A FATHER’S DREAM

Galen’s Early Life


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When Galen was sixteen, his father had a dream that changed the course of his son’s life. It was not unusual at the time for people to believe that gods communicated with humans through dreams, and Galen, like his father, took such visions seriously: 

“Exhorted by distinct dreams, he had me study medicine together with philosophy.” 

It was a decisive moment in Galen’s life—one of two key moments influenced by dreams. Indeed, he followed the vision precisely by combining the study of medicine with an education in philosophy. He began his studies in Pergamon before traveling around the Mediterranean to advance his training, and was deeply committed to the healing arts right from the start:

“When I began to study medicine I repudiated all pleasure. . . . I spent all my time in the study of medical practice, deliberating and reflecting on medicine. Generally, I have gone without sleep at night in order to examine the treasures left to us by the Ancients.”

A man sleeps on the ground while another flies above with outstretched arms, looking down. Both figures have long beards and hair; they wear robes and leggings. In the background is a walled city in front of a mountain.

Detail from the title page of Galeni Opera Omnia (Venice, 1550). Photo: Reynolds-Finley Historical Library, the University of Alabama at Birmingham

Galen documented his own life in tremendous detail in autobiographical anecdotes throughout his voluminous medical treatises and in writings about his own books. Yet the light he shone on his intellectual work, professional activities, and the lives of his patients contrasts with the obscurity of his personal life. We have no details about his childhood, or his family as an adult—if he had siblings, a wife, lovers, or children, he does not mention them. But he does discuss his parents and the influence of his father in particular.

ISAW_Galen_Cropped_Map_DreamChild_01

Map showing location of Pergamon. Base map: d-maps.com. Click to enlarge.

Galen was born in Pergamon in 129 CE to a prominent family. His father, Aelius Nicon, was an architect; his grandfather had been an architect; and his great-grandfather had likely also been an architect, as well as a geometrician and land surveyor.

A rectangular stone plaque filled with lines of Greek text. A large piece is missing from the bottom left corner.

Hymn to the Sun by Aelius Nicon. Roman, 2nd century CE. Marble. Pergamon. H. 65 cm; W. 82 cm; D. 9 cm. Archaeological Museum, Bergama, Turkey. Photo: Deutsches Archäologisches Institut Athen (D-DAI-ATH-Pergamon 769).

The profession was highly regarded—architecture required skill and intellectual accomplishment—and Galen’s father, Nicon, was a member of an elite, estate-owning class that valued such pursuits. Galen reverentially highlights the intellectual and moral values that his father embodied: “I had a father who attained the height of geometry, architecture, mathematics, and astronomy; and those who knew him praised him for his justice, goodness, and moderation beyond all the philosophers.” Of all the advantages that Galen received from his father, it was his education, paideia, that was most important to him. Together with his inherited wealth and his own drive and talent, the rigorous education he received directly from his father ensured Galen’s social mobility and success in a competitive world. But it was not predetermined from the outset that medicine would be his primary field.

Galen begins his story in his mid-teens: Nicon himself taught his son in geometry, mathematics, and arithmetic, as well as Greek grammar and logic (Greek was Galen’s native tongue and the lingua franca of educated culture throughout the empire), and by the time that Galen reached the age of fourteen, his father had decided that the son would specialize in philosophy. At that point, Nicon had less time to educate Galen, having taken on a more active role in politics, so he selected a series of philosophy tutors—a Stoic, a Platonist, a Peripatetic, and an Epicurean—after interviewing each one personally.

Seven men in togas with gray hair and beards gather under a tree. Five are seated on a footed marble bench and two stand. Behind them is a verdant landscape with white columns.

Mosaic depicting the Seven Sages (“Plato’s Academy”). Roman, 1st century BCE–1st century CE. Stone. Villa of Titus Siminius Stephanus, Pompeii. H. 96 cm; W. 94 cm. Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli: 124545. Photo: Guido Petruccioli. © Institute for the Study of the Ancient World.

Despite this specialized instruction, Nicon remained deeply involved in his son’s education, even accompanying Galen to school and occasionally chastising teachers for not recognizing his son’s genius. When describing the early guidance received from his father, a middle-aged Galen reflected that an emphasis on independence of thought defined his intellectual life:

“These commands of my father I hold to and preserve to this day, never professing myself an adherent of any sect, making rigorous investigation of them with all diligence.”

Galen continued to pursue philosophy over the course of his career—he wrote treatises on logic and ethics—but because of his father’s dream, medicine is where he made his mark.