ANCIENT CHINESE, GREEK AND
ROMAN VIEW ON HEALTH
Today I wanted to post a discussion that
relates to early Greek, Roman and Chinese medicine. It includes Greek and Roman
Gods/Goddesses and Chinese Demons.
I’m unsure as to what most of you know about ancient history, in
particular health, sickness, and healing? So this post is a brief look at some
different deities in ancient times and how they were used to maintain health
and for curing diseases. I am going to barely touch the surface here but the
hope is that it will engage conversation between us all.
In ancient China, in particular pre-Han dynasty (earlier than 206BCE) the
Chinese believed that staying healthy meant one had to worship their ancestors
plus try to protect themselves from demons as well as sorcerers that wielded
black magic (contact or homeopathic magic). This was considered the extent of
staying healthy. There was no ownership on looking after your health; as in, if
an ancestor considered your worship inadequate they could still make you sick.
Alternatively a demon could invade your body for ‘shits and giggles’, or a
sorcerer could gain access to a piece of you (for example, some of your hair) which
could then be used to injure your whole self/being.
One particularly interesting demon was called Tai
Yi (pronounced
Tie Eeee). He was a demon that travelled through the sky at incredible speed.
This haste stirred up a lot of wind which he could use to benefit, or injure,
individual people or large populations. He wasn’t picky! In this way he could
aid you in war by swinging the direction of wind to your advantage; he could
also change his mind and swing the wind back against you for no specific reason.
You could win wars with Tai Yi
assisting you or you could lose wars because he supported the opposition
soldiers. Tai Yi didn’t have to have
a say in wars necessarily, he could also use wind to favour or hinder crop
production; he could blow you off a mountain or help blow you up a mountain (I’ve
been told it’s always nicer when climbing mountains if the wind is at your
back).
In addition, if he was particularly bored
he could invade your body, but this could only happen whilst you were sleeping.
You see when you sleep the Chinese believe that your Hun (Ethereal/Heavenly Soul) leaves your body to travel the world,
thereby leaving space for some other maleficent being (either a demon or
someone else’s Hun) to enter your
body. Essentially you wake up and you are a completely different person. You are
then under their control until a healing sorcerer/soothsayer rocks up and does
his exorcism thing, thereby allowing the evil influence to leave so your Hun can come back into your body.
Interestingly one of the ways this was done
was to use moxibustion smudging. Demons, including Tai Yi, were considered anthropomorphic, and mugwort/artemisia vulgaris/moxa
was abhorrent to demons. Not only did they hate the smell, but they couldn’t see
where they were going because they were blinded by the smoke. Moxa smudging
could be used both as a preventative as well as a purgative when maleficent
beings were near.
Pepper corns were another popular item used
to keep demons at bay. Sprinkled around your sleeping body it acted in a
similar manner to moxa. Please note that different sources dispute the claim
that pepper was known to (and used by) the Chinese in pre-Han times.
Regardless, it wasn’t until the Han dynasty (206BCE-220CE), and
specifically after the Yellow Emperor text (Huang
Di Nei Jing) was written, that there was a definite shift to more of a
personal ownership on health. This discussion is for another time however. Let’s
now shift to ancient Greek times.
In ancient Greece, Hippocrates, Aristotle,
and others, changed the face of Western medicine. This was around 400-200BCE, but
even so, the vast majority of people still used the Gods as a means to staying
healthy. The two Gods/Goddesses I want to briefly discuss here are the Goddess
Tyche (pronounced Tie Key) and the God Asclepius.
Tyche was the Goddess of luck, fortune, and prosperity. Greeks
would worship her to ensure they had good fortune in whatever it is that they
asked for. In this particular discussion they would worship Tyche for
continuing good health. Having said that she was a lot like the Chinese demon Tai
Yi, in that she wasn’t picky, and worshipping her didn’t
necessarily guarantee good health indefinitely.
