This thirty-second volume in the series Studies in Ancient Medicine (Brill) presents the revised and updated version of a PhD thesis defended at the University of Geneva in 1996 by Marguerite Hirt Raj. A classicist, Raj's objective in this book is to propound “une étude approfondie de la position sociale et du statut des médecins et de leur profession en Égypte romaine” (p. 5). The study is divided into six chapters: the introduction and the conclusion aside, chapters 2 to 4 encompass the definition of the physician's profession (training, specialization and particular cases, and remuneration), the fields of medical activities (public sector, army, private sector), and the physician's social and legal status. Chapter 5, entitled ‘De l’étiologie à la thérapie: le choix offert au malade’, proposes a general reflection on the kinds of medicine practised in Antiquity.

The subject of this work is very promising, for it considers ancient medicine as a social practice, with the intention of improving our knowledge not of medical theories and therapeutics, but of the social and legal status of doctors and their art in Antiquity. However, Raj does not fully attain her objective, because of an incomplete understanding of medical history. In fact, she does not seem to have had any specific training in the history of medicine, and thus makes some mistakes in the interpretation of evidence. On several occasions, Raj's remarks betray her misreading of Greek and Latin medical literature, notably the Hippocratic Corpus. For example, concerning the medical knowledge of Philo of Alexandria, Raj points out that he had studied the Hippocratic authors, in particular “Hippocrate, dont il cite par deux fois le début des Aphorismes … ainsi qu'un long passage tiré du traité des Semaines” (p. 70). The wording here implies that these two treatises, the Aphorisms and the Weeks, are still attributed to Hippocrates today, a view at variance with modern Hippocratic studies. The author's lack of familiarity with the medical evidence also appears in the choice of editions. For instance, Raj quotes (p. 245) a long extract from the Hippocratic treatise Sacred disease in the French translation of Emile Littré, published in 1849, without taking into account the more recent editions, particularly the translation and commentary of Jacques Jouanna (2003).

Some inaccuracies also appear in the pages on the archiatroi. With regard to the oldest mention of the term, Raj cites the inscription discovered at Iulia Gordos (Lydia), in honour of Apollophanes of Seleuceia, doctor of Antiochos III. She, of course, states that on the damaged original the word archiatros was restored, but she still seems to believe this to be the correct word, only indicating in a footnote that Louis Robert rejected this “restoration”. Today, it is admitted, after new reading of the stone, that the word archiatros was never inscribed on the chiselled area (P Herrmann, ‘Ehrendekret von Iulia Gordos’, in AAWW, 1974, 111, p. 439, n. 2; E Samama, Les médecins dans le monde grec, Genève, 2003, p. 355, n.50). Furthermore, Raj asserts that the title of archiatros seems not to have been given to the doctors of the Ptolemaic kings, nor to the imperial doctors in Rome (pp. 55–6). Yet, in the following lines, she rightly mentions some instances of the title being used during the reigns of Claudius (C. Stert. Xenophon) and Nero (Andromachos). Moreover, other examples of archiatroi, imperial doctors in Rome, appear in ancient evidence (T. Stat. Crito under Trajan, Marcios Hermogenes under Hadrian, Stat. Attalos under Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus, L. Gellios Maximos under Caracalla). The word archiatros did not always designate the imperial doctor in Rome, but it could be employed with this meaning.

In addition, Raj sometimes bases her argument on evidence which is not chronologically relevant to her subject. For instance, among the types of medical men, she refers to the pepaideumenos or the cultured man (pp. 67–70), a word borrowed from Aristotle. She quotes some examples of this enlightened medical amateur throughout Antiquity, from Plato to Apuleius, including Philo of Alexandria in Roman Egypt. But she is unable to identify any in the papyrological evidence, because they do not practise medicine as such. However, this kind of pepaideumenos, defined by Aristotle, is the result of theoretical considerations, which cannot be transposed to the reality of medical practice under the Empire. It is one of the misuses of evidence which detracts from the quality of this work.