Medicine, Magic, and Miracle in the Ancient World

3 cr · Undergraduate

This course introduces students to the world of healing in antiquity. It explores the full range of healing options available to people in the ancient world from approximately 500 BCE to 500CE, focusing in particular in the Greek and Roman Mediterranean. This range includes professional medicine and its many kinds of practitioners and sub-specialists, religious forms of healing, popular or folk remedies, and more "magical" approaches to healing such as spells, amulets, and other forms of ad hoc rituals. Futhermore, it presents students with evidence for the practices and social settings of ancient healthcare. This evidence includes medical and pharmacological texts, accounts of miraculous healing, manuals of natural science, ancient "magical" texts, as well as archaeological evidence such as site maps of healing shrines, votives, amulets, medical instrumentation, human remains, and inscriptions.