Galen and the Sophists

Abstract

Abstract Galen’s relationship to the sophist movement is a familiar theme. This paper looks at the development of modern ideas on the subject and offers some new ways of linking him with authors such as Plutarch and Lucian. Not only was he a public intellectual, but his position at court placed him as close to the centre of imperial power as did that of an ab epistulis, and to possible obloquy, not least in the years around 192.