Galen must have been a celebrity during his lifetime. As a descendant of an aristocratic lineage of architects and surveyors, he was well known in Pergamum, his hometown, but he gained fame in Rome (162–6) by delivering public lectures and anatomical demonstrations before the circles of power. As a newcomer, he quickly gained access to the top of the political pyramid, becoming an archiatros,1 imperial physician, under the Antonine and Severan dynasties. He was the personal physician of Emperor Marcus Aurelius, the Emperor’s son Commodus, and later of the empress Julia Domna, Septimius Severus’ second wife. His worldwide and long-lasting renown, however, is not due to this prominent position, but to his prodigious production of books. The Arabic tradition holds that Galen lived eighty-seven years – seventeen as a student and seventy as a scholar and teacher. This proverbial statement might not be far from the truth given that Galen started producing texts at a very young age and continued to do so throughout his life, writing hundreds of books, thanks to painstaking work both night and day. Galen’s name became so widely known during his lifetime that it was usurped. In a fragment of a lost copy of On Diseases which are Difficult to Cure, preserved in Arabic by Ibn Abī Uṣaybiʿah (Ibn Abī Uṣaybiʿah, Sources of Information on the Classes of Physicians (ʿUyūn al-anbāʾ fī ṭabaqāt al-aṭibbāʾ), 5, tr. Kopf (1971) 159), Galen relays an anecdote in which he unmasks a quack from the East who is pretending to have been taught by Galen himself. In On My Own Books (Galen, Lib. Prop., pr.1, ed. Kühn (1830) XIX.8 = ed. Boudon-Millot (2007) 134.1–8), another anecdote relates that Galen was walking in the Sandalarium, the bookseller’s district of Rome, when he came across a book attributed to him but that he had not written. If we trust both testimonies, and forgive Galen his immodesty, the two anecdotes testify to the celebrity of his name in the Roman Empire.

Galen reports that he received correspondence from Spain, Gaul, Asia Minor, Thrace, and other places sent by patients seeking a cure for cataracts (Galen, Loc. Aff., 4.2, ed. Kühn (1824) VIII.225).

This chapter examines Galen’s reach at the time of the earliest mentions of his name and allusions to his texts. Some of them appeared while Galen was alive, and others belong to the later third century, which has been described as the ‘darkest epoch of the history of medicine’ (Temkin (1932: 18)) and a ‘blank spot’ (Kudlien (1968: 25)). By Galen’s own assessment, his book production can be divided into two stages. Initially, he composed books exclusively on demand and for his friends, but later he wrote books for public editions (pros koinēn ekdosin) to reach a broader audience (See, for instance, Galen, Lib. Prop., 9.4–8, ed. Kühn (1830) XIX.34–5 = ed. Boudon-Millot (2007) 160.4–161.1). In Avoiding Distress, a recently discovered text, he states that he is storing copies of all his writings at his second home in Campania. He also says that he is sending copies of all his writings to friends living outside Rome so they could deposit them in public libraries (See, for instance, Galen, Lib. Prop., 9.4–8, ed. Kühn (1830) XIX.34–5 = ed. Boudon-Millot (2007) 160.4–161.1). So, during his lifetime, Galen’s texts were spread across the empire via his friends and preserved in public libraries.

Galen and the Naucrateans

Galen’s name appears for the first time outside his corpus in the Deipnosophists of Athenaeus. For the sake of chronology, however, a new hypothesis that could link Galen with another Naucratean, Julius Pollux, should be examined. On Julius Pollux’ life, see the notice ‘Πολυδεύκης’ in the Suda, Π, 1951, ed. Adler (1935) IV.163, and Philostratus, The Lives of the Sophists, 2.12.592–3, ed. Wright (1921) 236–40. See also Zecchini (2007; 2013); Conti Bizzarro (2013: 1–40). Galen had become part of Marcus Aurelius’ entourage as early as 169. The emperor entrusted the health of his son to Galen when Commodus (161–92) was eight years old. It is not known whether Galen and Pollux ever met, but some parts of the Onomasticon are, as noted, devoted to medicine, and Pollux indicates that he has consulted the writings of physicians for his lexicographical collection. Hippocrates is often mentioned, but not Galen. Although Pollux borrows all his Attic words from the authors of the classical period, he seems to rely on post-Hippocratic medical theories.

Galen also specialised in Attic lexicography. On Galen and Atticism, see Herbst (1911); Barnes (1997: 14, 21).

Galen appears three times in the Deipnosophists, but only in the first three books. Since Scarborough’s assessment, the presence of Galen in the Deipnosophists has been considered a posthumous work and purely fictitious on the ground that the words attributed to Galen are not quoted from his books. Scarborough goes further in suspecting an interpolation, since the first two passages are only transmitted through a Byzantine epitome. Nutton has a less suspicious position, taking the authenticity of the text for granted (Nutton (1984); Schlange-Schönigen (2003: 125)). Athenaeus’ Galen is considered a fictive character, whose words have no connection to Galen’s writings. See, for instance, Boudon-Millot (2007: CV) and Magdelaine (2007: 360–1). As BoudonMillot (2007: LXXXV) suggested, Galen is not supposed to have quoted his books in a such context. As a protagonist of the symposion, he was expected to speak freely from his own experience. Further examination of the three appearances by Galen in the Deipnosophists lends itself to a more literal interpretation.

At Galen’s second appearance, in the same book (1.26c–27d), he makes a speech on Italian wines. Scarborough considers this speech as not authentically Galenic. Scarborough (1981: 19–20): ‘it is possible that Galen did write some treatises on wine, in which he displayed his own aristocratic tastes, but there is absolutely no trace of such works’. This is not entirely accurate. It starts with praise of Falernian wine, the best according to Athenaeus’ Galen. Such a statement has echoes in Galen’s books (Galen Dig. Puls., 1.1, ed. Kühn (1824) VIII.774.14–16. On Galen and the Falernian wine, see Boudon (2002).

In Galen’s third appearance (3.115c–116a) (see Magdelaine (2007: 360)), the guests are at the point of attacking their bread, when he interrupts the dinner to recite some sayings by the ‘sons of Asclepiades’ about breads and flours. Galen’s intervention at Larensius’ symposium seems rather realistic. One must remember that Galen inherited an interest in grains and seeds from his father. Another parallel may be drawn between the Deipnosophists and the Galenic corpus. Athenaeus references the Hippocratic treatise On Regimen in Acute Diseases, citing three titles for the same book: On Regimen in Acute Diseases, On Barley-gruel, and Against the Cnidian Maxims (2.45e–f). Galen is the only other source who refers to the three titles, in his Commentary on Regimen in Acute Diseases (Galen, HVA, 1.17, ed. Kühn (1828) XV.452–3 = ed. Helmreich (1914) 133.23–7). Did Athenaeus read Galen’s books? Did the two men have access to the same sources and libraries? Did they once meet? Were they part of the same circles? Was Galen still living when Athenaeus’ first books began to be diffused? Could Galen have read the first books of the Deipnosophists? These questions cannot be answered, but Galen and Athenaeus shared a learned and literate culture at a time when books were spreading among the circles of the Roman imperial elite.