Although Galen was a great physician, he was not a terribly courageous man. Galen was a self-promoter above anything else. According to McLynn, he consistently claimed to be a self-made man, casually downplaying the fact that he came from an extremely wealthy family and had inherited numerous estates as well as a stellar list of contacts. He employed underhanded tactics to win debates, and he constantly aggrandized his own achievements. Personality-wise, you could think of him as the Donald Trump of ancient Rome. He was also something of a coward when it came to disease. Now, I don’t think
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