HIST 203 - Magic & Medicine in Ancient Greece

Institution:

Trinity College

Subject:

Description:

Magic seeks to influence the world through control of unseen forces. Medicine seeks health through manipulation of a materialistic understanding of the body. Or so we moderns draw the distinction, distinctly to the detriment of magic. Looking back on the ancient Greeks, still regarded in many quarters as the inventors of rationality, we prefer Hippokrates to Asklepios, Asklepios to Hermes Trismegistos, and Hermes to Hekate. But, as E. R. Dodds showed many years ago in his classic study The Greeks and the Irrational, matters weren't so doggedly differentiated in antiquity. Magic and medicine coexisted, even if some of the severer practitioners on both sides condemned the other. This course explores the interactions between both spheres, the common theories that underlay Hippokratic diagnosis and love potions, in order to reveal aspects of ancient Greek thought, science, religion, and culture not usually investigated in undergraduate survey courses 1.00 units, Lecture

Credits:

1.00

Credit Hours:

Prerequisites:

Corequisites:

Exclusions:

Level:

Instructional Type:

Lecture

Notes:

Additional Information:

Historical Version(s):

Institution Website:

www.Trincoll.edu

Phone Number:

(860) 297-2000

Regional Accreditation:

New England Association of Schools and Colleges

Calendar System:

Semester

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