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AMONG the beloved relatives to whom Ausonius delivers poetic tribute is Aemilia Hilaria, a maiden aunt on his mother's side who died at the age of 63. Ausonius praises her for her boy-like nature and appearance, her commitment to virginity, and her skill in practising medicine "like men do" (more virum medicis artibus experiens, Parentalia 6.6). Since medical professionals were not exclusively male, Ausonius must mean that his aunt joined the ranks of female health professionals who adhered to the various schools of medical philosophy usually associated with male physicians.1 But these schools of thought were not the only frameworks within which illness was interpreted and cures were activated, and implicit in Ausonius' compliment to his aunt is the suggestion that the frameworks and practices she had rejected were associated with females: she did not practise medicine "like women do." What constituted a "female" type of healing, and why was it so objectionable? These questions are at the heart of this discussion, which seeks to find coherence among the various representations of women affecting the health of others.
It is difficult to know how to understand in both ancient sources and modern scholarship women who, in contrast to Aemilia Hilaria, practised medicine like women. Unlike the proponents of named schools of medical philosophies, their practices did not have a literary tradition, but instead belonged to a murky, heterogeneous, and poorly documented folk tradition.2 We do have some descriptive titles, however, which appear to have been considered largely synonymous by sources such as Festus; these range from "singers" or "chanters" (praecantrices), "wise women" (sagae), "purifiers" (piatrices and expiatrices), and "imitators" (simulatrices) to the "number of old women (ypâeç/añiles)" whose opinions are generally mentioned in ancient literature as emblematic of foolishness.3 These women often seem to fit more comfortably within the realm of magic than in the medical sciences,4 but this may be in part a function of the lack of respect they garnered from disdainful authors. Indeed, literary descriptions of female specialists do not aim to document the social location or professional rationale of female healers. Instead, their purpose is to abuse such women as old, foul, drunk, and ridiculous in their claims to superior knowledge,'1 and sometimes even to present them as fantastical witches with...