From Homer to Hippocrates

The Invention of Medicine

Longlisted for the RUNCIMAN AWARD, 2021 
 
Medicine is one of the great fields of achievement of the Ancient Greeks. Hippocrates is celebrated worldwide as the father of medicine and the Hippocratic Oath is admired throughout the medical profession as a founding statement of ethics and ideals. In the fifth century BC, Greeks even wrote of medicine as a newly discovered craft they had invented. 
 
Robin Lane Fox's remarkable book puts their invention of medicine in a wider context, from the epic poems of Homer to the first doctors known to have been active in the Greek world. He examines what we do and do not know about Hippocrates and his Oath and the many writings that survive under his name. He then focuses on seven core texts which give the case histories of named individuals, showing that books 1 and 3 belong far earlier than previously recognised. Their re-dating has important consequences for the medical awareness of the great Greek dramatists and the historians Herodotus and Thucydides. Robin Lane Fox pieces together the doctor's thinking from his terse observations and relates it in a new way to the history of Greek prose and ideas. 
 
This original and compelling book opens windows onto many other aspects of the classical world, from women's medicine to street-life, empire, art, sport, sex and even botany. It fills a dark decade in a new way and carries readers along an extraordinary journey form Homer's epics to the grateful heirs of the Greek case histories, first in the Islamic world and then in early modern Europe.

In this engaging history by the biographer of Alexander the Great, lightened with wry donnish wit... readers can enjoy a vivid ride through a part of Greece little visited in either body or mind.

an exciting addition to a flurry of books on ancient medicine in recent years ... Lane Fox, who is known for his originality and his exceptionally broad interests as a historian, which range from Alexander the Great to Augustine, built The Invention of Medicine: From Homer to Hippocrates on a decades' worth of impressive scholarship ... His account of early Greek medicine is an engaging, well informed introduction to the complex reality of the world of healing in ancient Greece. Drawing on as many sources as possible, yet making complex data accessible to a wide audience, Lane Fox describes the skills of doctors and the experiences of their patients with gusto ... groundbreaking

My favourite book from our lock-down times is The Invention of Medicine by Robin Lane Fox, a great Oxford classicist's contribution to the most needed discipline of the day. By original and skilful argument, it shows how some of the direct observations attributed to Hippocrates, the 'father of medicine', dated by him earlier than most of us had thought before, influenced Thucydides and other writers at the very birth of reasoned history.

a most welcome contribution to this ever-growing field by one of today's most eminent voices in ancient history. In his latest book, Robin Lane Fox, probably best known for his work on Alexander the Great and Augustine, offers a refreshing and at points ground-breaking revision of the beginnings of ancient Greek medicine ... In his attempt to disentangle and revise the 'invention of medicine' as a highly complex and multifaceted phenomenon in early medical history Robin Lane Fox succeeds brilliantly in constructing a narrative that is, at the same time, innovative and introductive, informative and entertaining, thoroughly historical yet with the occasional contemporary twist. Writing in an accessible style, aimed at both a general and informed readership and abounding in donnish wit, Lane Fox takes his reader on a scholarly joyride

Radically, Lane Fox is keen to date Books One and Three of the Epidemics very early in the story of the development of Greek medicine, much earlier than anyone else has done ... The case is ingenious ... He knows how to pace a narrative and he has a raconteur's eye for detail.

Lane Fox leads us down intriguing paths of epigraphy, political history, philology and archaeology

Robin Lane Fox's remarkable The Invention of Medicine brings to vivid life the island city of Thasos in the fifth century bc, when it was home to the author of books of case studies now called Epidemics I and 3, whose details are so forensic that we can diagnose his patients' ailments and pinpoint their addresses in the modern city. Around these works Lane Fox weaves a compelling history of Greek medicine, before arguing that they betray such scientific rigour that their author can be none other than Hippocrates himself.

Medicine is one of the great fields of achievement of the Ancient Greeks. Hippocrates is celebrated worldwide as the father of medicine and the Hippocratic Oath is admired throughout the medical profession as a founding statement of ethics and ideals. In the fifth century BC, Greeks even wrote of medicine as a newly discovered craft they had invented. 
 
Robin Lane Fox's remarkable book puts their invention of medicine in a wider context, from the epic poems of Homer to the first doctors known to have been active in the Greek world. He examines what we do and do not know about Hippocrates and his Oath and the many writings that survive under his name. He then focuses on seven core texts which give the case histories of named individuals, showing that books 1 and 3 belong far earlier than previously recognised. Their re-dating has important consequences for the medical awareness of the great Greek dramatists and the historians Herodotus and Thucydides. Robin Lane Fox pieces together the doctor's thinking from his terse observations and relates it in a new way to the history of Greek prose and ideas.

