The students will learn about the use of dreams and oracles in healing process, and about a series of gods and heroes of the ancient Greek pantheon who cared about the medical problems of humans, such as Asklepios and Amphiaraos. These are the two most important examples of a longer list of gods and heroes who could heal people in the ancient times, like Zeus, Athena, Aphrodite, Apollo, Hercules, and Hygieia (from where the English "hygiene"). 

Students we learn how to dive into the much-neglected mythical origins of pre-modern medical art, the human behavior in times of ancient pandemics, and the struggle of professional doctors to develop scientific methods and skills in the past. They will be introduced to the work of two pioneers and founding fathers of modern medical thinking, Hippocrates and Galen. They will familiarize themselves with the social status of ancient physicians and the reception of their sophisticated medical treatises. 

The class will help students put ancient medicine in its own social and cultural perspective, contextualize the ideas of priests-physicians, judge the role of gods and magic, and critically assess the ancient medical morals. They will learn how to observe and discuss archaeological sites related to healing techniques developed by priests to cure people inside temples, as well as ancient artifacts and medical tools used as offerings and thanksgivings to healing shrines. 

Every now and then we hear about the so-called Hippocratic oath that still doctors take when they graduate in modern Universities around the world. But, Hippocrates lived in Athens in the 5th century BC. We often use hard-to-pronounce Greek words such as anatomy, epidemiology, pharmacology, gynecology, and so on, and we equally often hear hard-to-understand Greek names such as asthma, bronchitis, diarrhea, dermatitis, hemorrhage, osteoarthritis, or pneumonia, to name but a few. Yes, it is true that ancient Greek doctors did lay the foundations of all the above medical specialties, as well as they, indeed, observed, described, categorized and tried to cure most of the above diseases. Therefore, studying ancient Greek medicine, is relevant to ourselves, speaks to our reality and somehow describes our contemporary lives. It is not one more eclectic, elitist, and irrelevant undertaking of historians. 

I am offering this class to show to students that ancient Greek medicine is more than just a piece in the history of medical science. In their medical thinking ancient Greeks embedded their cultural norms and values. They constructed this specialized medical knowledge according to their fears, their needs, their hopes, their prejudices and their tremendous intellectual skills. Nature challenged them through premature deaths, great infant mortality, endemic diseases and recurrent breaks of pandemics and, yet, they accepted this challenge to create what we know now today as Medicine.  

Studying ancient worlds in general, and comparing them with our own modern world, opens our horizons and feeds our own imagination, since we will travel into the sanctuaries of Asklepios and Amphiaraos, both in southern Greece, to explore their myths, cults and rituals. 

I have studied the subject covered in this class at a postgraduate level, both as an M.A. and a PhD student. I have participated in University classes, scientific conferences and scholarly publications on this subject matter the past few years. And I am still intrigued as scholar and teacher by the fascinating effort of ancient people to restlessly perfect their skills in performing the medical art.