[Observations on Roman medicine]

How far are we entitled to speak of Roman medicine at all? After the arrival of Greek medicine at Rome, the genuine medicine of the earlier Romans, the only one that may be qualified as authentically Roman, survived in rural areas only. Otherwise, medicine in Rome and her Empire was Greek by language and doctrine as well as by its practitioners. Nevertheless, there exists an important medical literature in Latin. Although its inspiration, its sources and its models are Greek, this literature reveals, here and there, the intention to bend that medicine imported from Greece towards the Roman medicine of the old times. It shows, too, a certain reshaping of the Greek substance according to specific Roman elements. This paper, which is just the beginning of a broader investigation, is based on the major work of Latin medical literature, i. e. Celsus's De medicina.