Being Roman with Mary Beard 4. What We Lost in the Fire
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Nov 8, 2023 This podcast explores the life and work of Galen, Rome's greatest medic. It discusses the devastating impact of the Great Fire in Rome on Galen, the preservation and circulation of Greek texts in the Eastern Roman Empire, the discovery of a lost text by Galen, and explores Galen's resilience and achievements in ancient Rome.
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The Fire That Burned Galen's Library
- The Great Fire destroyed Galen's instruments, manuscripts, wax models and unique pharmaceutical recipes stored near the spice warehouse.
- He recorded the loss painfully but then continued writing and rebuilding his work.
A Massive Cross-Cultural Medical Legacy
- Galen's surviving corpus is massive and shaped centuries of medical thought across cultures.
- His work influenced Greek, Arabic and Latin medical traditions for over a millennium.
Translations Kept Knowledge Alive
- Galen's texts were translated into Syriac and Arabic, giving them a second life when Greek reading declined in the West.
- Arabic and later Latin translations preserved and critiqued his work, enabling medical advances beyond him.