Galen does not trouble to establish the soul's existence; rather, he simply takes it to be evident that it does, and thus that man and living things are composed of a body and a soul. As far as its nature and essence are concerned, however, there appear to be waverings and differences, in particular between the two texts principally dedicated to pyschological themes: the great treatise On the Doctrines of Hippocrates and Plato (PHP), which belongs to the writer's early mature period, and the late pamphlet The Faculties of the Soul Follow the Mixtures of the Body (QAM).

But it is not only this discrepancy between these major psychological works which poses problems for us. Remarks on the soul and its nature are scattered through several of his other works, and at first sight they seem to imply quite different conceptions of the soul, both in regard to its nature and concerning its relations with the body. Indeed, it has been supposed that Galen's views about the soul underwent a considerable evolution over time. But the exact point from which this evolution might be thought to have begun is controversial.

It is true that in the first book of the other great work of the author's maturity, On the Utility of the Parts (UP), which is roughly contemporaneous with PHP, Galen apparently talks in terms quite different from those he habitually employs elsewhere, since he speaks of the body as an instrument (organon) which the soul makes use of, which might seem starkly at odds with the other expressions he tends to use in this regard, and in particular with what he will say in QAM, where he posits a certain relation of dependence of souls and their capacities on the temperaments (kraseis: mixtures) of the bodies in which they reside.

A considerable portion of Galen's massive literary output is devoted to commenting on and criticizing other theorists, his own contemporaries as well as figures from the past, both doctors and philosophers, individuals and groups, some of whom he praises but most of whom attract his disapproval. One could touch on almost every aspect of Galen's work, in logic, moral philosophy, psychology, physiology, anatomy, pathology, pharmacology and therapeutics by way of an analysis of his reaction to others. So the potential field suggested by the title of this chapter is vast. I shall adopt what may at first sight seem an unusual tactic in order to focus on the topic that will form the core of my discussion, namely Galen's use of his contemporaries and predecessors as foils in constructing his own position by way of contrasting it with theirs. The first section of this chapter will be devoted to Galen and his medical colleagues, before I turn in the second, but shorter section, to his relationship with his philosophical ones.

My starting-point will be the contrast that Galen himself sometimes draws between situations of overt polemic and other contexts, whether of medical practice or of instruction. Of course it is a well-known ploy to disclaim arguing rhetorically when doing precisely that, and there are plenty of occasions where Galen offers such token disclaimers in the heat of sustained polemic. But there are also contexts where his overt aim – as he describes it – is not to win a debate, but to instruct.

The study of the principal functions of living things, such as respiration, nutrition, reproduction, perception and so on, was a major preoccupation of many Greek philosophers, from Democritus, Empedocles and Plato to the fundamental contribution made by Aristotle in his biological works. Alexandrian medicine played its part, too, both by considerably deepening anatomical understanding and by developing new types of explanation. In addition to Herophilus' groundbreaking discoveries in anatomy, in particular those concerning the brain and the nervous system, Erasistratus had also developed general physiological principles, and Galen acknowledges his debts in this regard in numerous contexts. Nor did these researches come to an end after the Hellenistic period. During his medical training at Pergamum, and afterwards at Smyrna and Alexandria, Galen was taught by some remarkable anatomists, for whom the study of anatomy was always closely bound up with that of physiology. This tradition, in turn, was linked to the authority of Hippocrates, in whom Galen is sure that he finds a highly sophisticated anatomical understanding (he wrote a treatise on Hippocrates' anatomy), as well as a physiology which is founded upon principles which are also supposedly his own. For what Galen learns also from his masters is ’the demonstration and proof’ of facts and their explanations by way of reasoning and anatomical demonstration, which in turn entails a systematic recourse to the dissection of dead animals as well as to the vivisection of living ones. Indeed, vivisection is in his view the most appropriate method for discovering animal functions.

INTRODUCTION

Galen's concern with methodology - i.e. the theoretical reflection upon scientific and/or philosophical method - leaps from almost every page of his extant work. Time and again he stresses the need to proceed in methodical fashion, attributing the mistakes of others to their lack of training in what he calls the rational or demonstrative method. Demonstration (or proof, apodeixis) is his key term: the ideal physician will accept nothing on authority but waits for the proof or finds it himself if needed. If you expect others to accept your assertions without proof, you behave like a tyrant ordering people about.

