Εμφανίζονται 11 τίτλοι με αναζήτηση: Ομηρικός κόσμος για το τοπωνύμιο: "ΑΣΚΛΗΠΙΕΙΟ ΕΠΙΔΑΥΡΟΥ Αρχαίο ιερό ΑΡΓΟΛΙΔΑ".
Ο Ασκληπιός στην Ιλιάδα δεν είναι ακόμη θεός αλλά έξοχος ιατρός και πατέρας του Μαχάονος και του Ποδαλείριου, που είχαν ηγηθεί της Τρίκκης, της Ιθώμης και της Οιχαλίας στον Τρωικό πόλεμο (Ιλ. Β 731, Δ 194, Λ 518). Από τους μεταγενέστερους αναφέρεται ως θεός της ιατρικής, γιος του Απόλλωνος και της Κορωνίδος, κόρης του Φλεγύα. Σύμφωνα με αρχαίους μύθους γεννήθηκε στην Τρίκκη και όχι στη Επίδαυρο.
Aesculapius (Asklepios), the god of the medical art. In the Homeric poems Aesculapius
does not appear to be considered as a divinity, but merely as a human being, which
is indicated by the adjective amumon, which is never given to a god. No allusion
is made to his descent, and he is merely mentioned as the ieter amumon, and the
father of Machaon and Podaleirius (Il. ii. 731, iv. 194, xi. 518). From the fact
that Homer (Od. iv. 232) calls all those who practise the healimlg art descendants
of Paeeon, and that Podaleirius and Machaon are called the sons of Aesculapius,
it has been inferred, that Aesculapius and Paeeon are the same being, and consequently
a divinity. But wherever Homer mentions the healing god, it is always Paeeon,
and never Aesculapius; and as in the poet's opinion all physicians were descended
from Paeeon, he probably considered Aesculapius in the same light. This supposition
is corroborated by the fact, that in later times Paeeon was identified with Apollo,
and that Aesculapius is universally described as a descendant of Apollo. The two
sons of Aesculapius in the Iliad, were the physicians in the Greek army, and are
described as ruling over Tricca, Ithome, and Oechalia (Il. ii. 729).
According to Eustathius (ad Hom. p. 330), Lapithes was a son of Apollo
and Stilbe, and Aesculapius was a descendant of Lapithes. This tradition seems
to be based on the same groundwork as the more common one, that Aesculapius was
a son of Apollo and Coronis, the daughter of Phlegyas, who is a descendant of
Lapithes (Apollod. iii. 10.3; Pind. Pyth. iii. 14, with the Schol.) .
The common story then goes on as follows. When Coronis was with child
by Apollo, she became enamoured with Ischys, an Arcadian, and Apollo informed
of this by a raven, which he had set to watch her, or, according to Pindar, by
his own prophetic powers, sent his sister Artemis to kill Coronis. Artemis accordingly
destroyed Coronis in her own house at Lacereia in Thessaly, on the shore of lake
Baebia (Comp. Horn. Hymn. 27. 3.) According to Ovid (Met. ii. 605) and Hyginus
(Poet. Astr. ii. 40), it was Apollo himself who killed Coronis and Ischys. When
the body of Coronis was to be burnt, Apollo, or, according to others (Paus. ii.
26.5), Hermes, saved the child (Aesculapius) from the flames, and carried it to
Cheiron, who instructed the boy in the art of healing and in hunting (Pind. Pyth.
iii. 1; Apollod. iii. 10.3; Paus. l. c).
According to other traditions Aesculapius was born at Tricca in Thessaly
(Strab. xiv. p. 647), and others again related that Coronis gave birth to him
during an expedition of her father Phlegyas into Peloponnesus, in the territory
of Epidaurus, and that she exposed him on mount Tittheion, which was before called
Myrtion. Here he was fed by a goat and watched by a dog, until at last he was
found by Aresthanas, a shepherd, who saw the boy surrounded by a lustre like that
of lightning (See a different account in Paus. viii. 25.6). From this dazzling
splendour, or from his having been rescued from the flames, he was called by the
Dorians aiglaer. The truth of the tradition that Aesculapius was born in the territory
of Epidaurus, and was not the son of Arsinoe, daughter of Leucippus and born in
Messenia, was attested by an oracle which was consulted to decide the question
(Paus. ii. 26.6, iv. 3.2; Cic. De Nat. Deor. iii. 22, where three different Aesculapiuses
are made out of the different local traditions about him).
After Aesculapius had grown up, reports spread over all countries,
that he not only cured all the sick, but called the dead to life again. About
the manner in which he acquired this latter power, there were two traditions in
ancient times. According to the one (Apollod. l. c.), he had received from Athena
the blood which had flowed from the veins of Gorgo, and the blood which had flowed
from the veins of the right side of her body possessed the power of restoring
the dead to life. According to the other tradition, Aesculapius on one occasion
was shut up in the house of Glaucus, whom he was to cure, and while he was standing
absorbed in thought, there came a serpent which twined round the staff, and which
he killed. Another serpent then came carrying in its mouth a herb with which it
recalled to life the one that had been killed, and Aesculapius henceforth made
use of the same herb with the same effect upon men (Hygin. Poet. Astr. ii. 14).
Several persons, whom Aesculapius was believed to have restored to life, are mentioned
by the Scholiast on Pindar (Pyth. iii. 96) and by Apollodorus (l. c.). When he
was exercising this art upon Glaucus, Zeus killed Aesculapius with a flash of
lightning, as he feared lest men might gradually contrive to escape death altogether
(Apollod. iii. 10.4), or, according to others, because Pluto had complained of
Aesculapius diminishing the number of the dead too much (Diod. iv. 71; comp. Schol.
ad Pind. Pyth. iii. 102). But, on the request of Apollo, Zeus placed Aesculapius
among the stars (Hygin. Poet. Astr. ii. 14). Aesculapius is also said to have
taken part in the expedition of the Argonauts and in the Calydonian hunt. He was
married to Epione, and besides the two sons spoken of by Homer, we also find mention
of the following children of his : Janiscus, Alexenor, Aratus, Hygieia, Aegle,
laso, land Panaceia (Schol. ad Pind. Pyth. iii. 14; Paus. ii. 10.3, i. 34.2),
most of whom are only personifications of the powers ascribed to their father.
These are the legends about one of the most interesting and important
divinities of antiquity. Various hypotheses have been brought forward to explain
the origin of his worship in Greece; and, while some consider Aesculapius to have
been originally a real personage, whom tradition had connected with various marvellous
stories, others have explained all the legends about him as mere personifications
of certain ideas. The serpent, the perpetual symbol of Aesculapius, has given
rise to the opinion, that the worship was derived from Egypt, and that Aesculapius
was identical with the serpent Cnuph worshipped in Egypt, or with the Phoenician
Esmun (Euseb. Praep. Evang. i. 10; comp. Paus. vii. 23.6). But it does not seem
necessary to have recourse to foreign countries in order to explain the worship
of this god. His story is undoubtedly a combination of real events with the results
of thoughts or ideas, which, as in so many instances in Greek mythology, are,
like the former, considered as facts. The kernel, out of which the whole myth
has grown, is perhaps the account we read in Homer; but gradually the sphere in
which Aesculapius acted was so extended, that he became the representative or
the personification of the healing powers of nature, which are naturally enough
described as the son (the effects) of Helios, Apollo, or the Sun.
Aesculapius was worshipped all over Greece, and many towns, as we
have seen, claimed the honour of his birth. His temples were usually built in
healthy places, on hills outside the town, and near wells which were believed
to have healing powers. These temples were not only places of worship, but were
frequented by great numbers of sick persons, and may therefore be compared to
modern hospitals (Plut. Quaest. Rom.).
