c. 129–216 CE · physician · writer
Galen of Pergamon
Γαληνός
In Alexandria: c. 152–157 CE
Studied anatomy in Alexandria as a young man. Writing some four centuries after Ptolemy III, he tells how the king seized the books on ships putting in at the harbour and kept Athens's official texts of the tragedians.
Their life and work
Born at Pergamon in 129 CE, he spent some years at Alexandria in his twenties, because it was still the place to learn anatomy: he tells his readers to go there and see a human skeleton for themselves (On Anatomical Procedures 1.2). He went on to Rome, where he served as physician to Marcus Aurelius and wrote more than any other Greek author of his time, much of it still extant. His tales of the Ptolemies' book-gathering are told in passing in a commentary on Hippocrates, to explain why some copies were called 'from the ships'.
Our device: Their emblem is a set of bones. No portrait of any of these people survives. The emblems are our devices.
On the shelves
- Galen of Pergamon, Commentary on Hippocrates' Epidemics III · c. 170–180 CE · Survives in large part
Moments
- c. 246–222 BCE · A story told by Galen: the books from the ships Legend: told story
In the show
The show has not yet spoken of Galen of Pergamon.
Sources (3)
- Galen, Commentary on Hippocrates' Epidemics III 2.4 (Kühn XVIIa.605–607)
- V. Nutton, Ancient Medicine, 2nd ed. (London: Routledge, 2013)
- Galen, On Anatomical Procedures 1.2 (Kühn II.220–221)