On Medicine, Physicians, and Healers in Ancient Rome

Abstract

The paper discusses the issue of the attitude towards medicine, physicians, and healers in Ancient Rome (1st – 5th centuries) based on ancient texts (Juv. Sat., Plin. Nat. Hist., Mart. Ep., etc.). It is shown that the profession of physician in Rome did not immediately receive recognition. The reasons for this are revealed: first, Romans did not consider medicine an art (science), and second, those who were associated with medicine were not Romans by origin and did not initially have civil rights. The collective biography of the Roman physician is reconstructed; it is based on the surviving testimonies about Anthonius Musa, Sextius Niger, Scribonius Largus, Rufus of Ephesus, Galen, Serenius Sammonius, Theodorus Priscianus, Adamantius, Marcellus Empiricus, and others. Information about their origin, names and nicknames, positions, social status, duties and rights, features of professional activity, subject and content of their medical texts is taken into account. Some provisions of the collective biography are as follows: 1) Roman physicians and people associated with medicine initially had the status of a slave; 2) As a rule, they received education either in Alexandria, or in special medical schools and temples-hospitals, or from famous teachers; 3) Some physicians were at emperors’ courts, had high titles, positions and privileges; 4) For the most part, physicians authored works written mainly in Greek, but also in Arabic and Latin; 5) The interests of physicians were connected with natural philosophy, medicine itself (theoretical and practical) and its fields, for example, physiology and pharmacology, as well as biology (botany); 6) In addition to medical practice, physicians’ occupations included teaching, mentoring, and sharing experience; collecting prescriptions and antidotes, inventing medical drugs; 7) The career of a physician (especially at the court of an emperor) could not always be successful. He could be expelled, forced to flee to a foreign country, or murdered.