ABSTRACT
Rome was now a bi-lingual city where, in Galen’s own words, the population of a single block far outstripped that of any town where Hippocrates had lived. The “epitome of the whole world”, a description borrowed by Galen from a famous sophist from Asia Minor, had long attracted immigrants from all over the Greek world, from millionaires and regional dynasts eager to make their mark in the politics of empire to humble tradesmen and those who simply sought a better life than that of an Anatolian peasant. An inscription records a young man from the region North-East of Pergamum who died in Rome, “the imperial city”, just as his reputation had begun to grow. The great Hippocratic Quintus taught in Rome for a long while until he was forced out, according to Galen, by the hostility of others.