Galen devoted several separate treatises to the subject of method. At an early stage in his career (around 160 CE) he composed his methodological chef d'oeuvre On demonstration (hereafter, Dem.) in no less than fifteen books. Regrettably, it has not been preserved, although we can form an overall picture of its contents from references scattered throughout the extant corpus. Of particular relevance are his great works On the Doctrines of Hippocrates and Plato (PHP) and On the Therapeutic Method (MM). PHP books I-VI (composed during Galen's first stay in Rome, 162-6 CE) can be read as an extended demonstration of scientific procedure as applied to issues concerning the soul. Book IX (written after 176) includes a discussion of method, most notably division (diaeresis). MM (in fourteen books), as its title indicates, discusses the method to be used in clinical medicine. Its first two books (written around 175) are more theoretical than the others and based on the methodology advocated in Dem. as well.

INTRODUCTION

In seeking the best physician, the prospective patient is advised, according to Galen, first to 'find out how wide his knowledge is and how penetrative is his training in anatomy'. For Galen, anatomy is more than a system of knowledge for its own sake. It is also used to demonstrate that Nature does nothing in vain. Further, it provides information in examining psychic or physical activities and is a precision tool for the operative practitioner. These respective epistemic, teleological, empirical and practical ends underscore the crucial place of anatomy for Galen in his medical and philosophical world. To an appreciable extent, all four cannot be entirely separated. An examination of Galen's employment of anatomy is rewarding not only because it informed his medical practice and defined for him the true worth of a physician, but also because it offers a window into his investigations into the nature of the living organism. This chapter will begin by underscoring Galen's indebtedness to his predecessors and teachers. It will next examine Galen's public anatomical demonstrations and why he felt them to be necessary.

PHARMACOLOGY, PHARMACY AND DRUG-LORE

'What drugs will not cure, the knife will; what the knife will not cure, the cautery will; what the cautery will not cure, must be considered incurable.' This final maxim of the Hippocratic Aphorisms gives a good impression of the general attitude towards drugs in ancient medicine. Drug lore holds a middle position within the tripartite system of ancient therapeutics: dietetics, pharmacology and surgery (including cautery). Dietetics is not mentioned in the aphorism, because it is regarded as a non-invasive method of preserving health rather than of curing disease, and is thus applied prophylactically, or only in mild cases of disease, while pharmacology and, especially, surgery are regarded as rather drastic 'intrusions' into the patient's organism – chosen in order to counteract the noxious impact of an illness or wound. Between the two of them, pharmacology has two advantages: it does not imply the additional risks of surgery, i.e. the possible complications by bleeding or infection of the surgical wound (a very real danger in times without asepsis and antisepsis!); and it is more apt to stimulate the body's self-healing processes to restore its original balance – a holistic view of the human organism to which Galen was especially disposed. Therefore, in Galen's view 'the best physician was the one most capable of treating surgical conditions by means other than the knife, and particularly by diet and drugs'.

WORKS OF GALEN CONCERNING LOGIC (LOST UNLESS OTHERWISE INDICATED)

Under the heading 'commentaries on Hippocrates' (On My Own Books [Lib.Prop.] XIX 33):

Under the heading 'books useful for demonstrations' (ibid. 39):

Under the heading 'works concerning the philosophy of Aristotle' (ibid. 47):

Under the heading ‘works common to grammarians and orators’ (ibid. 48):

Galen was born in September AD 129, in Pergamum on the Ionian seaboard of Asia Minor. He died sometime in the second decade of the third century, probably in Rome. He lived, and worked, until well into his eighties; and over the course of that long and productive life wrote (or rather dictated, sometimes more than one treatise at a time, to relays of slaves) a vast number of works on a wide variety of topics, ranging from medicine, through logic and philosophy, to philology and literary criticism. Many - indeed most - of these books are lost; but we are fortunate to possess two short texts from Galen's own hand that deal with his output: On My Own Books (Lib.Prop.) XIX 8-48, = SM 2, 91-14, and The Order of My Own Books (Ord.Lib.Prop.) XIX 49-61, = SM 2, 80-90; the latter deals with the order in which an aspirant doctor should read them, while the former was written in order, he says, to help people determine which of the many works circulating under his name was genuine. These lists are not exhaustive: several indisputably genuine texts fail to appear in them, either because they were written later, or because for whatever reason Galen chose to disown them; moreover the Greek text suffers from several lacunae (although some of these have been filled from Arabic sources and by way of a newly recovered Greek manuscript in Véronique Boudon's recent edition).

