ems to have devoted much time and
care to the education of his son. The youth appears to have studied
philosophy successively in the schools of the Stoics, Academics,
Peripatetics, and Epicureans, without attaching himself exclusively to
any one of these, and to have taken from each what he thought to be the
most essential parts of their system, rejecting, however, altogether the
tenets of the Epicureans. At the age of twenty-one, on the death of his
father, he went to Smyrna to continue the study of medicine, to which he
had now devoted himself. After leaving this place and having travelled
extensively, he took up his residence at Alexandria, which was then the
most favourable spot for the pursuit of medical studies. Here he is said
to have remained until he was twenty-eight years of age, when his
reputation secured his appointment, in his native city of Pergamus, to
the office of physician in charge of the athletes in the gymnasia
situated within the precincts of the temple of AEsculapius. For five or
six years he lived in Pergamus, and then a revolt compelled him to leave
his native town. The advantages offered by Rome led him to remove
thither and take up his residence in the capital of the world. Here his
skill, sagacity, and knowledge soon brought him into notice, and excited
the jealousy of the Roman doctors, which was still further increased by
some wonderful cures the young Greek physician succeeded in effecting.
Possibly it was owing to the ill feeling shown to Galen that, on the
outbreak of an epidemic a year afterwards, he left the imperial city and
proceeded to Brindisi, and embarked for Greece. It was his intention to
devote his time to the study of natural history, and for this purpose he
visited Cyprus, Palestine, and Lemnos. While at the last-named place,
however, he was suddenly summoned to Aquileia to meet the Emperors
Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus. He travelled through Thrace and
Macedonia on foot, met the imperial personages, and prepared for them a
medicine, for which he seems to have been famous, and which is spoken of
as the _theriac_. It was probably some combination of opium with various
aromatics and stimulants, for antidotes of many different kinds were
habitually taken by the Romans to preserve them from the ill effects of
poison and of the bites of venomous animals.[16]

With the Emperor M. Aurelius he returned to Rome, and became afterwards
doctor to the young Emperor Commodus. He did no