Conversions and Confessions

Augustine

A major new interpretation of how one of the great figures of Christian history came to write the greatest of all autobiographies 
 
Augustine is the person from the ancient world about whom we know most. He is the author of an intimate masterpiece, the Confessions, which continues to delight its many admirers. In it he writes about his infancy and his schooling in the classics in late Roman North Africa, his remarkable mother, his sexual sins ('Give me chastity, but not yet,' he famously prayed), his time in an outlawed heretical sect, his worldly career and friendships and his gradual return to God. His account of his own eventual conversion is a classic study of anguish, hesitation and what he believes to be God's intervention. It has inspired philosophers, Christian thinkers and monastic followers, but it still leaves readers wondering why exactly Augustine chose to compose a work like none before it. 
 
Robin Lane Fox follows Augustine on a brilliantly described journey, combining the latest scholarship with recently found letters and sermons by Augustine himself to give a portrait of his subject which is subtly different from older biographies. Augustine's heretical years as a Manichaean, his relation to non-Christian philosophy, his mystical aspirations and the nature of his conversion are among the aspects of his life which stand out in a sharper light. For the first time Lane Fox compares him with two contemporaries, an older pagan and a younger Christian, each of whom also wrote about themselves and who illumine Augustine's life and writings by their different choices. 
 
More than a decade passed between Augustine's conversion and his beginning the Confessions. Lane Fox argues that the Confessions and their thinking were the results of a long gestation over these years, not a sudden change of perspective, but that they were then written as a single swift composition and that its final books are a coherent consummation of its scriptural meditation and personal biography. This exceptional study reminds us why we are so excited and so moved by Augustine's story.

Fifty years ago we learned how much more there was to say when Peter Brown published his magnificent life, Augustine of Hippo ... [Lane Fox] has now done Brown one better ... Brown managed to tell the whole story, from birth to death, with great economy and flair. Fox aims for full immersion, and he conjures the intellectual and social life of the late Roman empire with an almost Proustian relish for detail.

Undoubtedly a watershed in Augustinian studies ... the magisterial and compellingly readable narrative ... makes full and creative use of all the best recent scholarship.

Robin Lane Fox is Emeritus Fellow of New College, Oxford, and was until 2014 Reader in Ancient History in Oxford University. He is the author of Pagans and Christians (1986), The Unauthorised Version (1992) and many books on classical history, including Alexander the Great (1973), The Classical World (2005) and Travelling Heroes (2008), all of which have been widely translated. He has been the gardening correspondent of the Financial Times since 1970.

'Give me chastity, but not yet', young Augustine famously prayed to God. The Confessions, his masterpiece, is a classic study of anguish, hesitation and what he believes to be God's intervention. It has inspired philosophers, Christian thinkers and monastic followers, but still leaves readers wondering why Augustine chose to compose a work like none before it. Robin Lane Fox follows him on a brilliantly-described journey through his various conversions and their sequels. He combines the latest scholarship with recently-found letters and sermons by Augustine himself to give a portrait of his subject which is subtly different from previous biographies.

Great Plants, Great Gardens, Great Gardeners

Thoughtful Gardening

Robin Lane Fox's weekly gardening column in the Financial Times began in 1970 and is the longest running in print today. He has published two bestselling books on the subject, Better Gardening (Penguin, 1982) and Variations on A Garden (revised ed.,1986). He began his career in the great Botanical Garden in Munich and since 1979 has been Garden Master of the gardens at New College, Oxford where he is also Fellow and Tutor in Ancient History. He is the prize-winning author of many books on classical history, including most recently: Travelling Heroes: Greek and their Myths in the Epic Age of Homer (Allen Lane, 2009).

Thoughtful Gardening is based on Robin Lane Fox's own selection from his widely admired FT column, which he has rewritten and amplified with new chapters to take readers on a highly enjoyable journey through each season of the gardening year. It draws on his lifetime of practical gardening, including his years as Garden Master of New College, Oxford, and contains many memories of fellow gardeners, from Christopher Lloyd to Nancy Lancaster. 
 
