 Galen describes his father as a "highly amiable, just, good and benevolent man".At that time Pergamon (modern-day Bergama, Turkey) was a major cultural and intellectual centre, noted for its library, second only to that in Alexandria,
and attracted both Stoic and Platonic philosophers, to whom Galen was exposed at age 14.His studies also took in each of the principal philosophical systems of the time, including Aristotelian and Epicurean.