Gaius Stertinius Xenophon

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Gaius Stertinius Xenophon (* around 10 BC on Kos ; † after 54 AD) was the personal physician of the Roman emperor Claudius .

Xenophon came from the Greek island of Kos, which at that time belonged to the Roman province of Asia . There was a famous sanctuary of Asclepius there , where he was trained as a doctor before going to Rome . He received Roman citizenship and was able to acquire a large fortune of 30 million sesterces (together with his brother) through his medical activities . As Claudius's personal physician, he received an annual fee of 500,000 sesterces, allegedly far more from his former private patients. Xenophon accompanied the emperor on his campaign to Britain and received military awards. His house in Rome was, as a water pipe with his name shows, on the hill of Caelius .

When Agrippina , Claudius's wife, allegedly tried to poison her husband in AD 54, Xenophon is said to have helped bring about death once and for all (after a poison supplied by the famous poisoner Locusta failed). He introduced a peacock feather into the emperor's throat (supposedly to make him vomit), which was provided with a fast-acting poison, as at least the historian Tacitus reported in his annals a few decades later . Whether the death of Claudius was really a poisoning, however, is disputed in the research.

After the death of Claudius Xenophon returned to Kos, where he made rich donations from his fortune to the sanctuary of Asclepius. He was therefore highly honored with statues and coin images.

literature

  • Kostas Buraselis: Notes on C. Stertinius Xenophon's Roman career, family, titulature and official integration into Koan civil life and society . In: Buraselis: Kos between Hellenism and Rome. Studies on the political, institutional and social history of Kos from approx. The middle second century BC until late antiquity . Philadelphia 2000, ISBN 0-87169-904-4 , pp. 66-110 (Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 90, 4).
  • Reinhard Wolters : C. Stertinius Xenophon von Kos and the grave inscription of Trimalchio . In: Hermes . Volume 127/1, 1999, pp. 47-60.
  • R. Heidrich: "Doctor" and "Doctor". The first imperial personal physician. In: Deutsche Medizinische Wochenschrift 30, 1904, No. 25, pp. 927 f.

Remarks

  1. ↑ 12, 67.
  2. ↑ ZB Wilhelm Dittenberger , Sylloge ³, No. 804 ; Mario Segre , Iscrizioni di Cos , EV 143 .
personal data
SURNAME Xenophon, Gaius Stertinius
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Stertinius Xenophon, Gaius
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Personal physician to the Roman emperor Claudius
DATE OF BIRTH around 10 BC Chr.
PLACE OF BIRTH on Kos
DATE OF DEATH after 54