A Wine a Day …: Medical Experts and Expertise in Plutarch’s Table Talk

Abstract

This contribution examines the important role that medical experts and expertise played at convivial networking events in the High Roman Empire, as imagined by a non-specialist in the field, viz. the famous Platonist intellectual Plutarch of Chaeronea (ca. 45–120 CE). An analysis of a number of medical problems discussed in his Table Talk will yield fresh insights into the social and intellectual role which doctors, as members of the educated elite, were expected to play in convivial community contexts and also how popular or common had become certain theories, concepts and beliefs relating to health and healing in the High Imperial era. At the same time, it will give a clearer idea of what was the place of medical experts and expertise in Plutarch’s intellectual programme, and how this interest ties in with his (natural) philosophical endeavours more generally.