"This volume of new essays is based on a conference with the same title held at the University of Exeter in 2005. All those speaking on that occasion have written chapters in this volume, along with Riccardo Chiaradonna whose chapter has been specially prepared for the volume. The aim of this volume, like the conference on which it is based, is to contribute to the upsurge of new research on Galen by focusing on a topic that bridges the interests of specialists in ancient medical history and Classicists and philosophers more generally. The conference also represents the convergence of two current focuses of research in the Department of Classics and Ancient History at Exeter, on ancient medicine especially Galen and on Hellenistic and Imperial Greek culture more generally"--Provided by publisher.
Galen is the most important medical writer in Graeco-Roman antiquity, and also extremely valuable for understanding Graeco-Roman thought and society in the second century AD. This volume of new essays locates him firmly in the intellectual life of his period, and thus aims to make better sense of the medical and philosophical 'world of knowledge' that he tries to create. How did Galen present himself as a reader and an author in comparison with other intellectuals of his day? Above all, how did he fashion himself as a medical practitioner, and how does that self-fashioning relate to the performance culture of second-century Rome? Did he see medicine as taking over some of the traditional roles of philosophy? These and other questions are freshly addressed by leading international experts on Galen and the intellectual life of the period, in a stimulating collection that combines learning with accessibility.
Places Galen more firmly in the intellectual life of his period of the second century AD.