A Study Of Roman Physicians In The First Century AD From The Perspective Of Social Hierarchy

Physicians always play important roles in public health and stability of our society.In Roman antiquity,however,the social status of medical profession was relatively low.With a vast territory and a large population,the Roman Empire was undoubtedly in demand of professional physicians,for its troops and cities.Nevertheless,the image of medical profession in some classical writings is drawn in a rather negative way.This thesis mainly focuses on the different attitudes of Roman society towards physicians and how those writings and judging about them constructed the textual image of the physicians in the first century AD.It,thus,explores how the critical textual image of physicians is related to the conflict among social groups with different legal status in the early Roman Empire.The introduction gives the research background of Roman medical profession,as well as the modern secondary research literature review on physicians in ancient Rome.It includes mainly four topics: general research,the social status of Roman physicians,Romans’ view on physicians and the specific categories of Roman physicians.There are three chapters in the main body of the thesis.The first chapter gives a brief introduction to Roman physicians in first century AD.The first part of this chapter describes the development of the professional physicians in Rome before the first century AD.The second part analyzes the works written by Roman doctors in the first century,to show the physicians’ understanding of their profession;with the legal provisions issued by government,the third part describes the imperial government’s policy on medical profession and the legal control of misbehavior of physicians in the first century AD.The second chapter analyzes how the privileged classes perceive professional physicians in the first century AD.In order to sort out the detailed views of different social classes,the writings of Seneca the Younger,Pliny the Younger and Petronius are analyzed,representing some thoughts of the senatorial order,and the writings of Pliny the Elder,satirist poets such as Martial and Suetonius are analyzed,to show some thoughts of the equestrian order.Based on the aforesaid discussion,the similarities and differences among the views of these privileged classes are worked out.In the third chapter,I firstly argue that the Roman social structure was influenced by the establishment of the Principate in early Roman Empire,and then I analyze the social classes to which the Roman physicians belonged and how they improved their status,and finally I discuss that the image of Roman physicians in literary texts reflects the conflict between the rising freedmen and upper classes especially the equestrian order in the early Roman Empire.Attitudes of the writers are always traceable in their texts,and they are differentaccording to the standpoint of the writers.Their respective attitudes are related to the changes of the social structure that occurred in the early Roman Empire.In early Roman Empire,equestrians and imperial freedmen became politically more important.Imperial freedmen,with their identity of ex-slaves,became a special group in the social hierarchy of Roman Empire,which made the upper classes,especially the equestrian order,felt challenged since their legal status was very much different from their political influence and closeness to the imperial house,the main magnet and focus of all social groups in the Roman Empire.Hence the royal physicians particularly,part of whom were ex-slaves,and their occupation,became one of the critical targets of writers in privileged class,especially those of equestrian order.