Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Greco-Roman antiquity

  • Emperor Claudius and his physician, Xenophon of Kos

    Sally MetzlerChicago, Illinois, United States Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Drusus Nero Germanicus, Emperor of Rome from 41 to 54 CE, though known to historians, became a household name in 1970 with the advent of the popular television series I, Claudius. But he had already gained attention several decades earlier, engendered by British author Robert Graves,…

  • Bronzino and the wages of sin

    Frank Gonzalez-CrussiChicago, Illinois, United States No one knows who first conceived the idea of using a wig or precisely when this curious idea came into being. Wigs were known in Greco-Roman antiquity, as one can see in Ovid’s “Art of Love” (Ars Amatoria: book III, verses 165–168), where the poet upbraids a woman for wearing…