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Asklepios, Medicine, and the Politics of Healing in Fifth-Century Greece: Between Craft and Cult | 
 enlarge | Author: Bronwen L. Wickkiser
Publisher: The Johns Hopkins University Press
Category: Book
List Price: $55.00
Buy New: $49.22
You Save: $5.78 (11%)
Sales Rank: 479060
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 192
ISBN: 0801889782
Dewey Decimal Number: 610.938
EAN: 9780801889783
ASIN: 0801889782
Publication Date: December 30, 2008 (New: Last 30 Days)
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Not yet published
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Product Description
Delving deeply into ancient medical history, Bronwen L. Wickkiser explores the early development and later spread of the cult of Asklepios, one of the most popular healing gods in the ancient Mediterranean. Though Asklepios had been known as a healer since the time of Homer, evidence suggests that large numbers of people began to flock to the cult during the fifth century BCE, just as practitioners of Hippocratic medicine were gaining dominance.Drawing on close readings of period medical texts, literary sources, archaeological evidence, and earlier studies, Wickkiser finds two primary causes for the cult's ascendance: it filled a gap in the market created by the refusal of Hippocratic physicians to treat difficult chronic ailments and it abetted Athenian political needs. Wickkiser supports these challenging theories with side-by-side examinations of the medical practices at Asklepios' sanctuaries and those espoused in Hippocratic medical treatises. She also explores how Athens' aspirations of empire influenced its decision to open the city to the healer-god's cult.In focusing on the fifth century and by considering the medical, political, and religious dimensions of the cult of Asklepios, Wickkiser presents a complex, nuanced picture of Asklepios' rise in popularity, Athenian society, and ancient Mediterranean culture. The intriguing and sometimes surprising information she presents will be valued by historians and classicists alike.
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