Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 2.djvu/223

Rh GALENUS. cam. Temper. a€ Facult. ix. 1. § 2. vol. xii. p. 17 i), and reached Aquileia towards the end of the year 1 9,, shortly before the pestilence broke out in the camp with redoubled violence. {De Libr. Propr. and De Praenot. ad Epig. . c.) The two emperors, with their court and a few of the soldiers, set off precipitately towards Rome, and while they were on their way Verus died of apoplexy, between Concordia and Altinum in the Venetian territory, in the month of December. (See Gres well's Dis- sertations, ^c, vol. iv. p. 595, 69Q.) Galen fol- lowed M. Aurelius to Rome, and, upon the em- peror's return, after the apotheosis of L. Veras, to conduct the war on the Danube, with difficulty obtained permission to be left behind at Rome, alleging that such was the will of Aesculapius. {De Libr. Propr. 1. c.) Whether he really had a dream to this eifect, which he believed to have come from Aesculapius, or whether he merely in- vented such a story as an excuse for not sharing in the dangers and hardships of the campaign, it is impossible to determine ; it is, however, certain that he more than once mentions his receiving (what he conceived to be) divine communications during sleep, in cases where no self-interested mo- tive can be discovered. The emperor about this time lost his son, Annius Verus Caesar, and ac- cordingly on his departure from Rome, he com- mitted to the medical care of Galen his son L. Aurelius Commodus, who was then nine years of age, and who afterwards succeeded his father as emperor. {De Libr. Propr. and De Praenot. ad Epig. 1. c.) It was probably in the same year, A. D. 170, that Galen, on the death of Demetrius, was commissioned by M. Aurelius to prepare for him the celebrated compound medicine called Tlieriaca, of which the emperor was accustomed to take a small quantity daily {De Aniid. i. 1. vol. xiv. p. 3, &c.) ; and about thirty years afterwards he was employed to make up the same medicine for the emperor Septimus Severus (iiecZ. i. 13. p. 63, 65). How long Galen stayed at Rome is not known, but it was probably for some years, during which time he employed himself, as before, in lecturing, writing, and practising, with great success. He finished during this visit at Rome two of his prin- cipal treatises, which he had begun when he was at Rome before, viz. that De Uau Partium Cor- poris LIumani, and that De Hippocraiis et Plor tonis Decretis {De Libr. Propft: c. 2. vol. xix. p. 19, 20); and among other instances which he records of his medical skill, he gives an account of his attending the emperor M. Aurelius {De Prae- not. ad Epig. c. 1 1. vol. xiv. p. 657, &.C.), and his two sons, Commodus {ibid. c. 12. p. 661, .^;c.) and Sextus {ibid. c. 10. p. 651, &c.). Of the events of the rest of his life few particulars are known. On his way back to Pergamus, he visited the island of Lemnos for the second time (having been disap- pointed on a former occasion), for the purpose of learning the mode of preparing a celebrated medi- cine called "Terra Lemnia," or "Terra Sigillata ;" of which he gives a full account. {De Simplic. Me- dicam. Temper, uc Facult. ix. 1. § 2. vol. xii. p. 172.) It does not appear certain that he visited Rome again, and one of his Arabic biographers ex- pressly says he was there only twice (Anon. Arab. Philosoph. Bibliotk. apud Casiri, Biblioth. Arahico-Hisp. Escur. vol. i. p. 253) ; but it cer- Uiinly seems more natural to. suppose that he VOL. u. GALENUS. 209 was at Rome about the end of the second cen- tury, when he was employed to compound The- riaca for the emperor Severus. The place of his death is not mentioned by any Greek author, but Abu-1-faraj states that he died in Sicily. {Hist. Dynast, p. 78.) The age at which he died and the date is also somewhat uncertain. Suidas says he died at the age of seventy, which statement is generally followed, and, as he was born in the autumn of the year 130, places his death in the year 200 or 201. He certainly Avas alive about the year 1 Q9, as he mentions his pre- paring Theriaca for the emperor Severus about that date, and his work De Antidotis., in which the account is given (i. 13. vol. xiv. p. Q6)., was pro- bably written in or before that year, when Cara- calla was associated with his father in the empire, as Galen speaks of only one emperor as reigning at the time it was composed. If, however, the work De Tlieriaca ad Piswiem be genuine, which seems to be at least as probable as the contrary suppo- sition (see below. Sect. VII. § 75.), he must have lived some years later ; which would agree with the statements of his Arabic biographers, one of whom saj's he lived more than eighty years (apud Casiri, I. c), while Abu-1-faraj says that he died at the age of eighty-eight. Some European autho- rities place his death at about the same age ( Acker- mann. Hist. Liter., in vol, i. of Kiilm's edition of Galen, p. xii.), and John Tzetzes says tliat he lived under the emperor Caracalla {Chiliad, xii. hist. 397) ; so that, upon the whole, there seems to be quite sufficient reason for not implicitly receiving the statement of Suidas. Galen's personal character, as it appears in his works, places him among the brightest ornaments of the heathen world. Perhaps his chief faults were too high an opinion of his own merits, and too much bitterness and contempt for some of his adversaries, — for each of which failings the circum- stances of the times afforded great, if not suffi- cient, excuse. Pie was also one of the most learned and accomplished men of his age, as is proved not only by his extant writings, but also by the long list of his works on various branches of philosophy which are now lost. All this may make us the more regret that he was so little brought into con- tact with Christianity, of which he appears to have known nothing more than might be learned from the popular conversation of the day during a time of persecution : yet in one of his lost works, of which a fragment is quoted by his Arabian bio- graphers (Abu-1-faraj, Casiri, /. c), he speaks of the Christians in higher terms, and praises their tem- perance and chastity, their blameless lives, and love of virtue, in which they equalled or surpassed the philosophers of the age. A few absurd errors and fables are connected with his name, which may be seen in Ackermann's Hist. Liter, (pp. xxxix. xlii.), but which, as they are neither so amusing in themselves, nor so interesting in a literary point of view as those which concern Hippocrates, need not be here mentioned. If Galen suffered during his lifetime from the jealousy and misrepresentation of his medical contemporaries, his worth seems to have been soon acknowledged after his death ; medals were struck in his honour by his native city, Per- gamus (Montfaucon, L''Antiqiiite Expliquee, &c., vol. iii. p. 1. pi. XV. and Suppl. vol. i. pi. kviii.), and in the course of a few centuries he began to be called ^a.vp.6.aios (Simplic. Comment, in Arisiot. p