Healing Bodies: the ancient origins of massages and Roman practices

The practice of body manipulation with therapeutic aims has been used in the Western world since the origins of Hippocratic medicine. By retracing the therapeutic use of massage as a therapeutic, preventive and educational practice, the authors attempt to highlight the concepts, techniques and methods of massage and the manipulation of the body in order to offer a valuable and useful historical reconstruction concerning ancient medicine. The study on the relationship between culture, diseases and medicine constitute a significant part of the historical medical research carried out within the Research Project of National Interest PRIN entitled ‘Disease, health and lifestyles in Rome: from the Empire to the early Middle Ages’ funded by the Ministry of Education, MIUR University Research in 2015