Galen in Rome
The Greek physician Galen of Pergamon settled in Rome, where his public anatomical demonstrations won him fame and enemies. He became physician to Marcus Aurelius and Commodus, and his vast writings dominated medicine in Europe and the Islamic world for more than thirteen centuries.
- Date
- 162year known
- Place
- Rometoday: Rome, Italy · Western and Central Europe
- Participants
- Galen, Marcus Aurelius, Lucius Verus, Commodus
- Threads
- Europe in the Roman age (1st–5th c.)
- Also known as
- Galen of Pergamon; Claudius Galenus; Aelius Galenus; Гален Пергамский
Born at Pergamon in September 129, Galen studied medicine at Smyrna, Corinth and Alexandria and in 157 became physician to the gladiators of the high priest of Asia in his home city. In 162 he moved to Rome. There he took part in public disputations with rival schools and staged anatomical demonstrations; since the dissection of human bodies was forbidden, he worked on apes and pigs. In one of his most famous experiments he tied off the recurrent laryngeal nerve of a squealing pig, which fell silent — proof that the voice is governed by the brain through the nerves. His success and sharp tongue made enemies, and fearing, as he wrote, exile or poison, he left Rome for Asia Minor in 166, as the plague reached the city.
In 168 the co-emperors Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus summoned him; in the winter of 168/169 he saw the epidemic among the troops at Aquileia and described its fever, diarrhoea and rash. Excused from the German campaign, he stayed in Rome as physician to the young Commodus, and Marcus called him “first among doctors and unique among philosophers”; later he also attended Septimius Severus. Galen wrote several hundred treatises; a fire in the Temple of Peace in 191 or 192 destroyed many of them, yet what survives amounts to nearly half of all extant ancient Greek literature. He probably died around 216. Translated into Arabic and later into Latin, his works remained the foundation of medicine until Vesalius and Harvey overturned much of his anatomy and physiology in the 16th and 17th centuries.
Connections
Related events
- Antonine Plague165–180 · Western and Central EuropeGalen witnessed the epidemic and left the main medical description of it
Same participants
- Roman–Parthian War of 161–166161–166 · Middle East and Egyptvia Marcus Aurelius
- Murder of Commodus and the Year of the Five Emperors31 December 192 – June 193 · Western and Central Europevia Commodus
Same place
- Great Fire of Rome19 July 64 – c. 27 July 64 · Western and Central Europe
- Martyrdom of Peter and Paul in Romebetween 64 and 68 · Western and Central Europe
- Nero crowns Tiridates I in Rome66 · Western and Central Europe
- Pliny the Elder’s Natural History77 · Western and Central Europe
- Inauguration of the Colosseum80 · Western and Central Europe
- Hadrian’s Pantheonbetween 114 and 118 – between 125 and 128 · Western and Central Europe
- Constitutio Antoniniana212 · Western and Central Europe
- Crisis of the Third CenturyMarch 235 – 20 November 284 · Western and Central Europe
- Aurelian Walls271–275 · Western and Central Europe
- Battle of the Milvian Bridge28 October 312 · Western and Central Europe
- Sack of Rome by the Visigoths24–27 August 410 · Western and Central Europe
- Vandal sack of Rome2–16 June 455 · Western and Central Europe
- Gothic War (535–554)535–554 · Western and Central Europe
- Coronation of Charlemagne25 December 800 · Western and Central Europe
- Imperial coronation of Otto I2 February 962 · Western and Central Europe
- Fourth Council of the Lateran11–30 November 1215 · Western and Central Europe
- “Summa Theologica” by Thomas Aquinas1265–1274 · Western and Central Europe
- Sack of Rome (1527)6 May 1527 · Western and Central Europe
Adjacent events in the thread
- Ptolemy’s Almagestc. 150 · Middle East and Egypt
- Costoboci sack Eleusisbetween 170 and 171 · Balkans and Anatolia
Meanwhile in the world
Other regions, within a year of this event
Eastern Europe
- Rome defends Olbia against the Tauro-Scythiansbetween 138 and 161
- Zarubintsy culturec. 200 BC – c. 200
Middle East and Egypt
- Roman–Parthian War of 161–166161–166
- Reign of Vologases IV147–191
Africa
- Apuleius’ Metamorphoses (The Golden Ass)150s … 180s
- Antonine Baths of Carthagebetween 145 and 146 – 162
Central and Northern Asia
- Tanshihuai’s Xianbei confederationc. 156 – 181
South Asia
- The Muziris papyrus: a loan for a cargo from Indiabetween 140 and 160
- Heyday of Indo-Roman trade: Muziris and Arikameduc. 30 BC – c. 250
Southeast Asia and Oceania
- Óc Eo, the port of Funanbetween 1 and 100 – between 601 and 700
- Gold pendant copying a coin of Antoninus Pius at Óc Eobetween 152 and 600
- Sa Huỳnh culturec. 1000 BC – c. 200
North America
- Hopewell traditionbetween 200 and 100 BC – c. 500
- Late Basketmaker II erac. 50 – c. 500
Latin America
- Preclassic Maya collapse: El Mirador is abandonedc. 100 – c. 250
- Rise of Teotihuacanc. 1 – c. 250
- Nazca culture and the Nazca Linesbetween 200 and 100 BC – between 500 and 800
- Monte Albán II: the Zapotec state expandsc. 100 BC – c. 200
The same period
Sources
- Wikipedia (English): Galen
- Wikipedia (English): Antonine Plague
- Wikipedia (Russian): Гален
- Wikipedia (Russian): Антонинова чума
- Mattern S. P. The Prince of Medicine: Galen in the Roman Empire. — Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.
- Nutton V. Ancient Medicine. — London: Routledge, 2004.
- Балалыкин Д. А., Щеглов А. П., Шок Н. П. Гален: врач и философ. — М.: Весть, 2014.