Descended from the Roman world of the first post-Christian century, Pedanius Dioscorides is familiar with the rational physiology of Hippocrates, the synthetic physiognomy of Aristotle, the codified botany of Theophrastus, and the modern theories of Erasistratus and Herophilus.

He himself acknowledges a direct debt to the famous Crateuas, physician to Mithridates Eupator and great pharmacognosist, and the somewhat lesser known Sixtus Niger, a Greek-speaking botanist of the time of Caesar.