The book is essential reading for anyone setting out on a new garden or taking stock of one. It takes a critical look at fashions of the moment and is full of advice, ranging from problems with badgers to how to take root-cuttings or choose flowering trees, as well as examples of gardens at home and abroad which Robin Lane Fox has visited over many years. Thoughtful Gardening combines a principled view of the craft of gardening with dozens of new ideas for planting and visiting, and touching reminders of the power of literature and art to deepen what we see and realize in gardens of our own.

Greeks and their myths in the epic age of Homer

Travelling Heroes

Robin Lane Fox's Travelling Heroes: Greeks and their Myths in the Epic Age of Homer proposes a new way of thinking about ancient Greeks, showing how real-life journeys shaped their mythical tales. 
 
 The tales of the ancient Greeks have inspired us for thousands of years. But where did they originate? Esteemed classicist Robin Lane Fox draws on a lifetime's knowledge of the ancient world, and on his own travels, to open up the age of Homer. 
 
 His acclaimed history explores how the intrepid seafarers of eighth-century Greece sailed around the Mediterranean, encountering strange new sights - volcanic mountains, vaporous springs, huge prehistoric bones - and weaving them into the myths of gods, monsters and heroes that would become the cornerstone of Western civilization: the Odyssey and the Iliad. 
 
 'A beautiful evocation of a tantalizing world ... Travelling Heroes is a tour de force' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;Rowland Smith, Literary Review 
 
 'Lyrical, passionate ... his great gift is to make this long-ago world a vivid, extraordinary and sometimes frightening place ... a wonderful story' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;Elizabeth Speller, Sunday Times 
 
 'Original, daring and arguably life-enhancing ... produced with a sweeping narrative flourish worthy of a cinematographer or screenwriter' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;Paul Cartledge, Independent 
 
 'Lane Fox argues his case with tremendous style and verve ... learned, and always lively' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;Mary Beard, Financial Times 
 
 Robin Lane Fox (b. 1946) is a Fellow of New College, Oxford, and a University Reader in Ancient History. His other books include The Classical World, Alexander the Great, Pagans and Christians and The Unauthorized Version. He was historical advisor to Oliver Stone on the making of Stone's film Alexander, for which he waived all his fees on condition that he could take part in the cavalry charge against elephants which Stone staged in the Moroccan desert.

Robin Lane Fox is our most widely-read historian of the ancient Greek world. His other books include Alexander the Great, Pagans and Christians, The Unauthorized Version and The Classical World. He was historical advisor to Oliver Stone on the making of the film Alexander, and as the gardening correspondent of the Financial Times is author of the longest running column of any kind in a British newspaper.

This remarkable and original book proposes a new way of thinking about the Greeks and their myths in the age of the great Homeric hymns. It combines a lifetime's familiarity with Greek literature and history with the latest archeological discoveries and the author's own journeys to the main sites in the story to describe how particular Greeks of the eighth century BC travelled east and west around the Mediterranean, and how their extraordinary journeys shaped their ideas of their gods and heroes. It gathers together stories and echoes from many different ancient cultures, not just the Greek - Assyria, Egypt, the Phoenician traders - and ranges from Mesopotamia to the Rio Tinto at Huelva in modern Portugal.

Alexander the Great

Alexander the Great is the subject of two major Hollywood films in autumn 2004.

From award-winning historian Robin Lane Fox, Alexander the Great searches through the mass of conflicting evidence and legend to focus on Alexander as a man of his own time. 
 
 Tough, resolute, fearless, Alexander was a born warrior and ruler of passionate ambition who understood the intense adventure of conquest and of the unknown. When he died in 323 BC aged thirty-two, his vast empire comprised more than two million square miles, spanning from Greece to India. 
 
 His achievements were unparalleled - he had excelled as leader to his men, founded eighteen new cities and stamped the face of Greek culture on the ancient East. The myth he created is as potent today as it was in the ancient world. 
 
 Combining historical scholarship and acute psychological insight, Alexander the Great brings this colossal figure vividly to life. 
 
 'So enjoyable and well-written ... Fox's book became my main guide through Alexander's amazing story' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;Oliver Stone, director of Alexander 
 
 'I do not know which to admire most, his vast erudition or his imaginative grasp of so remote and complicated a period and such a complex personality' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;Cyril Connolly, Sunday Times 
 
 'An achievement of Alexandrian proportions' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;New Statesman 
 
 Robin Lane Fox was the main historical advisor to Oliver Stone on his film Alexander, and took part in many of its most dramatic re-enactments. His books include The Classical World: An Epic History of Greece and Rome, The Unauthorised Version: Truth and Fiction in the Bible, Travelling Heroes: Greeks and their Myths in the Epic Age of Homer and Pagans and Christians in the Mediterranean World from the Second Century AD to the Conversion of Constantine.

