Greek Culture and Its Hellenistic Diffusion 55the island of Cos in the fifth century B.C.(see docu-
ment 3.5). Its main feature was the theory of the hu-
mors. Until late in the eighteenth century, most doctors
believed that the human body contained four humors:
blood, black bile, yellow bile, and phlegm. Good
health depended upon keeping these humors in perfect
balance, and medication was typically prescribed if one
or more of them was either deficient or present in ex-
cess. An excess of blood, for example, could be reduced
by bleeding.
The Alexandrians added Egyptian surgery and
anatomy to the Hippocratic tradition and passed their
findings on to the Romans.
Greeks of the classical era derived much of their
identity from the polis and assumed that the good life
could be lived only within its social framework. In the
great empires of Hellenistic times, that framework no
longer existed. For the Greco-Macedonian elite, cut off
from their homelands and living essentially as merce-
naries, the gratifications of private life gradually re-
placed those of the organic community. For the
non-Greek masses with their long history of subjection
to alien empires, there was no issue: The individual and
the family were all that mattered.
The arts reflected this new individualism. Hellenis-
tic drama abandoned the great themes of tragic conflict
in favor of domestic comedies and tragedies that dealt
with pathetic events on the personal level. The works
of Menander (c. 300 B.C.) are typical of this genre.
Painting and sculpture flourished as never before.
Painting especially is said to have reached unprece-
dented levels of excellence. However, owing to the per-
ishable nature of the colors, all of it has been lost. In
sculpture, much of which has been preserved in Roman
copies, many of the best artists abandoned the serene
classicism of Phidias and Praxiteles and sought to ex-
press emotion through the dramatic arrangement of
their figures, agonized facial expressions, and exagger-
ated muscular tension. The famous statue of Laocoön
and his sons is an outstanding example (see illustration
3.5). Others chose humble figures from everyday life
and portrayed them in sympathetic detail (see illustra-
tion 3.6). Whatever their subject, the artists of the Hel-
lenistic age achieved new heights of technical virtuosity
that would astonish and at times dismay the critics of a
later age.
Hellenistic philosophy, too, reflected this shift in
values, abandoning political theory in favor of individ-
ualistic prescriptions for the good life. The philosophic
school known as the Cynics carried this tendency fur-
ther than anyone else. They argued that the best life
DOCUMENT 3.5
The Hippocratic Oath
The origins of the Hippocratic oath are unclear. Hippocrates
was supposed to have imposed the oath upon his students, but
it may have appeared at any time between the fifth century
B.C. and the first century A.D. Latin and Arabic versions ap-
pear throughout the Middle Ages. The text more closely re-
sembles an indenture between master and apprentice than a
pure statement of medical ethics.I swear by Apollo Physician, by Asclepius, by
Health, by Panacea, and by all the gods and god-
desses, making them by witnesses, that I will carry
out, according to my ability and judgment, this
oath and this indenture. To hold my teacher in this
art equal to my own parents; to make him partner
in my livelihood; when he is in need of money to
share mine with him; to consider his family as my
own brothers, and to teach them this art, if they
want to learn it, without fee or indenture; to im-
part precept, oral instruction, and all other instruc-
tion to my own sons, the sons of my teacher, and
to indentured pupils who have taken the physi-
cian’s oath, but to nobody else. I will use treatment
to help the sick according to my ability and judg-
ment, but never with a view to injury and wrong-
doing. Neither will I administer a poison to
anybody when asked to do so, nor will I suggest
such a course. Similarly I will not give a woman a
pessary to cause abortion. But I will keep pure and
holy both my life and my art. I will not use the
knife, not even, verily, on sufferers from stone, but
I will give place to such as are craftsmen therein.
Into whatsoever houses I enter, I will enter to help
the sick, and I will abstain from all intentional
wrong-doing and harm, especially from abusing
the bodies of man or woman, bond or free. And
whatsoever I shall see or hear in the course of my
profession, as well as outside my profession in my
intercourse with men, if it be what should be pub-
lished abroad, I will never divulge, holding such
things to be holy secrets. Now if I carry out this
oath, and break it not, may I gain for ever reputa-
tion among all men for my life and for my art; but
if I forswear myself, may the opposite befall me.
“The Hippocratic Oath.” In Logan Clendening, ed., Source-
Book of Medical History.pp. 14–15. New York: Dover, 1960.