CLASSICS 2902 ANCIENT MEDICINE EVALUATION
TEST QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS SET A+
✔✔Sacred law (4th-3rd c BCE): supplies for sacrifice & costs - ✔✔Grain & wreath = half
an obol; firewood for young pigs = half an obol; for grown pigs = full obol
✔✔Bathing - ✔✔Ritual cleansing
Before sacrificial meals & prerequisite for cure
Shallow basins on stands: hands & face; bath buildings for full-body baths
✔✔1 bath close to abaton: - ✔✔for healing process?
✔✔1 (hellenistic) bath: - ✔✔recreational?
✔✔Incubation - ✔✔Central activity
Get curative dream
Spend night in abaton
Set up dedication
✔✔Dedications - ✔✔For successful cure: animal sacrifice - material offerings
Payment: 1 drachma? More?
✔✔Cure inscription: - ✔✔Echedoros punished for not upholding his vow to the god
MUST pay Asclepius & respect cultic prescription
✔✔Accommodations - ✔✔Travellers from across the world
Prolonged stays
Also: resident staff requiring accommodation
✔✔Bathing according to Pliny & Celsus - ✔✔Bathing - health
Celsus: medical focus
, Pliny: medical component
✔✔Troublesome Terminology - ✔✔Balineum (balnae, balneum), thermae
✔✔Balineum (balnae, balneum) - ✔✔medicinal uses of baths; also bathing facility,
bathing tub, act of bathing
not swimming pools/ medicinal springs (cf. Celsus 4.12.7)
✔✔thermae - ✔✔bath-building; not used in Celsus; Pliny: imperial baths of Agrippa
✔✔What bath? - ✔✔Celsus mentions variously heated rooms (caldaria, tepidaria) &
"pool" (solium)
✔✔Roman style bath: - ✔✔communal pools, differently heated rooms
✔✔Variety of bathing options: - ✔✔hot, cold, tepid water; humid & dry sweating;
anointing & rubbing
✔✔Medicinal springs - ✔✔"Spas" for the sick (cf. Celsus 4.12.7)
Pliny: Homer doesn't mention hot springs "since medicine at that time did not have
recourse to waters as it does today" (NH 31.59)
Bath buildings open to the sick
✔✔P&C must be talking about - ✔✔Roman baths; or are they?
✔✔Public or private baths? - ✔✔Audience: elite Romans; private bathing suites or
"going to the baths"
Evidence for public bath
Bathing outside the home, recovery at home?
✔✔Elite vs lower class bathing - ✔✔Elite: going to the bath is social practice; active
membership in the community
Dramatic effect: arrive at baths with entourage —> show off wealth & status
Lower classes: no other option
✔✔Medicinal bathing pliny - ✔✔Pliny: naturalistic inquiries
Pliny: baths + drugs
Pliny: dietetics useless & lethal; morally corrupting
BUT: baths healthy
✔✔Medicinal bathing celsus - ✔✔Celsus: baths + regimen
Celsus: EXCLUSIVELY medical treatise
TEST QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS SET A+
✔✔Sacred law (4th-3rd c BCE): supplies for sacrifice & costs - ✔✔Grain & wreath = half
an obol; firewood for young pigs = half an obol; for grown pigs = full obol
✔✔Bathing - ✔✔Ritual cleansing
Before sacrificial meals & prerequisite for cure
Shallow basins on stands: hands & face; bath buildings for full-body baths
✔✔1 bath close to abaton: - ✔✔for healing process?
✔✔1 (hellenistic) bath: - ✔✔recreational?
✔✔Incubation - ✔✔Central activity
Get curative dream
Spend night in abaton
Set up dedication
✔✔Dedications - ✔✔For successful cure: animal sacrifice - material offerings
Payment: 1 drachma? More?
✔✔Cure inscription: - ✔✔Echedoros punished for not upholding his vow to the god
MUST pay Asclepius & respect cultic prescription
✔✔Accommodations - ✔✔Travellers from across the world
Prolonged stays
Also: resident staff requiring accommodation
✔✔Bathing according to Pliny & Celsus - ✔✔Bathing - health
Celsus: medical focus
, Pliny: medical component
✔✔Troublesome Terminology - ✔✔Balineum (balnae, balneum), thermae
✔✔Balineum (balnae, balneum) - ✔✔medicinal uses of baths; also bathing facility,
bathing tub, act of bathing
not swimming pools/ medicinal springs (cf. Celsus 4.12.7)
✔✔thermae - ✔✔bath-building; not used in Celsus; Pliny: imperial baths of Agrippa
✔✔What bath? - ✔✔Celsus mentions variously heated rooms (caldaria, tepidaria) &
"pool" (solium)
✔✔Roman style bath: - ✔✔communal pools, differently heated rooms
✔✔Variety of bathing options: - ✔✔hot, cold, tepid water; humid & dry sweating;
anointing & rubbing
✔✔Medicinal springs - ✔✔"Spas" for the sick (cf. Celsus 4.12.7)
Pliny: Homer doesn't mention hot springs "since medicine at that time did not have
recourse to waters as it does today" (NH 31.59)
Bath buildings open to the sick
✔✔P&C must be talking about - ✔✔Roman baths; or are they?
✔✔Public or private baths? - ✔✔Audience: elite Romans; private bathing suites or
"going to the baths"
Evidence for public bath
Bathing outside the home, recovery at home?
✔✔Elite vs lower class bathing - ✔✔Elite: going to the bath is social practice; active
membership in the community
Dramatic effect: arrive at baths with entourage —> show off wealth & status
Lower classes: no other option
✔✔Medicinal bathing pliny - ✔✔Pliny: naturalistic inquiries
Pliny: baths + drugs
Pliny: dietetics useless & lethal; morally corrupting
BUT: baths healthy
✔✔Medicinal bathing celsus - ✔✔Celsus: baths + regimen
Celsus: EXCLUSIVELY medical treatise
