Society, Medicine and Religion in the Sacred Tales of Aelius Aristides

Aristides (AD 117-181) was a rising Greek orator in the Roman Empire until illness stuck him at age 26 and inflicted him for the rest of his life. Israelowich (classics, Tel Aviv U.) examines his thinking about his illness, medicine, and his devotion to the healing god Asclepius, particularly as expressed in his Sacred Tales, and what his writing reveals about those realms during his time. His perspectives include the Sacred Tales as autobiography, a narrative of redemption, the Graeco-Roman health-care system, towards a medical history of Aristides, the myth of Asclepius, and visual culture and social forms of cult-organization. Annotation c2012 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Ido Israelowich, D.Phil. (2008) in Ancient History, University of Oxford, is a lecturer of Classics at Tel Aviv University. He has published on various aspects of the work of Aristides and on medicine in the Graeco-Roman World.