Tough, resolute, fearless, Alexander was a born warrior and ruler of passionate ambition who understood the intense adventure of conquest and of the unknown. When he died in 323 BC aged thirty-two, his vast empire comprised more than two million square miles, spanning from Greece to India. His achievements were unparalleled - he had excelled as leader to his men, founded eighteen new cities and stamped the face of Greek culture on the ancient East. The myth he created is as potent today as it was in the ancient world. 
 
Robin Lane Fox's superb account searches through the mass of conflicting evidence and legend to focus on Alexander as a man of his own time. Combining historical scholarship and acute psychological insight, it brings this colossal figure vividly to life.

An Epic History of Greece and Rome

The Classical World

A comprehensive and enthralling introduction to the Classical World, ideal for those whose interest in the subject has been speaked by the recent BBC series, Rome, or who enjoyed Gladiator

Robin Lane Fox's The Classical World: An Epic History of Greece and Rome is a comprehensive and enthralling introduction to Ancient civilization. 
 
 The classical civilizations of Greece and Rome dominated the world for centuries and continue to intrigue and enlighten us with their inventions, whether philosophy, politics, theatre, athletics, celebrity, science or the pleasures of horse racing. Robin Lane Fox's spellbinding history, spans almost a thousand years of change from the foundation of the world's first democracy in Athens to the Roman Republic and the Empire under Hadrian. 
 
 Bringing great figures such as Homer, Socrates, Cicero, Alexander, Antony and Cleopatra, Julius Caesar, Augustus and the first Christian martyrs to life, exploring freedom, justice and luxury, this wonderfully exciting tour brings the turbulent histories of Greece and Rome together in a masterly study. 
 
 'Epic in the true sense' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;The Times Books of the Year 
 
 'He writes supremely well ... a keen eye for the telling detail and powerful example ... the humanity of the exercise shines through ... compulsory, and compulsive, reading' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp; Peter Jones, Sunday Telegraph 
 
 Robin Lane Fox is a Fellow of New College, Oxford, and a University Reader in Ancient History. His other books include Alexander the Great, Pagans and Christians and The Unauthorized Version. He was historical advisor to Oliver Stone on the making of Stone's film Alexander, for which he waived all his fees on condition that he could take part in the cavalry charge against elephants which Stone staged in the Moroccan desert.

The Classical World is a more epic epic than any toga-clad celluloid epic to date... Mr Lane Fox's brilliant book, where soldiers, poets and orators fight for attention in a story that is never cluttered and always stimulating.

witty, ferociously learned, enormously well read

an ambitious and exhilarating volume...The Classical World is so replete with insight and anecdote that I would love to see it in every school library.

we are in the hands of an author who knows that an epic can only be driven by big characters such as Pericles, Demosthenes, Philip, Cicero, Pompey, Caesar and Cleopatra...Here lies the author's mastery, matching a lifelong familiarity with his subject to the basic needs of a newly arrived apprentice

Robin Lane Fox was born in 1946 and educated at Eton and Magdalen College, Oxford. He is a Fellow of New College, Oxford, and a University Reader in Ancient History. His other books include Alexander the Great, Pagans and Christians and The Unauthorized Version. He was historical advisor to Oliver Stone on the making of Stone's film Alexander, for which he waived all his fees on condition that he could take part in the cavalry charge against elephants which Stone staged in the Moroccan desert.

The classical civilizations of Greece and Rome dominated the world for centuries and continue to intrigue and enlighten us with their inventions, whether philosophy, politics, theatre, athletics, celebrity, science or the pleasures of horse racing. Robin Lane Fox's spellbinding history spans almost a thousand years of change, from the foundation of the world's first democracy in Athens to the Roman Republic and the Empire under Hadrian. Bringing great figures such as Homer, Socrates, Alexander, Julius Caesar, Augustus and the first Christian martyrs to life, exploring freedom, justice and luxury, this wonderfully exciting tour brings the turbulent histories of Greece and Rome together in a masterly study.

Robin Lane Fox

Robin Lane Fox has been teaching the epics for 50 years and studying them for many more. His lifelong fascination with the texts has bred a sort of feverish passion .... the book feels less like a wilful provocation than a throwing down of the gauntlet by a 76-year-old with nothing to lose. Lane Fox writes less with hope than bardic omniscience that his book will become a landmark in Homeric studies.

