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MEDICINE IN ROME. 89
•cessful results of operative treatment, soon deprived him of
the confidence of the people who now called him not a
surgeon but an executioner (Carnifex).*
The Bithynian doctor AS.KLEPIADES later on attained a
prominent position, having settled in Rome in the time of
POMPEY. Possessed of a thorough general education, endowed
with unusual intellectual gifts, an acute, penetrating
understanding, and rich experience of life, he soon raised
himself above the crowd of ordinary doctors. His polished
manners in society, his trustworthy courteous aspect in conjunction
with his gifts of speech, which enabled him to give
appropriate expression to his unbounded self-confidence,
provided him with an introduction to the highest circles of
Rome and procured him the distinguished friendship of such
men as CiCERO, L. CRASSUS, MARCUS ANTONIUS and others.
King MiTHRiDATES sought by promises to attract him to
his Court, but, as ASKLEPIADES declined his invitations,
-had to be satisfied with the transmission of his writings.
ASKLEPIADES preferred to remain in Rome where he
-acquired great riches and was honoured " as one sent
from Heaven." He knew well how to maintain, and
if possible, to enhance, the high opinion entertained
of him by the people and disdained no means to this
•end. Thus he ' restored a man to life ' whose obsequies
were actually about to be carried out. With quackish
boastfulness he declared, that people might cease to consider
him a doctor if he were ever taken ill himself;
•and Death was so good as not to give him the lie, for he
died from the fall of a ladder.f Like other people of
his disposition ASKLEPIADES disclaimed any authority and
believed only in himself. He rejected the dogmatic
teaching of his predecessors and contrived a medical system
•of his own founded upon the atomic doctrine of the
* PLINIUS op. cit. xxix, 6.
t PLINIUS op. tit. vii, 37. xxvi, 7, 8, 9. CICERO: de oratore. i, 14.—
APULEIUS : florid., c. 19.—SEXT. Empir. ad logic, dogm. i, c. 91, ad. mathem.
Iv, c. 113 etc.