Crete is by far the largest of the Greek islands (ca. 8,200 sq. km), about 250 km west-east and 57 km north-south at its widest point in the center; this makes it over three times the entire land mass of the Cycladic islands. The topography of the island divides it into five main regions, each defined by a mountain range, extensive arable - usually coastal - plain, and good harborage.

1. Western Crete – The White Mountains (highest point at 2,453 m) limit settlement to the long north coastal plain, with Early Minoan sites of note at Nopigeia and Chania, the funerary (?) caves of Perivolia and Platyvola, and the “shepherds’ compound” at Debla.

2. Rethymnon – This region on the north coast is roughly equidistant between west and central Crete. The major coastal settlement was at Stavromenos, from which an overland route leads south to the Mesara via the Amari valley. Throughout the Minoan period this route would foster cultural links between the two areas.

3. North-Central Crete – The center of the island is dominated by the Idaean mountain range (peak at 2,465 m) that separates the north coastal plain of Herakleion from the Mesara in the south. In the midst of this range is the Idaean cave, which may have had the longest period of sacred use on Crete, from Neolithic through Roman times. Human settlement on the island began in this region, marked by the aceramic Neolithic levels at Knossos. Five km north of Knossos, at the mouth of the Kairatos River, was the principal Neolithic and Bronze Age port for this area at Poros–Katsambas (Herakleion). South of Knossos was the important Minoan settlement at Archanes and the nearby cemetery at Phournoi. A number of overland routes connected the north coast with the Mesara Plain in the south.

4. …

Background

The scope of this book is the Aegean Bronze Age: the history and material cultures of Crete, the Greek mainland, and the Aegean islands during the period when bronze had replaced stone as the dominant material for tools and weapons, and had not yet been supplanted by iron. The period began around 3100/3000 bce and continued until about 1070 bce; during its course different groups of people rose from basic subsistence to cultural prominence, interacted with each other and with civilizations around the Mediterranean basin, and subsided again beyond our reach. Serious study of the Aegean Bronze Age began over 120 years ago, fueled by several early projects, including exploration by the French on Santorini, the British at Phylakopi on Melos, and Heinrich Schliemann at Troy, Mycenae, and Tiryns. Schliemann was motivated by a fascination with mythical accounts of the Trojan War, and Sir Arthur Evans, the excavator of Knossos, by curiosity about the signs, in an unknown script, incised into lumps of clay found on Crete.

None of these pioneers could have imagined the quantities of sites and artifacts that would subsequently be found, the proliferation of new techniques for everything from excavation itself to scientific dating and provenience studies, or the textual information revealed by the decipherment of the Mycenaean script. Early investigators of the Bronze Age tried to characterize and contrast the material culture of different ethnic groups, with special attention to aspects that could be mapped onto a Homeric vision of the Greek past (Ch. 5, pp. 105–6).

Chronological Phases

When the interregional culture of the Early Bronze Age in the Aegean collapsed, a period on the mainland of Greece followed that archaeologists term Middle Helladic (MH; Ch. 1, p. 3; Fig. 1.1). During much of this time the countryside was largely depopulated and there is very little evidence of trade and craft production. Because of the paucity of settlements discovered through excavation, only a few places have good stratified deposits: Lerna (level V), Kolonna on the island of Aegina (City VII-X), and Pefkakia in Thessaly.

Scholars during much of the twentieth century ce argued for a break between the Early and Middle Bronze Ages, theorizing in particular the arrival of Indo-European speaking peoples at this time. Research in the past thirty years, though, shows that despite destruction and abandonment of some settlements after EH II and EH III, the transition between these periods shows many signs of continuity (Ch. 2, pp. 36-7). Furthermore, the succeeding transition between EH III and MH I seems to have been less abrupt than previously thought, with evidence of continuity in some of the ceramics and lithic traditions at Lerna (Ch. 2, p. 41). Likewise, it was thought through the 1970s that the shaft graves at Mycenae announced a dramatic cultural change beginning in LH I (with some scholars even arguing that Indo-European Greek speakers arrived at this time), but this view no longer prevails. We often cannot distinguish MH III from LH I, and frequently refer to assemblages as MH III/LH I, because the society that was developing into what we commonly refer to as Mycenaean civilization had deep roots in the indigenous Middle Helladic cultural forms (Ch. 1, p. 3).