The principal seat of his worship in Greece was Epidaurus, where he
had a temple surrounded with an extensive grove, within which no one was allowed
to die, and no woman to give birth to a child. His sanctuary contained a magnificent
statue of ivory and gold, the work of Thrasymedes, in which he was represented
as a handsome and manly figure, resembling that of Zeus (Paus. ii. 26 & 27)
lie was seated on a throne, holding in one hand a staff, and with the other resting
upon the head of a dragon (serpent), and by his side lay a dog. Serpents were
everywhere connected with the worship of Aesculapius, probably because they were
a symbol of prudence and renovation, and were believed to have the power of discovering
herbs of wondrous powers, as is indicated in the story about Aesculapius and the
serpents in the house of Glaucus. Serpents were further believed to be guardians
of wells with salutary powers. For these reasons a peculiar kind of tame serpents,
in which Epidaurus abounded, were not only kept in his temple (Paus. ii. 28.1),
but the god himself frequently appeared in the form of a serpent (Paus. iii. 23.4;
Val. Max. i. 8.2; Liv. Epit. 11; compare the account of Alexander Pseudomantis
in Lucian).
Besides the temple of Epidaurus, whence the worship of the god was
transplanted to various other parts of the ancient world, we may mention those
of Tricca (Strab. ix. p. 437), Celaenae (xiii. p. 603), between Dyme and Patrae
(viii. p. 386), near Cyllene (viii. p. 337), in the island of Cos (xiii. p. 657;
Paus. iii. 23.4), at Gerenia (Strab. viii. p. 360), near Caus in Arcadia (Steph.
Byz. s. v.), at Sicyon (Paus. ii. 10.2), at Athens (i. 21.7), near Patrae (vii.
21.6), at Titane in the territory of Sicyon (vii. 23.6), at Thelpusa (viii. 25.3),
in Messene (iv. 31.8), at Phlius (ii. 13. 3), Argos (ii. 23.4), Aegium (ii. 23.5),
Pellene (vii. 27. 5), Asopus (iii. 22.7), Pergamum (iii. 26.7), Lebene in Crete,
Smyrna, Balagrae (ii. 26.7), Ambracia (Liv. xxxviii. 5), at Rome and other places.
At Rome the worship of Aesculapius was introduced from Epidaurus at the command
of the Delphic oracle or of the Sibylline books, in B. C. 293, for the purpose
of averting a pestilence. Respecting the miraculous manner in which this was effected
see Valerius Maximus (i. 8.2), and Ovid. Met. xv. 620; comp. Niebuhr, Hist. of
Rome, iii; Liv. x. 47, xxix. 11; Suet. Claud. 25).
The sick, who visited the temples of Aesculapius, had usually to spend
one or more nights in his sanctuary (katheudein, ineubare, Paus. ii. 27.2), during
which they observed certain rules prescribed by the priests. The god then usually
revealed the remedies for the disease in a dream (Aristoph. Plut. 662; Cic. De
Div. ii. 59 ; Philostr. Vita Apollon. i. 7). It was in allusion to this incubatio
that many temples of Aesculapius contained statues representing Sleep and Dream.
(Paus. ii. 10. § 2.) Those whom the god cured of their disease offered a sacrifice
to him, generally a cock (Plat Phacd.) or a goat (Paus. x. 32.8; Serv. ad Virg.
Georg. ii. 380), and hung up in his temple a tablet recording the name of the
sick, the disease, and the manner in which the cure had been effected. The temples
of Epidaurus, Tricca, and Cos, were full of such votive tablets, and several of
them are still extant (Paus. ii. 27.3; Strab. viii). Respecting the festivals
celebrated in honour of Aesculapius see Dict. of Ant. p. 103. &c. The various
surnames given to the god partly describe him as the healing or saving god, and
are partly derived from the places in which he was worshipped. Some of his statues
are described by Pausanias (ii. 10.3, x. 32.8). Besides the attributes mentioned
in the description of his statue at Epidaurus, he is sometimes represented holding
in one hand a phial, and in the other a stalf; sometimes also a boy is represented
standing by his side, who is the genius of recovery, and is called Telesphorus,
Euamerion, or Acesius (Paus. ii. 11.7). We still possess a considerable number
of marble statues and busts of Aesculapius, as well as many representations on
coins and gems.
There were in antiquity two works which went under the name of Aesculapius,
which, however, were no more genuine than the works ascribed to Orpheus (Fabricius,
Bibl. Graec. i. p. 55).
The descendants of Aesculapius were called by the patronymic name
Asclepiadae (Asklepiadai). Those writers, who consider Aesculapius as a real personage,
must regard the Asclepiadae as his real descendants, to whom he transmitted his
medical knowledge, and whose principal seats were Cos and Cnidus (Plat. de Re
Publ. iii). But the Asclepiadae were also regarded as an order or caste of priests,
and for a long period the practice of medicine was intimately connected with religion.
The knowledge of medicine was regarded as a sacred secret, which was transmitted
from father to son in the families of the Asclepiadae, and we still possess the
oath which every one was obliged to take when he was put in possession of the
medical secrets. (Galen, Anat. ii; Aristid. Orat. i. p. 80)
art. In Homer he is not a divinity, but simply the "blameless physician"
whose sons, Machaon and Podalirius, were the physicians in the Greek army. The
common story relates that Aesculapius was a son of Apollo and Coronis, and that
when Coronis was with child by Apollo she became enamoured of Ischys, an Arcadian.
Apollo, informed of this by a raven, killed Coronis and Ischys. When the body
of Coronis was to be burnt, the child Aesculapius was saved from the flames, and
was brought up by the centaur Chiron, who instructed him in the art of healing
and in hunting. There are other tales respecting his birth, according to some
of which he was a native of Epidaurus, and this was a common opinion in later
times. After he had grown up, he not only cured the sick, but recalled the dead
to life. Zeus, fearing lest men might contrive to escape death altogether, killed
Aesculapius with his thunderbolt; but, on the request of Apollo, Zeus placed him
among the stars. He was married to Epione, by whom he had the two sons spoken
of by Homer, and also other children. The chief seat of the worship of Aesculapius
was Epidaurus, where he had a temple surrounded with an extensive grove. Serpents
were sacred to him, because they were a symbol of renovation, and were believed
to have the power of discovering healing herbs. The cock was sacrificed to him.
At Rome the worship of Aesculapius was introduced from Epidaurus in B.C. 293,
for the purpose of averting a pestilence. The supposed descendants of Aesculapius
were called by the patronymic name of Asclepiadae, and their principal seats were
Cos and Cnidus. They were an order or caste of priests, among whom the knowledge
of medicine was regarded as a sacred secret, and was transmitted from father to
son in these families.
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited June 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Medicus (iatros), the name given by the ancients to every professor of the healing
art, whether physician or surgeon, and accordingly both divisions of the medical
profession will here be included under that term. In Greece and Asia Minor physicians
seem to have been held in high esteem; far more so than at Rome. This was at least
to some extent due to the religious sense, iatrike and mantike being regarded
as akin (Eustath. ad II. i. 63), and to the apotheosis of Aesculapius, of whom
physicians speak as hohemeteros progonos (Plat. Symp. p. 186 A). When we meet
such expressions as that in Athen. xv. p. 666 b, ei me iatroi esan ouden an hen
ton grammatikon moroteron, the allusion is to the pedantry of physicians after
the type ridiculed by Moliere, and does not show a general depreciation of their
class. Aelian mentions one of the laws of Zaleucus among the Epizephyrian Locrians,
by which it was ordered that if any one during his illness should drink wine contrary
to the orders of his physician, even if he should recover, he should be put to
death for his disobedience (Var. Hist. ii. 37); and, according to Mead, there
are extant several medals struck by the people of Smyrna in honour of different
persons belonging to the medical profession. According to the Decree of the Athenians
and the Life of Hippocrates by Soranus, the same honours were conferred upon that
physician as had before been given to Hercules; he was voted a golden crown, publicly
initiated into the Eleusinian mysteries, and maintained in the Prytaneum at the
state's expense. Both these pieces, however, are more legendary than historical
(Compare Plin. H. N. vii, 123).
