Pharmacopola. (FarmakopqlhV) Quack doctors and druggists kept shops or booths for their goods at Athens, and also hawked them about (apokhruttein: cf. Ar. Thesm. 504, Nub. 766; Plin. xxix. 18). In Rome there were many quacks of this sort, who, besides the sale of drugs, professed to cure patients also. [Medicus] Regular medicines were sold with a label (epaggelia affixed, which specified the name of the drug, its composition, virtues, and use. The drugs were oftne brought from distant places and obtained from drug-sellers. The physicians, however, commonly bought the drugs ready compounded, and the pharmacopola traded on his own account (Hor. Sat. i, 2, 1), carrying his drugs about to country towns (Cic. Cluent. 14, 40).

Sir William Smith, Concise Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, Ed. F. Warre Cornish (London: John Murray, 1898), p 477.