Two new methods of treatment emerged in Classical Greece and quickly gained popularity. Hippocratic medicine combined careful observation of external symptoms with speculative theorizing about the mysterious inner workings of the body, while cults of Asclepius involved patients sleeping in the sanctuary so that the god could cure them in a dream. Practitioners of both reported cases where women sought treatment because they had been pregnant for years at a time. How these two methods of treatment handled this seemingly fantastical malady reveals a great deal about how women experienced illness and healing in the Greek world.

Dr Aneurin Ellis-Evans has been at Univ since 2022 and is the George Cawkwell Fellow and Praelector in Ancient History. Aneurin’s first book was a regional history of Lesbos and the Troad from the 7th c. BC – 1st c. AD which explored the political, cultural, and social history of regional integration (The Kingdom of Priam: Lesbos and the Troad between Anatolia and the Aegean, OUP 2019). Aneurin continues to work on the history of Lesbos and the Troad by exploring the largely unstudied coinages of the region from the 6th – 1st c. BC. This talk is inspired by the Classics finals option “Sexuality and Gender in Greece and Rome”, which Aneurin teaches to undergraduate students.

We hope that you enjoy this talk.

If you would like to hear more about Classics at Univ, we are hosting the George Cawkwell Memorial Lecture on Thursday 6 March. Please click here to learn more.

Published: 11 February 2025

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