The physician made up his medicines himself, and either sat in his
iatreion, which was both a consulting-room and a dispensary (called also ergasterion,
Aeschin. in Timarch. 124), or went a round of visits (Plat. Legg. iv. 720 C. For
these iatreia cf. Poll. x. 46; Plat. Legg. i. p. 646 C). Here he had also assistants
and apprentices or pupils (Plat. Legg. iv. l. c.; Aeschin. in Timarch. 40). In
the former passage the assistant doctors are slaves, on which point cf. Diog.
Laert. vi. 30. No doubt slaves only as a rule were attended by slave doctors,
and free men by free, but it is noticeable that Plato, when he says this, qualifies
by hos epi to pleiston. When Hyginus, Fab. 274, says that there was a law at Athens
against any slave practising, he must allude, if his assertion is true at all,
to the state physicians.
Though hospitals are mentioned in Roman writers (Cels. de Medic. i.
praef. sub fin.; Colum. de Re Rust. xi. 1, 18; Sen. Epist. 27,1) after the time
of Augustus, they are never, with one single exception in Crates, mentioned by
Greek writers before the Roman period. The function, so far as it was performed
at all, was discharged by the temples of Aesculapius, and accordingly the chief
places of study for medical pupils were the Asklepieia, or temples of Aesculapius,
where the votive tablets furnished them with a collection of cases. Hence we find
in ancient works of art Aesculapius represented as visiting the sick. The Asclepiadae
were very strict in examining into and overlooking the character and conduct of
their pupils, and the famous Hippocratic oath (which, if not
drawn up by Hippocrates himself, is certainly very ancient) requires to
be inserted here as being the most curious medical monument of antiquity.
I swear by Apollo the physician, and Aesculapius, and Hygeia (Health), and Panaceia
(All-heal), and all the gods and goddesses, calling them to witness that I will
fulfil, according to the best of my power and judgment, this oath and written
bond:
to honour as my parents the master who has taught me this art, and to share my
substance with him, and to minister to all his necessities; to consider his children
as my own brothers, and to teach them this art should they desire to follow it,
without remuneration or written bond; to admit to my lessons, my discourses, and
all my other teaching, my own sons, and those of my tutor, and those who have
been inscribed as pupils and have taken the medical oath; but no one else. I will
prescribe such regimen as may be for the benefit of my patients, according to
the best of my power and judgment, and preserve them from anything hurtful and
mischievous. I will never, if asked, administer poison, nor be the author of such
advice; neither will I give to a woman a pessary to produce abortion. I will maintain
the purity and integrity both of my conduct and of my art. I will not cut any
one for the stone, but will leave the operation to those who cultivate it. Into
whatever dwellings I may go, I will enter them for the benefit of the sick, abstaining
from all mischief and corruption, especially from any immodest action, towards
women or men, freemen or slaves. If during my attendance, or even unprofessionally
in common life, I happen to see or hear of anything which should not be revealed,
I will consider it a secret not to be divulged. May I, if I observe this oath,
and do not break it, enjoy good success in life, and in [the practice of] my art,
and be esteemed for ever; should I transgress and become a perjurer, may the reverse
be my lot.
Some idea of the income of a physician in those times may be formed
from the fact mentioned by Herodotus (iii. 131) that the Aeginetans (about the
year B.C. 532) paid Democedes from the public treasury one talent per annum for
his services, i. e. (if we reckon the Aeginetan drachma to be worth 1s.) not quite
304l.; he afterwards received from the Athenians one hundred minae, i. e. (reckoning
the Attic drachma to be worth 9 3/4 d.) rather more than 406l., and he was finally
attracted to Samos by being offered by Polycrates a salary of two talents, i.
e. (if the Attic standard be meant) about 422l. A physician, called by Pliny both
Erasistratus (H. N. xxix. 5) and Cleombrotus (H. N. vii.123), is said by him to
have received one hundred talents, i. e. considerably over 20,000l., for curing
king Antiochus.
State physicians were employed in Greece (from Democedes downwards).
They were selected on the ground of knowledge evidenced in their private practice
(Xen. Mem. iv. 2, 5; Plat. Gorg. 455 B, 514 D). In Plat. Polit. p. 259 A we see
them distinguished from those who practised privately: their practice and official
status are described by the word demosieuein specially applied to them, and in
their public capacity they received salary but took no fees (Aristoph. Av. 587;
Acharn. 994); their expenses, however, were paid besides their salary, and they
received public honours for distinguished service. It appears from Diod. xii.
13 that they attended gratis any one who applied to them, and it is at least probable
that they were bound to give their services on military expeditions. From Aristoph.
Plut. 407 it appears that in that period of depression at Athens the office was
discontinued from motives of economy.
As regards the rise and progress of the medical profession at Rome,
we must distinguish between the slaves skilled in medicine, who were kept in the
larger households, and the physician in general practice. The former, no doubt,
came earlier in date, and those who could afford skilled slaves for medical treatment
already employed them, when for the masses there was no practising physician:
but in the yet earlier times for all alike, and for the general public to a comparatively
late period, the treatment of sickness was by traditional family recipes, partly
founded on experience, partly on superstition, the Romans being for the most part,
as late as the 600th year of the city (according to Pliny, H. N. xix.11), sine
medicis nec tamen sine medicina.
A little earlier however than this (B.C. 219), says Pliny on the authority
of Cassius Hemina, the first professed physician, the Greek Archagathus, came
to Rome. He was made a citizen and started in a shop at the public expense (Plin.
xxix.12): but his treatment was unpopular from its heroic method, a saevitia secandi
urendique. There was much opposition, for the Romans regarded with suspicion the
skill of the foreigners, and shunned the calling themselves as a degradation.
Cato, who still held to the old custom, and used a family manual of medicine (commentarium),
quo mederetur filio, servis et familiaribus, strongly opposed the whole class
of medici, against whom he warns his son, as banded together to kill Roman citizens.
In Plautus (Menaechm. v. 1) we have perhaps evidence of the same mistrust and
contempt; but it is never possible to assume that the customs and sentiments described
in Plautus are Roman rather than Greek.
Gradually however, after the time of Archagathus, the number of foreign
physicians in Rome increased, alike those in private houses, who were either slaves
(cf. Suet. Ner. 2) or freedmen, and those who had general practice. As a household
physician of this kind we may instance Strato from the Cluentius of Cicero (63,
176). We have the price of a slave physician fixed at 60 solidi (Just. Cod. vii.
7, 1, 5). The practising physicians at Rome were nearly all of the freedman class.
They had booths (tabernae), where they practised with slaves or freedmen as their
assistants and pupils, whom they took about with them in their visits (Mart. v.
9). Few Romans took up the profession (though we hear of Vettius Valens, a man
of equestrian rank in the reign of Claudius); and Julius Caesar, avowedly to encourage
their residence, gave the citizenship to foreign physicians (Suet. Jul. 42), with
the result which he desired.
