Page:History of Greece Vol IV.djvu/273

DEMOKEDES SENT UP TO SUSA. 255 despot he remained, and accompanied him in his last calamitous visit to the satrap Orrctes : on the murder of Polykrates, being seized among the slaves and foreign attendants, he was left to languish with the rest in imprisonment and neglect. When again, soon after, Oroetes himself was slain, Demokedes was numbered among his slaves and chattels and sent up to Susa. He had not been long at that capital, when Darius, leaping from his horse in the chase, sprained his foot badly, and was car- ried home in violent pain. The Egyptian surgeons, supposed to be the first men in their profession, 1 whom he habitually em- ployed, did him no good, but only aggravated his torture ; for seven days and nights he had no sleep, and he as well as those around him began to despair. At length, some one who had been at Sardis, accidentally recollected that he had heard of a Greek surgeon among the slaves of Orates : search was immediately made, and the miserable slave was brought, in chains as weil as in rags, 2 into the presence of the royal sufferer. Being asked whether he understood surgery, he affected ignorance ; but Da- rius, suspecting this to be a mere artifice, ordered out the scourge and the pricking instrument, to overcome it. Demokekes now saw that there was no resource, admitted that he had acquired some little skill, and was called upon to do his utmost in the case before him. He was fortunate enough to succeed perfectly, in alleviating the pain, in procuring sleep for the exhausted patient, and ultimately in restoring the foot to a sound state. Darius, who had abandoned all hopes of such a cure, knew no bounds to his gratitude. As a first reward, he presented him with two sets of chains in solid gold, a commemoration of the state in which Demokedes had first come before him, he next sent him into the harem to visit his wives. The conducting eunuchs intro- duced him as the man who had restored the king to life, and the grateful sultanas each gave to him a saucer full of golden coins called staters ; 3 in all so numerous, that the slave Skiton, 1 About the Persian habit of sending to Egypt for surgeons, compare Herodot. iii, 1. 1 Herodot iii, 129. rbv 6'e d>f igevpov ev rolai 'OpoiTeu avSpaitodoiai o/cot Si) dirrin?.r l fi.ivov, irapijyov if psaov, TreJaf re I^KOVTO icat puneaiv eadqftevov. 8 Herodot. iii, 130. The golden stater was equal to about 1Z. Is, 3d English money (Hussey. Ancient "Weights, vii, 3, p. 103).