"Homer's Iliad is the world's greatest epic poem," writes the peerless classicist Robin Lane Fox ... Lane Fox has had a 60-year relationship with the poem ... he teases out from infinite small details hidden in the Iliad's 15,000 lines something of the antique mindset.

Robin Lane Fox &ndash; ancient historian, travelling enthusiast, gardening correspondent for the Financial Times and cavalry commander in Oliver Stone&rsquo;s Alexander &ndash; is the latest to turn his hand to this form of philological necromancy. The Iliad is a poem he has known and loved since his schooldays at Eton, and it shows: there is barely a page without some personal insight or hypothesis, often accompanied by laudatory adjectives ... He knows the poem in enviable detail and has a lover&rsquo;s eye both for the poem&rsquo;s sublime beauty and for anything out of place ... his confidence and deep learning can be thrilling .... Homer and His Iliad is rich, imaginative, perceptive and gorgeously written.

A comprehensive delight for amateurs and academics alike, as the author soars through the canon of Homeric scholarship with a magisterial deftness worthy of any Olympian. A captivating tribute to a lifelong love of the original epic.

Times Literary Supplement Books of the Year

This book is the result of a lifetime spent teaching the Iliad &hellip; The approach is scholarly and based on a walker&rsquo;s deep knowledge of Homer&rsquo;s landscapes, but also entertainingly idiosyncratic, with much use of the personal voice &hellip; a fine personal account of the impact of the poem as a profound meditation on our human condition in what remains a dangerous world&rsquo;

Homer's Iliad is the famous epic poem set among the tales of Troy. Its subject is the anger of the hero Achilles and its dreadful consequences for the warring Greeks and Trojans. It was composed more than 2,600 years ago, but still transfixes us with its tale of loss and battle, love and revenge, guided throughout by the active presence of the gods. Its beauty and profound bleakness are intensely moving but great questions remain: where, how and when it was composed and why it has such enduring power? 
 
In this compelling book Robin Lane Fox addresses these questions, drawing on a life-long love and engagement with the poem. He argues for a place, a date and a method for its composition, giving us a sense of alternative approaches and grounding his own in discoveries about long heroic poems composed elsewhere in the world, and the ever-growing evidence of archaeology. 
 
Unlike other books on the Iliad, this one combines the detailed expertise of a historian with the sensitivity of a teacher of it as poetry. Lane Fox goes on to consider hallmarks of the poem, its values, implicit and explicit, its characters, its women, its gods and even its horses. He argues repeatedly for its beautiful observation and addresses its parallel use of what is, to us, the natural world. Thousands of readers turn to the Iliad every year. In this superbly written and conceived tribute, Lane Fox expresses and amplifies what old and new readers can find in it. It is pervaded, he argues, by a poignant hardness which is not just a poetic trick. It is a deeply held view of the world.

Robin Lane Fox

Praise for Homer and His Iliad

Robin Lane Fox has been teaching the epics for 50 years and studying them for many more. His lifelong fascination with the texts has bred a sort of feverish passion .... the book feels less like a wilful provocation ...

"Homer's Iliad is the world's greatest epic poem," writes the peerless classicist Robin Lane Fox ... Lane Fox has had a 60-year relationship with the poem ... he teases out from infinite small d ...

Robin Lane Fox – ancient historian, travelling enthusiast, gardening correspondent for the Financial Times and cavalry commander in Oliver Stone’s Alexander – is the latest to turn hi ...

Robin Lane Fox has been teaching the epics for 50 years and studying them for many more. His lifelong fascination with the texts has bred a sort of feverish passion .... the book feels less like a wilful provocation ...

"Homer's Iliad is the world's greatest epic poem," writes the peerless classicist Robin Lane Fox ... Lane Fox has had a 60-year relationship with the poem ... he teases out from infinite small d ...

Robin Lane Fox – ancient historian, travelling enthusiast, gardening correspondent for the Financial Times and cavalry commander in Oliver Stone’s Alexander – is the latest to turn hi ...

Robin Lane Fox has been teaching the epics for 50 years and studying them for many more. His lifelong fascination with the texts has bred a sort of feverish passion .... the book feels less like a wilful provocation ...

"Homer's Iliad is the world's greatest epic poem," writes the peerless classicist Robin Lane Fox ... Lane Fox has had a 60-year relationship with the poem ... he teases out from infinite small d ...

Robin Lane Fox – ancient historian, travelling enthusiast, gardening correspondent for the Financial Times and cavalry commander in Oliver Stone’s Alexander – is the latest to turn hi ...

Books by Robin Lane Fox

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