Among physicians who seem to have risen to greater repute we have
Asclepiades of Prusa (Cic. de Or. i. 1. 4, 62; cf. Plin. H. N. vii.124); Asclapo
of Patrae, whom Cicero treated as a friend (Cic. ad Fam. xiii. 2. 0); Alexio,
for whom he seems to have had even greater regard (ad Att. xv. 1); Antonius Musa,
the freedman and trusted physician of Augustus (Suet. Aug. 59; cf. Hor. Ep. i.
15, 3); M. Artorius (Vell. Pat. ii. 70, 1; Plut. Brut. 41); A. Cornelius Celsus,
who wrote a medical treatise under Tiberius; Eudemus (Tac. Ann. iv. 3), &c.
The professional gains of physicians under the Empire seem often to
have been large: we are told of Stertinius by private practice making more than
5,000l. a year, and the surgeon Alcon amassing a fortune of nearly 100,000l. by
a few years' practice in Gaul (Plin. H. N. xxix.7, 22; cf. Mart. xi. 84). Regular
medical posts were instituted with large appointments: as court physicians with
salaries varying from 250,000 to 500,000 H.S. (Plin. l. c.); as doctors for the
army, for gladiatorial schools, and for the poorer public. Apart from these state
appointments the practice was entirely free from control or training: as a rule
probably the training was gained by the sort of apprenticeship to some medicus
described above, but anyone was at liberty to practise, and, in the words of Pliny,
experimenta per mortes facere ; ignorance was not, as in our country, penal, and
hence medico hominem occidisse summa impunitas (Plin. xxix.18).
Besides the archiatri at Rome itself (one for each region), there
were by order of Antoninus Pius in each city of Asia Minor state physicians (paid
by the state, with immunity from taxes), in numbers varying from five to ten according
to the size of the town. We can trace specialist physicians also, such as the
oculist (ocularius or ab oculis), the aurist (aurarius).The profession of dentist
is implied at a very early date by the remarkable extract from the XII. Tables
in Cic. de Leg. ii. 2. 4, 60, relating to teeth stopped with gold. We may also
notice that female doctors (medicae) for attendance on women, apparently distinct
from midwives (obstetrices), are found in many inscriptions.
As regards army doctors among the Greeks, we find them in the heroic
age when the ietros aner is pollon antaxios allon. It would appear from Homer,
Il. xvi. 28, that there were several; perhaps, as some suggest, each contingent
had an ietros. In historical times we may learn something of their presence from
Xenophon, Anab. iii. 4, 30; Cyrop. i. 6, 16, iii. 2, 12, v. 4, 17. Perhaps the
demosioi iatroi had to accompany the army, as was the case in Egyptian armies
(Diod. i. 82).
This text is from: A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1890) (eds. William Smith, LLD, William Wayte, G. E. Marindin). Cited June 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Archiater (archiatros, compounded of archos, a chief, and iatros, a physician),
a medical title under the Roman emperors, the exact signification of which has
been the subject of much discussion; for while some persons interpret it the chief
of the physicians (quasi archos ton iatron), others explain it to mean the physician
to the prince (quasi tou archou iatros). Upon the whole it seems tolerably certain
that the former is the true meaning of the word, and for these reasons:
1. From its etymology it can hardly have any other sense, and of all the words
similarly formed (architekton, architriklinos, archiepiskopos, &c.) there is not
one that has any reference to the prince.
2. We find the title applied to physicians who lived at Edessa, Alexandria, &c.,
where no king was at that time reigning.
3. Galen (de Ther. ad Pis. c. 1) speaks of Andromachus being appointed to rule
over the physicians (archein) ; i.e., in fact, to be archiater.
4. Augustine (de Civit. Dei, iii. 17) applies the word to Aesculapius, and St.
Jerome to our Saviour (xiii. Homil. in S. Luc.), in both which cases it evidently
means the chief physician.
5. It is apparently synonymous with protomedicus, supra medicos, dominus medicorum,
and superpositus medicorum, all which expressions occur in inscriptions, &c.,
and also with the title Rais'ala'l-atebba, among the Arabians.
6. We find the names of several persons who were physicians to the emperor, mentioned
without the addition of the title archiater.
7. The archiatri were divided into Archiatri sancti palatii, who attended on the
emperor, and Archiatri populares, who attended on the people; so that it is certain
that all those who bore this title were not physicians to the prince. The chief
argument in favour of the contrary opinion seems to arise from the fact, that
of all those who are known to have held the office of Archiatri the greater part
certainly were also physicians to the emperor; but this is only what might a priori
be expected, viz. that those who had attained the highest rank in their profession
would be chosen to attend upon the prince...
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Medicina (Iatrike), the name of that science which, as Celsus says (de Medic.
lib. i. Praef.), promises health to the sick, and whose object is defined in one
of the Hippocratic treatises (de Arte, vol. i) to be the delivering sick persons
from their sufferings, and the diminishing the violence of diseases, and the not
undertaking the treatment of those who are quite overcome by sickness, as we know
that medicine is here of no avail. This and other definitions of the art and science
of Medicine are critically examined in Pseudo-Galen. The invention of medicine
was almost universally attributed by the ancients to the gods (Cic. Tusc. Dis.
iii. 1; Plin. H. N. xxix.2). So also in Aeschylus (Pr. 478) we have the claim
advanced for Prometheus, that he first taught men the art of medicine both externally
applied and as potions, and there is a remarkable passage in Pindar (Nem. iii.
45) where Aesculapius is taught by Chiron the triple art of healing by drugs,
incantations, and surgical operations. Another source of information too was observing
the means resorted to by animals when labouring under disease. Pliny (H. N. viii.97)
gives many instances in which these instinctive efforts taught mankind the properties
of various plants, and the more simple surgical operations. The wild goats of
Crete pointed out the use of the dictamnus and vulnerary herbs; dogs when indisposed
sought the triticum repens, and the same animal taught the Egyptians the use of
purgatives, constituting the treatment called syrmaism. The hippopotamus introduced
the practice of bleeding, and it is affirmed that the employment of clysters was
shown by the ibis. Sheep with worms in their liver were seen seeking saline substances,
and cattle affected with dropsy anxiously looked for chalybeate waters. We are
told (Herod. i. 197; Strabo, xvi. p. 348) that the Babylonians and Chaldaeans
had no physicians, and that in cases of sickness the patient was carried out and
exposed on the highway, in order that any of the passers-by, who had been affected
in a similar manner, might give some information respecting the means that had
afforded them relief. Shortly afterwards, these observations of cures were suspended
in the temples of the gods, and we find that in Egypt the walls of their sanctuaries
were covered with records of this description. The priests of Greece adopted the
same practice, and some of the curious tablets suspended in their temples will
illustrate the custom. The following votive memorials are given by Hieron. Mercurialis
(de Arte Gymnast.): Some days back a certain Caius, who was blind, was ordered
by an oracle that he should repair to the sacred altar and kneel in prayer, then
cross from right to left, place his five fingers on the altar, then raise his
hand and cover his eyes. [He obeyed,] and his sight was restored in the presence
of the multitude, who congratulated each other that such signs [of the omnipotence
of the gods] were shown in the reign of our emperor Antoninus. A blind soldier
named Valerius Aper was ordered by the oracle to mix the blood of a white cock
with honey, to make up an ointment to be applied to his eyes, for three consecutive
days: he received his sight, and came and returned public thanks to the god. Julian
appeared lost beyond all hope from a spitting of blood. The god ordered him to
take from the altar some seeds of the pine, and to mix them with honey, of which
mixture he was to eat for three days. He was saved, and gave thanks in presence
of the people.
