The lost work "On the Avoidance of Grief" by Galen was discovered just a few years ago, in 2005, in Thessaloniki, at the Vlatadon Monastery, by the young French researcher Antoine Pietrobelli, who happened to be working there.

Galen's subject is the avoidance of grief with the help of philosophy. Loss, misfortune, and the calamities that befall us and plunge us into sorrow were, for the Greek philosophers, merely challenges - opportunities to confirm the effectiveness of their tools by putting their theory into practice. Galen describes to a friend the extent of the disaster that befell him: in a fire, he lost everything he had - more precisely, everything that had value to him - all the books he had written, all his medical instruments, medicines, and prescriptions, the works of other authors he had in his library. His friend had asked to know why Galen did not seem to grieve for such a great loss and continued his life as if nothing had happened. Galen's answer/treatise helps the reader to recognize that the ultimate interest lies in the proper evaluation of material possessions: a timeless truth that maintains its validity in all eras and all places...