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878 29. education in the roman empire
It is likely that the teaching of public doctors had a strong practical
emphasis, though one must not underestimate the role that could be played
by systematic handbooks. In the Alexandrian medical school, treatises of
Galen and Hippocrates – in that order – provided the basis of teaching.
They seem to have been commented on in the same way as the works of
Aristotle. Several such commentaries survive – e.g. Palladios’ on Galen’s De
sectis, and on Book VI of Hippocrates’ Epidemics and De fracturis, as well as
a synoptic handbook on fevers variously attributed to Palladius, Theophilus
Protospatharius and Stephanus of Alexandria, and a treatise by Paul of
Nicaea (or of Nike in Thrace?) on diagnosis and therapy. Doctors who
studied in Alexandria often obtained posts as public doctors or archiatri,
though no doubt many others entered private practice.
The doctor’s Doppelgänger, the veterinarian (veterinarius, hippiatros), must
have been an important figure in a predominantly agrarian society such as
that of the late Roman empire. He certainly had a role to play in the Roman
army. We know disappointingly little of how he was trained. There was no
institutional arrangement for veterinary education. But there was a body of
technical literature, both in Greek and in Latin, which budding veterinarians
must have studied, and which, in its turn, reflected the content and arrangement
of teaching. In Greek there survive handbooks attributed to Chrion –
no doubt a pseudonym – and Apsyrtus of Prusa (late sixth century), and a
medieval compilation of excerpts from earlier works entitled Hippiatrica.In
Latin there are a collection of letters on veterinary practice by Pelagonius
(probably fourth century), a Mulomedicina sive ars veterinaria attributed to P.
Vegetius, probably to be identified with Flavius Vegetius Renatus, author of
an Epitome rei militaris, and a Latin adaptation of the Greek text of ‘Chrion’.
To judge by these specimens, the veterinary art lacked the philosophical
basis of medicine. Empiricism tempered by superstition is characteristic of
veterinary literature. Vegetius attempts a somewhat more elevated style than
the authors of the other surviving treatises.
Pleading in courts of law was often, as in earlier times, done by persons
trained in rhetoric, who depended on experts for advice on legal matters.
Genuine legal education was, however, available, and a far-reaching reform
of it was carried out by Justinian in the first decade of his reign. Many students
seem to have studied law after completing a course in rhetoric. Until
Justinian’s reform of Roman law, a knowledge of Latin was essential for the
serious study of the subject. The publication of the Institutes (533), the
Digest (533) and the Code (second edition 534) made reference to the original
texts of the Roman jurisconsults unnecessary, and since Greek translations
of Justinian’s Corpus Iuris were soon made, professional legal studies
became accessible to those who knew little Latin.
The primary source on legal education in late antiquity is Justinian’s
Constitutio omnem (533) which prescribes a programme of instruction based
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