CLASSICS 2902 ANCIENT MEDICINE QUESTIONS
AND ANSWERS SET A+
✔✔Tinia - ✔✔Jupiter
Head of parthenon; most influential for healing
Divine consent to cause harm (cf. Mesopotamia)
Jupiter associated with childbirth
Tinia births Menrva (Athena) vs Zeus (Jupiter) birthing Athena
✔✔Menrva - ✔✔Etruscan goddess
Later Minerva (Roman) from Athena (goddess of wisdom & technology)
Menrva significant healing role (a ton of votive offerings!)
Development from Etruscan context makes Minerva patron of physicians (Minerva
Medica on coinage)
✔✔Philosophy - ✔✔Hippocrates, Epicurus, Plato, Aristotle influential on Roman schools
Methodists, Dogmatists/ Rationalists, & Empiricists (Hellenistic philosophies)
✔✔Dogmatists: - ✔✔Theory key; "internal causal base of disease" (etiology)
✔✔Empiricists: - ✔✔Experience & Pragmatism
✔✔Methodists: - ✔✔Middle course; body made of invisible entities ("corpuscles" &
space in between i.e. "pores")
Disease due to movement of corpuscles/ atoms; kinda use theory of humours
✔✔Archaeology sources - ✔✔Sanctuaries, shrines, temples
Remains of medical recipes/ instruments
Remains of medicinal gardens
Medical kits (mostly Pompeii)
✔✔Textual Sources - ✔✔Latin medical papyri (Egypt)
, "Iatromagical" papyri: protective charms & amulets
Vindolanda tablets (Hadrian's wall): eye ailments, lists of wounded soldiers
Private letters
Encyclopedic works (Pliny & Celsus)
Medical texts: Dioscorides, Rufus of Ephesus, Soranus, Galen
"Popular literature" (Martial, Juvenal)
CATO!!! On Agriculture: medicinal plants
✔✔Spotlight: Pliny - ✔✔Pliny the Elder (23-79 CE)
"Roman way of healing"
Cato as preserver of Roman virtues
Cabbage as cure all
Similar philosophical views: Stoicism
Quality of life over quantity; don't artificially prolong life
Natural History: comprehensive yet superficial
TENSION: Luxury, Greek culture
✔✔Anatomy & Physiology - ✔✔Generally based on Greek/ Hellenistic developments
No one theory dominated Roman medicine
Morals, social status, health connected: thin body = poverty, old age, sickness OR
moral quality & personal discipline
✔✔2 general themes: - ✔✔1) balance of substances 2) regular flow/ movement of
substances necessary
✔✔Abundance of fat: - ✔✔affluence & authority (coinage of Nero to Vespasian)
✔✔Gaelen Biography - ✔✔Born: Aug/Sept. 129 CE at/near Pergamon
Elite
Age 16: begins study of medicine
Extensive anatomical training (~10 yrs): Pergamon, Smyrna, Corinth, Alexandria
157 CE: Surgeon of gladiators in Pergamon
✔✔G 162 CE - ✔✔162 CE: Travels to Rome; part of upper social circle
✔✔G 166-169 CE: - ✔✔Return to Pergamon (avoid plague)
Recalled to Rome by Marcus Aurelius
Imperial physician (esp. for Commodus)
✔✔G After 192 CE: - ✔✔Return to Pergamon
✔✔G 210CE: - ✔✔Dies?
✔✔G Philosophy (7) - ✔✔Physicians need philosophical knowledge
Logic required for diagnosis
AND ANSWERS SET A+
✔✔Tinia - ✔✔Jupiter
Head of parthenon; most influential for healing
Divine consent to cause harm (cf. Mesopotamia)
Jupiter associated with childbirth
Tinia births Menrva (Athena) vs Zeus (Jupiter) birthing Athena
✔✔Menrva - ✔✔Etruscan goddess
Later Minerva (Roman) from Athena (goddess of wisdom & technology)
Menrva significant healing role (a ton of votive offerings!)
Development from Etruscan context makes Minerva patron of physicians (Minerva
Medica on coinage)
✔✔Philosophy - ✔✔Hippocrates, Epicurus, Plato, Aristotle influential on Roman schools
Methodists, Dogmatists/ Rationalists, & Empiricists (Hellenistic philosophies)
✔✔Dogmatists: - ✔✔Theory key; "internal causal base of disease" (etiology)
✔✔Empiricists: - ✔✔Experience & Pragmatism
✔✔Methodists: - ✔✔Middle course; body made of invisible entities ("corpuscles" &
space in between i.e. "pores")
Disease due to movement of corpuscles/ atoms; kinda use theory of humours
✔✔Archaeology sources - ✔✔Sanctuaries, shrines, temples
Remains of medical recipes/ instruments
Remains of medicinal gardens
Medical kits (mostly Pompeii)
✔✔Textual Sources - ✔✔Latin medical papyri (Egypt)
, "Iatromagical" papyri: protective charms & amulets
Vindolanda tablets (Hadrian's wall): eye ailments, lists of wounded soldiers
Private letters
Encyclopedic works (Pliny & Celsus)
Medical texts: Dioscorides, Rufus of Ephesus, Soranus, Galen
"Popular literature" (Martial, Juvenal)
CATO!!! On Agriculture: medicinal plants
✔✔Spotlight: Pliny - ✔✔Pliny the Elder (23-79 CE)
"Roman way of healing"
Cato as preserver of Roman virtues
Cabbage as cure all
Similar philosophical views: Stoicism
Quality of life over quantity; don't artificially prolong life
Natural History: comprehensive yet superficial
TENSION: Luxury, Greek culture
✔✔Anatomy & Physiology - ✔✔Generally based on Greek/ Hellenistic developments
No one theory dominated Roman medicine
Morals, social status, health connected: thin body = poverty, old age, sickness OR
moral quality & personal discipline
✔✔2 general themes: - ✔✔1) balance of substances 2) regular flow/ movement of
substances necessary
✔✔Abundance of fat: - ✔✔affluence & authority (coinage of Nero to Vespasian)
✔✔Gaelen Biography - ✔✔Born: Aug/Sept. 129 CE at/near Pergamon
Elite
Age 16: begins study of medicine
Extensive anatomical training (~10 yrs): Pergamon, Smyrna, Corinth, Alexandria
157 CE: Surgeon of gladiators in Pergamon
✔✔G 162 CE - ✔✔162 CE: Travels to Rome; part of upper social circle
✔✔G 166-169 CE: - ✔✔Return to Pergamon (avoid plague)
Recalled to Rome by Marcus Aurelius
Imperial physician (esp. for Commodus)
✔✔G After 192 CE: - ✔✔Return to Pergamon
✔✔G 210CE: - ✔✔Dies?
✔✔G Philosophy (7) - ✔✔Physicians need philosophical knowledge
Logic required for diagnosis