With regard to the medical literature of the ancients: When (says
Littre, Euvres completes d'Hippocrate, tome i. Introd.) we search into the history
of medicine and the commencement of science, the first body of doctrine that we
meet with is the collection of writings known under the name of the works of Hippocrates.
Science mounts up directly to that origin, and there stops. Not that it had not
been cultivated earlier, and had not given rise to even numerous productions;
but everything that had been made before the physician of Cos has perished. We
have only scattered and unconnected fragments remaining of them; the works of
Hippocrates have alone escaped destruction; and by a singular circumstance there
exists a great gap after them, as well as before them. The medical works from
Hippocrates to the establishment of the school of Alexandria, and those of that
school itself, are completely lost, except some quotations and passages preserved
in the later writers; so that the writings of Hippocrates remain isolated amongst
the ruins of ancient medical literature. The Asclepiadae, to which family Hippocrates
belonged, were the supposed descendants of Aesculapius (Asklepios), and were in
a manner the hereditary physicians of Greece. They professed to have among them
certain secrets of the medical art, which had been handed down to them from their
great progenitor, and founded several medical schools in different parts of the
world. Galen mentions (de Meth. Med. i. 1) three, viz. Rhodes, Cnidos, and Cos.
The first of these appears soon to have become extinct, and has left no traces
of its existence behind. From the second proceeded a collection of observations
called Knidiai Gnomai, Cnidian Sentences, a work of much reputation in early times,
which is mentioned by Hippocrates (de Rat. Vict. in Morb. Acut. vol. ii. p. 25),
and which appears to have existed in the time of Galen (Comment. in Hippocr. lib.
cit. vol. xv. p. 427). The school of Cos, however, is by far the most celebrated,
on account of the greater number of eminent physicians that sprang from it, among
whom was the great Hippocrates. We learn from Herodotus (iii. 131) that there
were also two celebrated medical schools at Crotona in Magna Graecia, and at Cyrene
in Africa, of which he says that the former was in his time more esteemed in Greece
than any other, and in the next place came that of Cyrene. In subsequent times
the medical profession was divided into different sects; but a detailed account
of their opinions would be out of place in the present work. The oldest and perhaps
the most influential of these sects was that of the Dogmatici, founded about B.C.
400 by Thessalus, the son, and Polybus, the son-in-law of Hippocrates, and thence
called also the Hippocratici. These retained their influence till the rise of
the Empirici, founded by Serapion of Alexandria and Philinus of Cos, in the third
century B.C., and so called because they professed to derive their knowledge from
experience only. After this time every member of the medical profession during
a long period ranged himself under one of these two sects. In the first century
B.C., Themison founded the sect of the Methodici, who held doctrines nearly intermediate
between those of the two sects already mentioned; and who, about two centuries
later, were subdivided into numerous sects, as the doctrines of particular physicians
became more generally received. The chief of these sects were the Pneumatici and
the Eclectici; the former founded by Athenaeus about the middle or end of the
first century A.D.; the latter about the same time, either by Agathinus of Sparta
or his pupil Archigenes.
It only remains to mention the principal medical authors after Hippocrates
whose works are still extant, referring for more particulars respecting their
writings to the articles in the Dictionary of Biography. Celsus is supposed to
have lived in the Augustan age, and deserves to be mentioned more for the elegance
of his style, and the neatness and judiciousness of his compilation, than for
any original contributions to the science of Medicine. Dioscorides of Anazarba,
who lived in the first century after Christ, was for many centuries the greatest
authority in Materia Medica, and was almost as much esteemed as Galen in Medicine
and Physiology, or Aristotle in Philosophy. Aretaeus, who probably lived in the
time of Nero, is an interesting and striking writer, both from the elegance of
his language and the originality of his opinions. Caelius Aurelianus, whose matter
is excellent, but the style quite barbarous. The next in chronological order,
and perhaps the most valuable, as he is certainly by far the most voluminous,
of all the medical writers of antiquity, is Galen, who reigned supreme in all
matters relating to medical science from the third century till the commencement
of modern times. After him the only writers deserving particular notice are Oribasius
of Pergamus, physician to the Emperor Julian in the fourth century; Aetius of
Amida, who lived probably in the sixth century; Alexander Trallianus, who lived
something later; and Paulus Aegineta, who belongs to the end of the seventh.
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Chirourgia (cheirourgia), surgery. The practice of surgery was at first considered
by the ancients to be merely a part of a physician's duty; but, as in later times
the two branches of the profession were to a great extent separated, it will perhaps
be more convenient to treat of it under a separate head. Without touching upon
the disputed questions, which is the more ancient, or which is the more honourable
branch of the profession ; or even trying to give such a definition of the word
chirurgia as would be likely to satisfy both the physicians and surgeons of the
present day; it will be sufficient to determine the sense in which the word was
used by the ancients: and then to give an account of this division of the science
and art of medicine, as practised among the Greeks and Romans, referring to the
article Medicina
for further particulars.
The word chirurgia is derived from cheir, the hand, and ergon, a work,
and is explained by Celsus (de Med. lib. vii. Praefat.) to mean that part of medicine
quae manu curat, which treats ailments by means of the hand; in Diogenes Laertius
(iii. 85) it is said to cure 51 dia tou temnein kai kaien, by cutting and burning;
nor (as far as the writer is aware) is it ever used by ancient authors in any
other sense. Omitting the fabulous and mythological personages, Apollo, Aesculapius,
Chiron, &c., the only certain traditions respecting the state of surgery before
the establishment of the republics of Greece, and even until the time of the Peloponnesian
war, are to be found in the Iliad and Odyssey. There it appears that surgery was
almost entirely confined to the treatment of wounds; and the imaginary power of
enchantment was joined with the use of topical applications. (Il. iii. 218 ; xi.
515, 828, 843, &c.)
The Greeks received surgery, together with the other branches of medicine,
from the Egyptians; and, from some observations made by the archaeologists who
accompanied the French expedition to Egypt in 1798, it appears that there are
documents fully proving that in very remote times this extraordinary people had
reached a degree of proficiency of which few of the moderns have any conception.
Upon the ceilings and walls of the-temples at Tentyra, Karnac, Luxor, &c., bassirilievi
are seen, representing limbs that have been cut off with instruments very similar
to those which are employed for amputations at the present day. The same instruments
are again observed in the hieroglyphics, and vestiges of other surgical operations
may be traced, which afford convincing proofs of the skill of the ancient Egyptians
in this branch of medical science.
The earliest remaining surgical writings are those in the Hippocratic
Collection, where there are ten treatises on this subject, of which however only
one is considered undoubtedly genuine. Hippocrates (B.C. 460-357?) far surpassed
all his predecessors (and indeed most of his successors) in the boldness and success
of his operations; and though the scanty knowledge of anatomy possessed in those
times prevented his attaining any very great perfection, still we should rather
admire his genius, which enabled him to do so much, than blame him because, with
his imperfect information, he could not accomplish more. The scientific skill
in reducing fractures and luxations displayed in his works De Fracturis, De Articulis,
excites the admiration of Haller (Biblioth. Chirurg.); and he was most probably
the inventor of the ambe, an old surgical machine for dislocations of the shoulder,
which, though now fallen into disuse, enjoyed for a long time a great reputation.