She is often pictured blindfolded carrying
a ‘Horn of Plenty’ (also called a cornucopia) in one hand and juggling a ball
in the other. If she is not juggling a ball she is balancing a set of scales. She
is depicted as blindfolded because she is indifferent towards anyone or
anything (she doesn’t want to know who you are, what your fame/infamy is, how
rich or poor you are). Her cornucopia is filled to overflowing with gifts which
she could shower upon anyone at any time. Her ball or scales depict her
weighing up of whether to give you something good or something bad. Similar to Tai Yi, she could positively or
negatively impact on individuals or entire communities. And as previously
mentioned, she didn’t care if you worshipped her or not; praying to her for
good fortune didn’t guarantee that bad things wouldn’t happen to you.
Asclepius was the God of medicine and,
similar to Tyche, Greeks would worship Asclepius as a means to ensuring good
health, or a speedy recovery from disease. Interestingly he could also be
worshipped to bring a loved one back from the dead. According to several
sources he was gifted the blood of Medusa after she died (by Athena) and he was
able to fashion a resurrection spell using his famous staff with the snake
wrapped around it.
Asclepius had anywhere from nine to eleven children
depending on the source (regardless, he was a busy man!); 5 or 6 girls and 4 or
5 boys. His offspring were all worshipped for their connection with health (in
their own right) by the ancient Greeks. Of particular interest is one of his
daughters and one of his sons. Her name was Hygieia, and as you can probably
guess she was the Goddess of hygiene and cleanliness; and the son worth
mentioning was called Panacea, which again you can probably guess, made him the
God of remedying difficult diseases.
Regardless of whether you prayed to the
Gods/Goddesses, there was no guarantee of good health or of healing once
sick/injured.
In ancient Roman times health and healing
had come a long way, and would continue to evolve at a rapid rate, especially
after Galen emerged (129CE-210CE). But for our discussion we need to remain in pre-Christian
Rome (roughly before 50CE). Like the Greeks before them, the Romans had Gods/Goddesses
for everything. And their equivalents to Tyche and Asclepius were the Goddess
Fortuna, and the God Vejovis. Having said that, the Romans (and Greeks for that
matter) had lots of different deities for health, healing and medicine!
Fortuna and Vejovis were venerated to ensure continuing good
health, or a rapid recovery from disease. There were some minor differences
such as the Goddess Fortuna was holding a ships rudder rather than a ball or
scales; she still had the cornucopia in the other hand. However, short of
repeating past comments, these Gods/Goddesses worked similar to their Greek
equivalents.
The one extra item I would like to add
within the Roman view is from my favourite Western philosopher of all time. His
name was Seneca (4BCE-65CE) and lived during the tumultuous rule of the following Roman
Emperors – Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, and Nero. Of particular
interest here is the last three, and whilst Claudius himself isn’t supposed to
have been a tyrant ruler, he did exile Seneca to a tiny island in the
Mediterranean for eight long years before being recalled to Rome in 49CE to act
as tutor of the then 12 year old Nero.
During Seneca’s life he ran into an
incredibly large amount of injustice and misfortune, not always upon himself;
in fact most of the time it was on people that he knew. He became so
disgruntled about ‘The Lot’ of Romans that he grew immensely aggrieved and he
laid all this resentment onto the Goddess Fortuna. So much so that he eventually
created a daily meditation (not a worship or a prayer) that he would start
every day saying. This is what he would say:
“The wise will start each day with the thought, ‘Fortune
gives us nothing which we can really own.’ Nothing, whether public or
private, is stable; the destinies of men, no less than those of cities, are in
a whirl. Whatever structure has been reared by a long sequence of years,
at the cost of great toil and through the great kindness of the gods, is
scattered and dispersed in a single day. No, he who has said ‘a day’ has
granted too long a postponement to swift misfortune; an hour, an instant of
time, suffices for the overthrow of empires. How often have cities in
Asia, how often in Achaia, been laid low by a single shock of earthquake? How
many towns in Syria, how many in Macedonia, have been swallowed up? How often
has this kind of devastation laid Cyprus in ruins? We live in the middle of
things which have all been destined to die. Mortal have you been born, to
mortals you have given birth. Reckon on everything, expect everything.
Seneca
Wow! “Reckon on everything;
expect everything!” Hop in the car to drive to work requires one to prepare for
a HUGE crash where loved ones die; blood everywhere; expect worst case
scenario. Definitely not what most ‘New Age’ authors would say that’s for sure!
