Fixing ethical rules for midwives in the Early Roman Imperial period. Soranus, ‘Gynaecia’ I 3–4
The first two chapters of Soranus of Ephesus’ ‘Gynaecia’ (first c. AD) include ethical rules for the ideal midwife. These rules show striking analogies with the content of the deontological works of the Corpus Hippocraticum (‘Iusiurandum’, ‘Lex’, ‘Testamentum’, ‘De decenti habitu’, ‘Praecepta’ and ‘De medico’). In this paper, I shall for the first time detect, explore and comment on these analogies.