In his work De Capitis Vulneribus he gives minute directions about the time and
mode of using the trephine, and warns the operator against the probability of
his being deceived by the sutures of the cranium, as he confesses happened to
himself. Amputation, in the modern sense of the word, is not described in the
Hippocratic Collection; though mention is made of the removal of a limb at the
joint, after the flesh has been completely destroyed by gangrene. (De Artic. tom.
iii. p. 248.) The author of the Oath, commonly attributed to Hippocrates, binds
his pupils not to perform the operation of lithotomy, but to leave it to persons
specially accustomed to it (ergatesi andrasi prexios tesde); from which it would
appear as if certain persons confined themselves to particular operations.
The names of several persons are preserved who practised surgery as
well as medicine, in the times immediately succeeding those of Hippocrates; but,
with the exception of some fragments, inserted in the writings of Galen, Oribasius,
Aetius, &c., all their writings have perished.
Archagathus deserves to be mentioned, as he is said to have been the
first foreign surgeon that settled at Rome, B.C. 219. (Cassius Hemina, in Pliny,
Hist. Nat. xxix.12.) He was at first very well received, the jus Quiritium was
conferred upon him, a shop was bought for him at the public expense, and he received
the honourable title of Vulnerarius; which, however, on account of his frequent
use of the knife and cautery, was soon changed by the Romans (who were unused
to such a mode of practice) into that of Carnifex. Asclepiades, who
lived at the beginning of the first century B.C., is said to have been the first
person who proposed the operation of tracheotomy. (Cael. Aurel. de Morb. Acut.
i. 14,111; iii. 4,39.)
Ammonius of Alexandria, surnamed Lithotomos, who is supposed to have
lived rather later, is celebrated in the annals of surgery for having been the
first to propose and to perform the operation of lithotrity, or breaking a calculus
in the bladder, when found to be too large for safe extraction. Celsus has minutely
described his mode of operating (de Med. vii. 26, 3), which in some respects resembles
that of Civiale and Heurteloup, in the early part of the present century, and
proves that, however much credit they may deserve for perfecting the operation
and bringing it out of oblivion into public notice, the praise of having originally
thought of it belongs to the ancients. A hook or crotchet, says Celsus, is fixed
upon the stone in such a way as easily to hold it firm, even when shaken, so that
it may not revolve backward; then an iron instrument is used, of moderate thickness,
thin at the front end, but blunt, which, when applied to the stone and struck
at the other end, cleaves it: great care must be taken that the instrument do
not come into contact with the bladder itself, and that nothing fall upon it by
the breaking of the stone.
The next surgical writer after Hippocrates, whose works are still
extant, is Celsus, who lived at the beginning of the first century A.D., and who
has devoted the four last books of his work de Medicina, and especially the seventh
and eighth, entirely to surgical matter. It appears plainly from reading Celsus,
that since the time of Hippocrates surgery had made very great progress, and had,
indeed, reached a high degree of perfection. We find in him the earliest mention
of the use of the ligature for the arrest of haemorrhage from wounded blood-vessels
(v. 26,21); and the Celsian mode of amputation was continued down to comparatively
modern times (vii. 33). He is the first author who gives directions for the operation
of lithotomy (de Med. vii. 26,2), and the method described by him (called the
apparatus minor, or Celsus's method) continued to be practised till the commencement
of the sixteenth century. It was performed at Paris, Bordeaux, and other places
in France, upon patients of all ages, even as late as the latter part of the seventeenth
century; and a modern author (Allan On Lithotomy, p. 12) recommends it always
to be preferred for boys under fourteen. He describes (vii. 25,3) the operation
of infibulatio, which was so commonly performed by the ancients upon singers,
&c., and is often alluded to in classical authors (See Juv. Sat. vi. 73, 379;
Seneca, in Lactant. Divin. Instit. i. 16; Mart. Epigr. vii. 82, 1, ix. 28, 12,
xiv. 215, 1; Tertull. de Corona Mil. 11). He also describes (vii. 25,1) the operation
alluded to by St. Paul (1 Cor. vii. 18), peritetmemenos tis eklethe; me epispastho.
Compare Paulus Aegineta (de Re Med. vi. 53), who transcribes from Antyllus a second
method of performing the operation.
The following description, given by Celsus, of the necessary qualifications
of a surgeon, deserves to be quoted (lib. vii. Praefat.):
"A surgeon ought to be young, or, at any rate, not very old; his hand should
be firm and steady, and never shake; he should be able to use his left hand as
readily as his right; his eyesight should be clear, and his mind not easily startled;
he should be so far subject to pity as to make him desirous of the recovery of
his patient, but not so far as to suffer himself to be moved by his cries; he
should neither hurry the operation more than the case requires, nor cut less than
is necessary, but do everything just as if the other's screams made no impression
upon him."
Perhaps the only surgical remark worth quoting from Aretaeus, who
lived in the first century A.D., is that he condemns the operation of tracheotomy,
and thinks that the heat of the inflammation becomes greater from the wound and
contributes to the suffocation, and the patient coughs; and even if he escapes
this danger, the lips of the wound do not unite, for both are cartilaginous and
unable to grow together. (De Morb. Acut. Cur. i. 7, p. 227, ed. Kuhn.)
Omitting Scribonius Largus, Moschion, and Soranus, the next author
of importance is Caelius Aurelianus, who is supposed to have lived about the beginning
of the second century A.D., and in whose works there is much surgical matter,
but nothing that can be called original. He rejected as absurd the operation of
tracheotomy (de Morb. Chron. iii. 4,39). He mentions a case of ascites that was
cured by tapping (ib. iii. 8,128), and also a person who recovered after being
shot through the lungs by an arrow (ib. ii. 12,144).
Galen, the most voluminous and at the same time the most valuable
medical writer of antiquity, is less celebrated as a surgeon than as an anatomist
and physician. He appears to have practised surgery at Pergamus, but, upon his
removal to Rome (A.D. 165), he entirely confined himself to medicine, following,
as he says himself (de Meth. Med. vi.), the custom of the place. His writings
prove, however, that he did not entirely abandon surgery. His Commentaries on
the treatise of Hippocrates, De Officina Medici, and his treatise De Fasciis,
show that he was well versed even in the minor details of the art. He appears
also to have been a skilful operator, though no great surgical inventions are
attributed to him.
Antyllus, who lived some time between Galen and Oribasius, is the
earliest writer whose directions for performing tracheotomy are still extant,
though the operation (as was stated above) was proposed by Asclepiades about three
hundred years before. Only a few fragments of the writings of Antyllus remain,
and among them the following passage is preserved by Paulus Aegineta (de Re Med.
vi. 33):
"When we proceed to perform this operation, we must cut through some part
of the windpipe, below the larynx, about the third or fourth ring; for to divide
the whole would be dangerous. This place is commodious, because it is not covered
with any flesh, and because it has no vessels situated near the divided part.
Therefore, bending the head of the patient backward, so that the windpipe may
come more forward to the view, we make a transverse section between two of the
rings, so that in this case not the cartilage, but the membrane which unites the
cartilages together, is divided. If the operator be a little timid, he may first
stretch the skin with a hook and divide it; then, proceeding to the windpipe,
and separating the vessels, if any are in the way, he may make the incision."
Oribasius, physician to the Emperor Julian (A.D. 361), professes to
be merely a compiler; and though there is in his great work, entitled Sunagogai
Iatrikai, Collecta Medicinalia, much surgical matter, there is nothing original.
