Galen and the Rhetoric of Healing by Susan P. Mattern

Abstract

462 PHOENIX Wallace-Hadrill is not the first to suggest that his Foucauldian project of 1997 might be expanded into the realm of governance, but the actualization of that effort in Chapter Six, "Knowing the City," is nicely done, and generously gives credit to the foundational work in this arena of Coarelli, Nicolet, and Rodriguez-Almeida. Rome's Cultural Revolution is a long, rich and complex book, partially, at least, at odds with itself. Not only are the varied strands of argument incompletely integrated, some seem to me distinctly weaker than others. Nonetheless, I should like to emphasize once again in closing the very notable achievement of Parts III and IV. The detailed studies there undertaken, of plans of Rome before the Severan marble plan, say, or of pottery lamps, are splendid and exciting. What is more, by assimilating his project to that of Rostovtzeff, Wallace-Hadrill does more than revive the dormant question, now nearly a century old, of the utility of concepts like "bourgeoisie" to Rome. He forcefully demonstrates the insights to be gleaned from the renewed application of class- and cultural-materialist frameworks to the study of domestic material culture and decorative arts. What is more, by setting that history alongside the gradual evacuation of meaning from purely juridical notions of belonging—by pointing, that is, to changes in the meaning of citizenship attendant upon the loss of its great privileges—Wallace-Hadrill points emphatically to an answer. A commercial class did in fact rise on the back of empire in the second century B.C.E.; and whether it willed it or not, it was effectively depoliticized in the narrow sense of the term by the material effects of diaspora and the constitutional effects of monarchy. But that latter process only further consolidated the coming-to-be of notions of identity and systems of social differentiation based on consumption, taste, and display. University of Chicago Clifford Ando Galen and the Rhetoric of Healing. By Susan P. Mattern. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press. 2008. Pp. viii, 279. Susan Mattern's contribution to the ever-growing scholarship on Galen is worthy of commendation. In a field which is rapidly expanded, Mattern's work continues to drive home the message that scholars of many disciplines must contend with Gailen.1 Not only do the more than 20,000 pages of text preserve important medical and philosophical information, but a surprising amount of material regarding second-century Roman society is contained within the corpus as well. Mattern embarks on a study of Galen's representation of his patients as recorded in case-history narratives; it is a welcome addition to the scholarship which addresses the interplay between medicine and social culture. Mattern is well-informed about the major socio-cultural issues of Rome, Galenic scholarship, and the writings of Galen himself. She is rightly insistent on placing Galen's medical activity within its social context, stating that "It is one of the purposes of this book to illuminate the relationship between Galen's stories and the society that produces them"(49). Putting aside an interest in medicine, the author instead focuses entirely on "the social world around the sick person" (89). She attempts to reveal the reality of Galen's Rome and to determine the lens through which he viewed it by closely analyzing his narratives. Her intent is to determine to what extent Galen's accounts of his patients may 1 Extensive up-to-date bibliography can be found in: R. J. Hankinson (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Galen (Cambridge 2008). BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS 463 be used as a source of information, not only of Galen's activities, but also of the functioning of the world in which the patients lived, together with their family and friends as well as Galen's associates. She is aware of the pitfalls of the project and correctly reminds the reader that "we read Galen's representation of the history and not, of course, the patient's original story" (125). The book is divided into five substantial chapters, with a sixth serving as a brief conclusion. Two appendices, a section of notes, a bibliography, and an index comprise nearly half of...