Galen and the World of Knowledge

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 philosophi? 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.

Tim Whitmarsh is E. P. Warren Praelector in Classics at Corpus Christi and Lecturer in Greek Language and Literature at the University of Oxford. He has published widely on the Greek literature of the Roman period, including Greek Literature and the Roman Empire: The Politics of Imitation (2001) and The Second Sophistic (2005). He also edited Ordering Knowledge in the Roman Empire (with Jason König, 2007) and The Cambridge Companion to the Greek and Roman Novel (2008).

John Wilkins is Professor of Greek Culture at the University of Exeter. Recent publications include The Boastful Chef (2000); Athenaeus and His World (edited with D. Braund, 2000); Food in the Ancient World (with Shaun Hill, 2006); and a number of articles and essays on food and medicine. He has also led a Wellcome Research Project on Galen's Simple Medicines.