Was Aelius Aristides just a peculiar hypochondriac?
Up until the age of 25 Aristides had a life of education and cultural travel, visiting many places in the search of furthering is knowledge of rhetoric. And it was highly likely that this was all leading to a successful future career as a rhetorician, with the great aspirations of speaking in the Roman Forums. But during his travels, at Syene, some tropical disease caused his health to break down, thus was the start of his ill-health that was to blight him for the majority of the rest of his life . The question of whether Aristides was just a ‘peculiar hypochondriac’ had been debated by many historians, and no clear solution has been reached. Bowersock fervently believes that Aristides had hypochondria of an advanced kind, and records how “he took exceptional pleasure in recording all his symptoms” , all of which made up his book The Sacred Tales. This view is greatly opposed by Pearcy who believes that the “Sacred......
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