“When nature gave all the animals their organs for conception, it equipped those organs with a special facility for creating pleasure, and the soul with a ‘marvellous and indescribable desire to make use of them’.  By exciting and goading animals, this desire causes them to provide for the continuation of the species, as though they were perfectly wise, while in reality they may be young, foolish and entirely irrational. 

This is how Galen, the great philosopher-physician who revived the traditions of Aristotle and Hippocrates in second-century Rome, introduces us to the cunning of sex. (De Partium Usu 14, 2) […] At a time when philosophy, particularly Platonic and Stoic philosophy, had extensively warned against the folly of passion and Christian asceticism was on the rise, Galen reminded people of eros’s Reasons.”

Sex and Sensuality in the Ancient World, By Giulia Sissa

Claudius Galenus, often referred to as Galen.

Exerpts From – Galen of Pergamum: Ancient Rome’s Great Philosopher Physician:

 By Stephen Mastranunzio, BA Liberal Arts, MS Biological Anthropology, MPH

Although Greek, Galen was Born in 129 CE in the Roman/Asian/Greek city of Pergamum. In his lifetime, Galen would become the most influential and esteemed physician and medical researcher in the Roman Empire.

Galen’s father emphasized the importance of examining differing philosophical and educational perspectives. In his writing Galen noted that the most significant principle his father taught was “to follow no one sect but to hear and judge them all, to despise honor and glory, and to magnify truth alone.” 

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At the age of 15, Galen began his formal medical education, and for the next four years, he studied at the esteemed sanctuary dedicated to Asclepius (the Asclepieum) located in his home city of Pergamum.

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His pursuit of a more holistic education eventually took him to Smyrna (modern İzmir, Turkey), to study anatomy with the doctor Pelops, and to continue his studies in philosophy with the Platonist philosopherAlbinus. From Smyrna, Galen traveled to Corinth in mainland Greece, to study natural science, and medicine under the Greek physician Numésian, and finally to Alexandria, Egypt where he studied anatomy for perhaps as long as five years. It was in Alexandria where Galen was finally given the opportunity to examine the human skeleton.

After nearly a decade of studies, in 157 CE, Galen returned to his home city of Pergamum. The following year he accepted a position as the chief physician to the gladiators. He spent the next four years preparing them for gladiatorial combat and treating their horrific, life-threatening injuries. Treating gladiators allowed him the opportunity to discover more about human anatomy. The experience resulted in valuable practical acumen in trauma injuries, physiology, anatomy, and sports medicine.

He was a noted physician, philosopher, medical researcher, anatomist, physiologist, pharmacologist, neurologist, nutritionist, writer, pedagogue, and polemicist. “