DOI 10.51255/2311–603X_2025_3_236

A. A. Antonov. Virtues of Ancient Greek Physicians According to Hellenistic Epigraphic Sources
from Asia Minor and the Aegean Islands // Petersburg Historical Journal, no. 3, 2025, pp. 236–247

Abstract:

The article’s focus is on the dearth of research concerning the virtues of ancient Greek physicians.
It is customary for researchers to ascertain the moral and ethical qualities of a physician by referring to the Hippocratic corpus. Therefore, the opinion expressed is that of a medical practitioner, as determined by the relevant physician. In contrast to medical literature, honorary decrees illustrate the socially approved qualities of physicians from the perspective of the general citizenry, rather than that of professional colleagues. The virtues enumerated in the honorary decrees bestowed upon physicians align with the principles of an ideal citizen, embodying tangible, rather than abstract, philosophical or purely professional attributes of a physician. The present paper explores the virtues of physicians in a context of the common civic virtues attributed to the euergetes of the Hellenistic era. As demonstrated in the paper, physicians were attributed the same virtues as philanthropists and politicians. Concurrently, the decrees exhibit a paucity of special professional virtues; the prevailing emphasis is on “medical art” as it is the primary virtue of a physician. Consequently, the honorary decrees illustrate the physician as a constituent of the polis collective, and the most accomplished physicians are distinguished by the same qualities as political leaders — kalokagathia, zeal, and ambition.

Key words: medicine, ancient Greece, Hellenism, Asia Minor, Aegean, physician, virtue, epigraphy.

Author:

Antonov, Alexander Alexandrovich — Lecturer of Department of Foreign Languages with
a Course in Latin of Saint Petersburg State Pediatric Medical University (Saint Petersburg, Russia).
E-mail: antonov.history@yandex.ru
ORCID: 0000-0003-0098-3580

References:

Bendum, J. Griechische Arztinschriften aus Kos. In Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik. 1977. Bd. 25, S. 265–276.

Blavatskaya, T. V. Iz istorii grecheskoi intelligentsii ellinisticheskogo vremeni [History of the Greek
Intelligence of the Hellenistic Period. In Russ.]. Moscow, Nauka, 1983. 325 p.

Carlsson, S. Hellenistic Democracies: Freedom, Independence and Political Procedure in Some East Greek City-States. Stuttgart, Franz Steiner Verlag, 2010. 372 p.

Chaniotis, A. Age of conquests: The Greek World from Alexander to Hadrian. Cambridge (Mass.), Harvard University Press, 2018. 446 p.

Cohn-Haft, L. The Public Physicians of Ancient Greece. Northampton, 1956. 202 p.

Dihle, A. Der Kanon der zwei Tugenden. Köln, Opladen, Westdeutscher Verlag, 1968. 54 S.

Forster, F. R. Die Polis im Wandel. Ehrendekrete für eigene Bürger im Kontext der hellenistischen
Polisgesellschaft. Göttingen, 2018. 594 S.

Lambert, S. What Was the Point of Inscribed Honorific Decrees in Classical Athens? In Lambert, S. D. (ed.). Sociable Man: Essays on Ancient Greek Social Behaviour in Honour of Nick Fisher. Swansea, 2011. P. 193–214.

Lang, Ph. Medicine and Society in Ptolemaic Egypt. Leiden; Boston, Brill, 2013. 318 p.
Samama, E. Les médecins dans le monde grec: sources épigraphiques sur la naissance d’un corps medical. Genève, DROZ, 2003. 612 p.

Whitehead, D. Cardinal Virtues: the Language of Public Approbation in Democratic Athens. In Classica et Mediaevalia. 1993. Vol. 44, pp. 37–75.


Abbreviations:

IG — Inscriptions Graecae. Vol. I–… Berlin, 1873–…
IK Perge — Şahin S. Die Inschriften von Perge. Vol. I. Bonn, 1999.
P. Mich. — Papyri in the University of Michigan Collection. Vol. I. Ann Arbor, 1931 —…
SEG — Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum. Vol. I–… Leiden, 1923–…

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