The same may be said of Aetius and Alexander Trallianus, both of whom lived towards
the end of the sixth century A.D. Paulus Aegineta has given up the fifth and sixth
books of his work De Re Medica entirely to surgery, and has inserted much useful
matter, derived in a great measure from his own observation and experience. Albucasis
translated into Arabic great part of these two books as the basis of his work
on Surgery. Paulus was particularly celebrated for his skill in midwifery and
female diseases, and was called on that account, by the Arabians, Al-Kawabeli,
the Accoucheur. He lived probably towards the end of the seventh century A.D.,
and is the last of the ancient Greek and Latin medical writers whose surgical
works remain. The names of several others are recorded, but they are not of sufficient
eminence to require any notice here. For further information on the subject both
of medicine and surgery, see Medicina;
and for the legal qualifications, social rank, &c., both of physicians and surgeons,
among the ancient Greeks and Romans, see Medicus
...
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Valetudinarium (nosokomeion), an infirmary. A detached building or room was commonly
found in large houses for the reception of sick slaves, who, we are told, should
at once be removed there for better treatment, and, no doubt, for the prevention
of infection (Col. xi. 1, 18; xii. 3, 7;--Senec. de Ira, i. 16; Nat. Qu. 1). We
have no satisfactory evidence of anything that can be regarded as a public infirmary
or hospital in Italy until the end of the 4th century A.D. Though the passages
of Seneca cited above might bear this interpretation, there is no reason to consider
the valetudinaria which he mentions as anything but infirmaries for slaves in
private houses... The earliest mention of an infirmary or hospital for the poor
in Italy seems to be that found in Jerome (Ep. iii. 10, de mort. Fab.), where
we are told that Fabiola, A.D. 380, took care of the sick brought from the streets
into a building of this kind: Primo omnium nosocomium, id est languentium villam,
instituit, in quo aegrotantes colligeret de plateis et consumpta languoribus atque
inedia membra foveret. Shortly before this (A.D. 372) we hear (Sozom. Hist. Eccles.
vi. 34) of a hospital at Caesarea established by Basil (primarily, however, for
the reception of poor travellers or pilgrims).
Vercoutre maintains, probably with reason, that all idea of such an
institution was derived by the Romans from the Greeks, whose lead they followed
in everything connected with medicine. We doubt, however, whether this writer
is justified in making as much as he does of the Greek iatreia, or in regarding
them as in any sense hospitals. The state physicians, who treated the pool gratuitously
in return for their state salary, had in many Greek cities not only their medicines
and surgical appliances provided for them by the state, but also a room, or suite
of rooms, called iatreion, which otherwise means merely the consulting-room and
dispensary of any physician. The description in Galen is oikoi megaloi thuras
megalas photos plereis echousin, hoioi kai nun kata pollas ton poleon didontai
tois iatrois, hous paronumos auton iatreia prosagoreuousi (Gal. in Hippocr. de
Med. Officin. i. 8). In such rooms it is probable that patients might remain for
a time; if, for instance, they were unable to move after an operation: but we
lack information which would warrant our crediting Greece with hospitals properly
so called earlier than the 4th century. It is possible that the paionion at Piraeus,
mentioned by Crates, the comedian of the 5th century B.C., may have been something
of the kind, but this is doubtful; at any rate, it is not alluded to anywhere
else, and can hardly have been an institution lasting or imitated in many other
places.
The function of hospitals for the poor was, to some extent, performed
by the temples of Aesculapius, where the priests no doubt combined a certain amount
of medical knowledge (cf. Liv. xlv. 28) with a great deal of quackery and superstitious
observance (cf. Aristoph. Plut. 665 ff.), and it may, we think, fairly be surmised
that the disuse of these temples in Christian times made the necessity of hospitals
more apparent, and so led to their institution, in much the same way as in this
country the suppression of monasteries, which had largely relieved the indigent
poor, made the necessity of Poor-laws immediately evident.
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Donaria (anathemata or anakeimena) are names by which the ancients designated
presents made to the gods, either by individuals or communities. Sometimes they
are also called dona or dora. The belief that the gods were pleased
with costly presents was as natural to the ancients as the belief that they could
be influenced in their conduct towards men by the offering of sacrifices; and,
indeed, both sprang from the same feeling. Presents were mostly given as tokens
of gratitude for some favour which a god had bestowed on man; but in many cases
they were intended to induce the deity to grant some special favour. At Athens,
every one of the six thesmothetae, or, according to Plato (Phaedr.), all the nine
archons, on entering upon their office, had to take an oath, that if they violated
any of the laws, they would dedicate in the temple of Delphi a golden statue of
the size of the man who dedicated it (andrianta chrusoun isometreton, see Plut.
Sol. 25; Pollux, viii. 85; Suidas, s. v. Chruse Eikon: Heraclid. Pont. c. 1).
In this last case the anathema was a kind of punishment, in which the statue was
regarded as a substitute for the person forfeited to the gods. Almost all presents
of this kind were dedicated in temples, to which in some places an especial building
was added, in which these treasures were preserved. Such buildings were called
thesauroi (treasuries); and in the most frequented temples of Greece many states
had their separate treasuries. The act of dedication was called anatithenai, donare,
dedicate, or sacrare.
The custom of making donations to the gods is found among the ancients
from the earliest times of which we have any record down to the introduction of
Christianity; and even after that period it was, with some modifications, observed
by the Christians during the Middle Ages. In the heroic ages of Grecian history
the anathemata were of a simple description, and consisted of chaplets and garlands
of flowers. A very common donation to the gods seems to have been that of locks
of hair (komes aparchai), which youths and maidens, especially young brides, cut
off from their heads and consecrated to some deity (Hom. Il. xxiii. 141; Aeschyl.
Choeph. 6; Eurip. Orest. 96 and 1427, Bacch. 493, Helen. 1093;. Plut. Thes. 5;
Paus. i. 37,2). This custom in some places lasted till a very late period: the
maidens of Delos dedicated their hair before their wedding to Hecaerge (Paus.
i. 43,4), and those of Megara to Iphinoe. Pausanias (ii. 11,6) saw the statue
of Hygieia at Titane covered all over with locks of hair which had been dedicated
by women. Costly garments (peploi) are likewise mentioned among the earliest presents
made to the gods, especially to Athena and Hera (Hom. II. vi. 293, 303). At Athens
the sacred peplos of Athena, in which the great adventures of ancient heroes were
worked, was woven by maidens every fifth year, at the festival of the great Panathenaea
(Compare Aristoph. Av. 792; Pollux, vii. 50). A similar peplus was woven every
five years at Olympia, by sixteen women, and dedicated to Hera (Paus. v. 16,2).
At the time when the fine arts flourished in Greece the anathemata
were generally works of art of exquisite workmanship, such as high tripods bearing
vases, craters, cups, candelabras, pictures, statues, and various other things.
The materials of which they were made differed according to circumstances; some
were of bronze, others of silver or gold (Athen. vi. p. 231, &c.), and their number
is to us almost inconceivable (Demosth. Olynth. iii. p. 35). The treasures of
the temples of Delphi and Olympia, in particular, surpass all conception. Even
Pausanias, at a period when numberless works of art must have perished in the
various ravages and plunders to which Greece had been exposed, saw and described
an astonishing number of anathemata. Many works of art are still extant, bearing
evidence by their inscriptions that they were dedicated to the gods as tokens
of gratitude. Every one knows of the magnificent presents which Croesus made to
the god of Delphi (Herod. i. 50, &c.). It was an almost invariable custom, after
the happy issue of a war, to dedicate the tenth part of the spoil (akrothinion,
akroleion, or protoleion) to the gods, generally in the form of some work of art
(Herod. viii. 82, 121; Thucyd. i. 132; Pans. iii. 18,5; Athen. vi. p. 231, &c.).
Sometimes magnificent specimens of armour, such as a fine sword, helmet, or shield,
were set apart as anathemata for the gods (Aristoph. Equit. 792, and Schol). The
Athenians always dedicated to Athena the tenth part of the spoil and of confiscated
goods; and to all the other gods collectively, the fiftieth part (Demosth. c.