Introduction

The culture of the Mycenaean Greeks can best be accessed through the tangible record they have left of their life and death in the four centuries from their emergence as a power at the end of the Middle Helladic period to the destruction of their palaces at the end of Late Helladic IIIB. Schliemann’s first great archaeological discoveries at Mycenae in 1876 named both the civilization and the age of its supremacy. The great amount of gold in the deeply buried shaft graves immediately captured the world’s attention, particularly the gold face masks. In one of these Schliemann thought he had looked upon the face of Agamemnon. Archaeologists now know that the early date of the graves precludes such an identification and we no longer equate these finds with things mentioned in Greek legends and the epics of Homer. We realize that oral tradition and subsequent literature have many components, only some of which may carry memories or preserve details of the Mycenaean world - after all, the time span between the shaft graves and the Parthenon exceeds a thousand years. The decipherment of the Linear B texts as Greek in 1952 (Ch. 1, pp. 11–12) opened another window into the culture but, because of their limited subject matter, we are left without discussion of some of the most important aspects one would wish to know about a society. So the material remains provided by archaeological endeavors since 1876 are the primary source for our understanding of Mycenaean culture.

Introduction

In chronological overviews of the Aegean Bronze Age, after discussions of the “climax” of the Minoan civilization in the Neopalatial period, the focus of interest often shifts to the incipient palace-states of the Greek mainland, and, with the exception of Knossos, Crete becomes something of a backwater, viewed as an increasingly marginalized region in a now Mycenocentric world. Yet in fact, although interactions with the mainland were indeed intensive, Crete’s rich archaeological record has revealed an equally significant picture of internally focused, fast-paced political and cultural changes.

The ceramic phases LMII-IIIB cover the period from the fifteenth-century horizon of destructions that devastated most of the Minoan palaces (marking the end of what we term the Neopalatial period) down to the later thirteenth century, which witnessed a general disintegration of urban centers on the island. For reasons explained below, opinions differ among archaeologists regarding the appropriate “political” terminology to use - the labels “Final Palatial,” “Third Palatial,” and “Postpalatial” have all been applied to all or part of this period. This discussion will use the ceramic phases as chronological labels, as a more neutral alternative, but the issue of Crete’s changing political organization is nevertheless important in any analysis of this period, involving as it did the demise of state societies on the island.

Religion and Cult Practice

In the modern world, Western societies tend to separate religion and ritual from other aspects of society in a way that ancient or “primitive” societies did not. In ancient cultures religion was an integral part of daily life, including the treatment of the deceased after death. For a heavily agrarian society, cult practice centered on daily and seasonal activities and on human involvement with a perceived supernatural world. Although it is difficult to reconstruct belief systems without documentary evidence (below, pp. 173-82), the archaeological record preserves much evidence for ritual equipment and activities. What makes Minoan society interesting, as well as difficult for us to understand, is the apparent overlap between religion, society, and politics. Some of these issues have been addressed in detail, but no consensus has emerged among scholars - an impossibility, perhaps, in any discussion of religion!

We assume that the foundations of Neopalatial religion were laid in the Protopalatial period, and probably much earlier, in the form of cults at caves (some at quite remote locations), at sanctuaries on mountain peaks throughout the island where offerings were made of terracotta human and animal figures, and at communal tombs, often deliberately situated to provide easy access from the homes of the living (Ch. 4, p. 93).

Introduction

From its very beginnings, Aegean archaeology has been haunted by graves: early travelers marveled at the Treasury of Atreus, nineteenth-century museum collections were enriched from rifled chamber tombs such as those on Rhodes, and Schliemann dazzled his contemporaries with reports of gold from the shaft graves at Mycenae (Ch. 11, pp. 258). In the twenty-first century CE, this emphasis can seem misplaced: our concern is how people lived during the Bronze Age, not how they were buried. How can the study of burials be justified? Quantity is one justification: whereas the number of excavated settlements can be counted in tens, the number of cemeteries is in hundreds, tombs in thousands, and burials in tens of thousands. Moreover, whereas the more extensively excavated settlements are important palaces, the cemeteries give us a better feel for the smaller provincial centers, towns, and villages where most Mycenaeans lived. (Intensive survey has now also helped rectify that imbalance; Chs. 1, pp. 8-10; 12, p. 308). Furthermore, although funeral rituals are not everyday occurrences to tell us how people lived their everyday lives, archaeologists hope that the remains from the grave can inform us about important themes: social structure; status and wealth; the sense of community; the presentation of peoples' identities as male, female, or child or as official, craftsman, villager, or slave; the relation of individuals to their forebears. Certainly such hopes may not always be fully realized. The way an individual is portrayed in ceremonies such as funerals can be manipulated by the living to misrepresent their own status and that of the deceased.