Expert: Maria - 8/27/2004

Question
Hi, thank you for looking into this. I am recently doing an assignment on Roman medical/encyclopedia writer Celsus. I couldn't find any web site about what it was like to be a Roman writer in general. Were they rich? came from good family? well respected in society? where did they earn their money from? what about medical writers (they didn't need to be doctors to be writing medical texts), so how were they regarded?

It would be much appreciated if you can answer these questions and may be even pointing me to web sites where I can find more information on this.


Answer

Hello Henry,

Here are my  answers to your questions. They are brief of course, but maybe of some help to you.

So, as for Roman writers in general, I can tell you that:

1-Generally speaking, they were not rich nor came they from good family, or rather their families were often good, but not rich at all.

2-They were  fairly well respected in society especially when they had some patrons, like an emperor, a patrician or a wealthy person. For example we know that the poets Horace and Virgil were sponsored by Maecenas, died. 8 B.C., a trusted adviser of the emperor Augustus and patron of letters. His name is in fact still today the symbol of the wealthy, generous patron of the arts.
Another poet, Martial (40- 104 AD) enjoyed the patronage of the emperors Domitian and Titus.

3-As for where  the writers earned  their money from, it is just from this patronage that most Roman writers earned their money.

4-Finally as for  medical Roman writers, I must point out that they were very few.
In fact we know only  one medical Roman writer , i.e. Aulus Cornelius  Celsus, Latin encyclopedist fluorished in the 1st.century AD, whose only extant work,De re medicina,(On Medicine ),consists of eight books and is the most important source for  present-day knowledge of Roman  medicine.  Celsus is considered the greatest Roman medical writer, though he was not esteemed as a scientist in his time.

In Roman time there was also Oribasius (AD 320-400) who however wrote in Greek, not in Latin. Personal physician of Emperor Julian, and compiler of excerpts from earlier medical writers,  he in fact wrote in Greek a Medical Encyclopaedia that covered 70 books,  whose about 30% survives.

Finally, as for ancient Roman medicine, you could see these sites:
http://www.crystalinks.com/romemedicine.html
http://www.unrv.com/culture/roman-medicine.php
http://medweb.bham.ac.uk/histmed/biblio.html
http://www.cimec.ro/Muzee/Farmacie/index_eng.htm
http://www.brainfly.net/html/celsus.htm

Hope this information can be helpful to you.

Best regards
Maria