But in some ways, and this is the kicker, it prepares you if, in the unlikely
event, that something bad does happen. This was his trick you see. By expecting
the worst, if the worst happens you are prepared and therefore you will react
with less of an emotional response, which allows you to get over the event
faster. When the worst case scenario doesn’t happen then it’s been a bloody
good day. What a fascinatingly disturbing way to look at life.
Ultimately,
Seneca didn’t just avoid worshipping the Goddess Fortuna, he ‘DARED HER’ to
have a crack at him. And, whilst it took the Goddess Fortuna 69 years to do it,
she eventually gave Seneca worst case scenario. He was ordered to commit
suicide by order of the Emperor Nero, who believed, rightly or wrongly, that Seneca
was conspiring against him to take the throne for himself. A guard shows up at
Seneca’s mansion (he was incredibly rich) and orders him to immediately kill
himself. He started to write a will but he was taking too long. His wife wanted
to commit suicide alongside Seneca but she wasn’t allowed. So he slit his
wrists but the blood didn’t flow fast enough for the centurion and he ordered
him to cut more blood vessels so he opened up vessels in his ankles and then
behind his knees. Still he wouldn’t die so Seneca ordered some hemlock (poisonous
alkaloid of the parsley plant) to be brewed up, much to the guards disgust. Hemlock
works in a similar manner to fly spray or strychnine poisoning; as in, it
forces the muscles in the body (including the heart) to involuntarily contract
and relax which looks a lot like the patient is suffering from severe seizures.
Eventually the heart contracts and doesn’t relax again and the person dies. Alternatively
the person dies of asphyxiation. It’s all rather unpleasant apparently but
after two doses of hemlock Seneca still wasn’t dead. So the guards shoved him
in a steam bath where, depending on differing reports, the heat increased the blood
flow again from his slit vessels and he died of blood loss, or he suffocated. Worst
case scenario death? You think?
So is it better to pray to the
Gods/Goddesses/Demons/Ancestors or run the gamut like Seneca?
To close, what I find particularly
interesting here is that the Chinese, Greeks, and Romans had a similar view on
health, healing and medicine, with similar deities to represent this. Some of
the Gods/Goddesses even had similar names and pronunciations. For example, the
Chinese Demon Tai Yi (pronounced Tie
Eeee) and the Greek Goddess Tyche (pronounced Tie Key).
This is not even remotely surprising when
it comes to the Greeks and Romans because geographically they were near to one
another, plus the Romans invaded the Greeks and became one of the biggest
super-powers in ancient history. But it’s a very different story with the
Chinese. For starters the ‘Silk Road’ which connected the East with the West
hadn’t started operating during this era. In fact there is nothing that I have
read that suggests the Greeks/Romans had ever had contact with the Chinese. The
main reason for this was Persia, which sat between the two countries and was a
super-power in its own right. So how/why did two completely different cultures
share similar views on health?
In addition, the Chinese had Emperors and
were Autocratic, whereas the Greeks had a Senate and were Democratic. So the
citizens lived in very different societies which, for the most part, resulted
in very different views on things. Further to this, the countries had different
climates; relied on different means of transport; had different
fruits/vegetables/herbs/domestic animals; and were prey to completely different
diseases/enemies.
So what does this all result in? Well that’s
where you all come in. I would love you to offer up your views on anything
within this post, whether it is about the deities, or the comments on health.
Whatever! You might like to agree with aspects of the post or disagree; the
post might prompt you to ask further questions which is great; either way I
would love to get us all talking about this topic. Constructive feedback is
highly encouraged.
The idea here is that in the future I post
on the next stage of Eastern and Western medical development, because there
were significant changes made in a very short space of time in both cultures.
But in the meantime this post lays the groundwork by exploring a period in
history that is often neglected when one discusses healthcare.
Take care and talk soon.
David Hartmann
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*BCE = Before Current Era, CE = Current Era;
secular/nonspiritual based
*BC = Before Christ, AD
= Anno Domini (In the year of our Lord); Church/spiritual based
