for discussing methodology, diagnosis, and the importance of ethical and accurate treatment. They are not, or not wholly, fictional; just as Marcellus's work begins with a prefatory epistle addressed to his sons, the seven letters represent prefaces to other authors’ works, some now lost. Marcellus has detached them from the works they headed and presented them collectively, translating, sometimes taking