Latin Texts & Translations

Innumerable are the men who have excelled in the various arts; we may, however, take a cursory survey of them, by citing the names of the principal ones. Berosus excelled in astrology; and on account of his divinations and predictions, a public statue was erected in his honour by the Athenians. Apollodorus, for his skill as a grammarian, had public honours decreed him by the Amphictyonic Council of Greece. Hip- pocrates excelled in medicine; before its arrival, he predicted the plague, which afterwards came from Illyria, and sent his pupils to various cities, to give their assistance. As an acknowledgment of his merit, Greece decreed him the same honours as to Hercules. ^[Note] King Ptolemy rewarded a similar degree of skill in the person of Cleombrotus of Ceos, by a donation of one hundred talents, at the Megalensian games, ^[Note] he having succeeded in saving the life of King Anti- ochus. ^[Note] Critobulus also rendered himself extremely famous, by extracting an arrow ^[Note] from the eye of King Philip with so

much skill, that, although the sight was lost, there was no defect to be seen. ^[Note] Asclepiades of Prusa, however, acquired the greatest fame of all—he founded a new sect, treated with disdain the promises of King Mithridates conveyed to him by an embassy, discovered a method of successfully treating diseases by wine, ^[Note] and, breaking in upon the funeral ceremony, saved the life of a man, who was actually placed ^[Note] on the funeral pile. He rendered himself, however, more celebrated than all, by staking his reputation as a physician against Fortune herself, and asserting that he did not wish to be so much as looked upon as a physician, if he should ever happen in any way to fall sick; and he won his wager, for he met his death at an extreme old age, by falling down stairs. ^[Note]