Magic and Rationality in Ancient Near Eastern and Graeco‐Roman Medicine. Edited by H. F. L.  Horstmanshoff and M.  Stol. Studies in Ancient Medicine 27. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2004. Pp. xv + 407. $148.

2007 ◽  
Vol 66 (2) ◽  
pp. 147-148
Author(s):  
Robert D. Biggs
Author(s):  
Patricia Baker

The study of ancient medicine has grown in popularity over since the early 1990s in a variety of fields, including ancient texts, epigraphy, osteology, and archaeology. Many of the studies have demonstrated that there were a diversity of medical practices and concepts throughout the Graeco-Roman world. In this chapter it is shown that the evidence for medical practices in the province of Britannia indicates there are likely to have been a combination of indigenous, Roman and, possibly, Gallic conceptions of the body and its care. Hence, through an examination of material culture, inscriptions, and some textual evidence from Vindolanda, it is argued that the term Romano-British medicine is more appropriate than Roman medicine as a means of noting the heterogeneity in healthcare found in the Roman Empire.


2019 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Alice Deken
Keyword(s):  
The Law ◽  

A semantic reading of this text alters the structure of the episode as a whole to reveal a story-within-a-story: the death of the seven Saulides and the expiation performed by Rizpah. The purpose of this sub-plot is to point to the perpetrator of the initial crime causing a famine, by presenting an analogous circumstance. By analogy we are directed to the conclusion that David is responsible for the famine after engineering the deaths of Saul and Jonathan. David’s exploitation of the differences between Ancient Near Eastern and Israelite law resulting in seven dead claimants to the throne of Israel, suggests that the episode has been compiled as a rejection of kingship; the centralization of worship, and the promulgation of the law-code. Fundamental to all these, is the rejection of the popular sovereign practice of murdering any potential successors to the throne.


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