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124 ANCIENT TIMES.
to their enemies effective weapons to turn against the
whole profession. PLINY states that doctors so far misused
their position of trust as to practise legacy-hunting
and adultery and to compass the death of a human being by
the administration of poison*
GALEN goes so far as to compare the doctors in Rome to
robbers and says that between them there exists but one
point of difference, namely that the latter carry on their
infamous practices in the hills and the former in the town.f
To this were added the obtrusive and braggart manners of
many foreign practitioners, displeasing to the dignified
seriousness of the Romans. THESSALUS, who called himself
the " Conqueror of Doctors " made his way along the
streets with such a crowd of attendants " as was scarcely
possessed by a street performer or a celebrated circusrider."
% Some doctors carried on the hunt for patients
quite openly and did not blush to ask the passers-by to enter
their dispensaries which in this case not unfrequently
degenerated into places of resort for idlers and swindlers.
The desire to become known and to get practice induced
many " to recommend themselves to the favour of powerful
and influential persons, to strut along the streets with them,
to give banquets and to make buffoons of themselves, while
others by the splendour of their dress, by costly rings and
other ornaments sought to dazzle the unreasoning multitude."
§ As in all times, so then also, ignoramuses and
quacks loved to conceal by the splendour of external
semblance the essential hollowness within.||
Doctors who possessed more knowledge and intelligence
resorted to frequent appearance in public in order to make
themselves known. They held popular lectures, arranged
discussions with their colleagues which led to embittered
* PLINIUS op. cit. xxix, 8.—MARTIAI.IS : Epigr. vi, 31.—TACITUS: Annal.
iv, 3. xii, 67.
t GALEN xiv, 622.
X PLINIUS: Hist. Nat. xxix, 5.
§ GALEN iv, 600.
|| LUCIAN : Ad indoctum, c 29.