Timocr. p. 738, &c.). After a seafight, a ship, placed upon some eminence, was
sometimes dedicated to Neptune (Thucyd. ii. 84; Herod. viii. 121). It is not improbable
that trophies which were always erected on the field of battle, as well as the
statues of the victors in Olympia and other places, were originally intended as
tokens of gratitude to the god who was supposed to be the cause of the success
which the victorious party had gained. We also find that on some occasions the
tenth part of the profit of some commercial undertaking was dedicated to a god
in the shape of a work of art. Respecting the large and beautiful craters dedicated
to the temples, see the article Crater
Individuals who had escaped from some danger were no less
anxious to show their gratitude to the gods by anathemata than communities. The
instances which occur most frequently are those of persons who had recovered from
an illness, especially by spending one or more nights in a temple of Asclepius
(incubatio). The most celebrated temples of this divinity were those of Epidaurus,
Cos, Tricca, and, at a later period, that of Rome (Plin. H. N. xxix.4). Cures
were also effected in the grotto of Pluto and Proserpina, in the neighbourhood
of Nisa (Strab. ix., xiv.). In all cases in which a cure was effected presents
were made to the temple, and little tablets (tabulae votivae) were suspended on
its walls, containing an account of the danger from which the patient had escaped,
and of the manner in which he had been restored to health. Some tablets of this
kind, with their inscriptions, are still extant. From some relics of ancient art
we must infer that in some cases, when a particular part of the body was attacked
by disease, the person, after his recovery, dedicated an imitation of that part
in gold or silver to the god to whom he owed his recovery. Persons who had escaped
from shipwreck usually dedicated to Neptune the dress which they wore at the time
of their danger (Hor. Carm. i. 5, 13; Verg. Aen. xii. 768); but if they had escaped
naked, they dedicated some locks of their hair (Lucian, de Merc. Cond. c. 1).
Shipwrecked persons also suspended votive tablets in the temple of Neptune, on
which their accident was described or painted. Individuals who gave up the profession
or occupation, by which they had gained their livelihood, frequently dedicated
in a temple the instruments which they had used, as a grateful acknowledgment
of the favour of the gods. The soldier thus dedicated his arms, the fisherman
his net, the shepherd his flute, the poet his lyre, cithara, or harp, &c.
It would be impossible to attempt to enumerate all the occasions on
which individuals, as well as communities, showed their gratefulness towards the
gods by anathemata. Descriptions of the most remarkable presents in the various
temples of Greece may be read in the works of Herodotus, Strabo, Pausanias, Athenaeus,
and others.
The custom of making presents to the gods was common to Greeks and Romans, but
among the latter the donaria were neither as numerous nor as magnificent as in
Greece; and it was more frequent among the Romans to show their gratitude towards
a god, by building him a temple, by public prayers and thanksgivings (supplicatio),
or by celebrating festive games in honour of him, than to adorn his sanctuary
with beautiful and costly works of art. Hence the word donaria was used by the
Romans to designate a temple or an altar, as well as statues and other things
dedicated in a temple (Verg. Georg. iii. 533; Ovid, Fast. iii. 335). The occasions
on which the Romans made donaria to their gods are, on the whole, the same as
those we have described among the Greeks, as will be seen from a comparison of
the following passages : Liv. x. 36, xxix. 36, xxxii. 30, xl. 40, 37; Suet. Claud.
25; Tacit. Ann. iii. 71; Plaut. Amphitr. iii. 2, 65; Curcul. i. 1, 61, ii. 2,
10; Aurel. Vict. Caes. 35 ; Gellius, ii. 10; Lucan ix.515; Cic. de Nat. Deor.
iii. 3. 7 ; Tibull. ii. 5, 29; Hor. Epist. i. 1, 4; Stat. Silv. iv. 92.
This text is from: A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1890) (eds. William Smith, LLD, William Wayte, G. E. Marindin). Cited June 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Stele, is the name given to any block (usually of stone or marble) set up for
a monumental purpose; thus it is constantly applied in inscriptions to the block
on which a public document is to be incised. But the best known use of the term
is to denote a monument set up over a tomb, either plain or with merely ornamental
decorations, or containing a commemorative inscription, or a portrait of the deceased,
painted or in relief, alone or grouped with other figures; combinations of these
characteristics are common. The simplest form of stele consists of a plain marble
slab or pillar surmounted by an anthemion, and inscribed with the name of the
deceased; often two rosettes. side by side, are added--possibly a survival of
an anthropomorphic representation. The most common subjects represented on grave
reliefs may be thus classified:
(1). Stmple representations of the deceased, often in some common employment of
daily life. Thus the warrior appears fully armed, standing as if on parade (Aristion),
or on horseback slaying a prostrate foe (Dexileos). An athlete holds his strigil
or exercises, and is attended by his trainer or his slave; a lady sits playing
with her jewels, also accompanied by her attendants (fig. 1 in URL below). A man
or child is often represented playing with a pet animal.
(2) Parting scenes.--The deceased, standing or seated, takes leave of his or her
relatives or friends; family scenes are usually depicted. In later and more elaborate
designs a horse appears, as if the deceased were about to start on a journey,
and a serpent also is seen as a symbol of the dead. These two symbolic figures
are, however, only common in the next class; and in parting scenes of the best
period the subject is only indicated by the appearance of melancholy in the faces
and attitudes of the persons represented (fig. 2 in URL below).
(3) Banquet scenes.--These seem to have originated in a kind of ancestor-worship,
as is seen in the very early stelae from Sparta: in them the deceased, as a hero,
holds out a cup as if to require a drink-offering; his wife is seated on another
throne behind him, and small worshippers approach with offerings. In later times
we find some similar examples; on the painted stele of Lysias at Athens the deceased
stands, holding a cup in his hand. In the Spartan reliefs a great serpent coils
over the back of the throne, representing, probably, the deceased as the inhabitant
of his tomb. In the typical banquet scene of later times the deceased reclines
on a couch, and his wife sits on the foot of the couch or on a chair beside it;
before them is a feast, of which they partake, and servants with cups or viands
take the place of the worshippers; a snake and a dog are often present; and a
horse's head, as a symbol of a journey, often appears in a square at the upper
corner (fig. 3 in URL below). It has been suggested that we should see here the
funeral banquet idealised, or the enjoyments of the deceased in another life:
the typical succession seems to indicate that we see rather a development of the
representation in which the deceased, as a hero, receives offerings from worshippers,
and reminds his descendants to give him more; but the enjoyment of those presents
in another life is doubtless included. The type of these reliefs is often
reproduced in dedications to Asclepius and Hygieia or other minor divinities;
and thus we receive a confirmation of the view that the deceased is, originally
at least, to be regarded as a deified hero.
The numerous series of Greek stelae which still survive is of great
value, not only for their subjects but also for their execution; they were mostly
the work of inferior artists or mere artisans, but reflect the style of the greater
artists of the place or period to which they belong. The most important are those
found in Athens, and preserved either in situ in the Outer Ceramicus or in the
National Museum at Athens.
The inscription on a grave stele usually gives merely the name of
the deceased, with his father's name and his country or deme, and her husband's
also in the case of a woman: this simplicity was almost universal in Attica, but
simple metrical inscriptions containing the same information are found from the
earliest times. Elsewhere, and commonly later, chaire or chreste chaire is added;
but elaborate eulogies are extremely rare, at least before Roman times.
This text is from: A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1890) (eds. William Smith, LLD, William Wayte, G. E. Marindin). Cited June 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
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