Читать книгу The Natural History of Pliny (Vol. 1-6) - Pliny the Elder - Страница 351

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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. Hippocrates 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.1163 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,1164 he having succeeded in saving the life of King Antiochus.1165 Critobulus also rendered himself extremely famous, by extracting an arrow1166 from the eye of King Philip with so much skill, that, although the sight was lost, there was no defect to be seen.1167 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,1168 and, breaking in upon the funeral ceremony, saved the life of a man, who was actually placed1169 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.1170