Christian Medicine and Late Antique Surgery: Illness and Healing in the Maltese Islands and Sicily in the 4th-5th century A.D

A small marble tablet, held at Malta’s National Archaeological Museum but probably discovered originally at Gozo, bears the epitaph of a Christian doctor, Domestikos. The inscription was dated as 3rd/4th century A.D. or as 4th/5th or else as 6th. The lower section of the epigraph contains stylised images of two surgical instruments: Domestikos was in fact a surgeon. The Gozo epitaph can be compared with other evidences either from Maltese archaeology (a tombstone which bears in relief images of 14 surgeon’s instruments) or from a series of inscriptions relating to doctors in nearby Sicily (especially the Bassos’ Catanian epigraph) or from the testimony of certain Christian writers on surgical practices. The similarities provide elements that allow us to establish a 4th/5th century date for the Domestikos’ epitaph.

L’epitaffio gozitano si presta al confronto con altre testimonianze provenienti sia dallo stesso arcipelago maltese (una lastra tombale recante a rilievo l’immagine di 14 strumenti chirurgici), sia da una serie di iscrizioni relative a medici attestati nella vicina Sicilia (in particolare l’epigrafe catanese di Basso), sia ancora dai passi di alcuni scrittori cristiani concernenti le pratiche chirurgiche. Le affinità riscontrate offrono elementi che consentono di stabilire per l’epitaffio di Domestico una datazione al IV/V secolo d.C.