Health in Antiquity

How healthy were people in ancient Greece and Rome, and how did they think about maintaining and restoring their health?

For students of classics, history or the history of medicine, answers to these and many previously untouched questions are dealt with by renowned ancient historians, classical scholars and archaeologists.

Using a multidisciplined approach, the contributors assess the issues surrounding health in the Greco-Roman world from prehistory to Christian late antiquity.

Sources range from palaeodemography to patristic and from archaeology to architecture and using these, this book considers what health meant, how it was thought to be achieved, and addresses how the ancient world can be perceived as an ideal in subsequent periods of history.

Helen King is Professor of History of Classical Medicine at the University of Reading. She is the author of Hippocrates' Women (1998) and The Disease of Virgins (2003).