Heleis: A chief physician in Roman Lydia

A white marble altar found in Thyateira bears the epitaph of a chief-physician “of the whole xystos”. The inscription has been dated, by almost all the scholars, to the end of the second–beginning of the third century a.d., but a more detailed analysis, based on a comparison with other testimonies (written sources, inscriptions), might also suggest a date into the fourth century, when Thyateira and its territory still played a central role in the political and military history of the Late Roman Empire.