Page:History of Greece Vol IV.djvu/417

STATE OF KROTON. 399 on the other, had been great and of long standing, so that there was more than one motive to determine him to the coast of Italy ; in which direction also his contemporary Xenophanes, the founder of the Eleatic school of philosophy, emigrated, seemingly, about the same time, from Kolophon to Zankle, Katana, and Elea. 1 Kroton and Sybaris were at this time in their fullest prosper- ity, among the first and most prosperous cities of the Hellenic name. To the former of the two Pythagoras directed his course. A council of one thousand persons, taken from among the heirs and representatives of the principal proprietors at its first foun- dation, was here invested with the supreme authority : in what manner the executive offices were filled, we have no information. Besides a great extent of power, and a numerous population, the large mass of whom had no share in the political franchise, Kroton stood at this time distinguished for two things, --the general excellence of the bodily habit of the citizens, attested, in part, by the number of conquerors furnished to the Olympic games, and the superiority of its physicians, or surgeons. 3 These two points were, in fact, greatly connected with each other. For the therapeutics of the day consisted not so much of active remedies as of careful diet and regimen ; while the trainer, who dictated the life of an athlete during his long and fatiguing preparation for an Olympic contest, and the professional superintendent of the youths who frequented the public gym- nasia, followed out the same general views, and acted upon the same basis of knowledge, as the physician who prescribed for a 1 Diogen. Laert. ix, 18. a Herodot. iii, 131 ; Strabo, vi, p. 261 : Menander dc Encomiis, p. 96, ed. Heeren. ' A.'&rjvalovf ixl uya^fAaro^oua re KOI ZuypaQiKfj, xal Kporuvturaf km larpiKT!, fiiyn Qpovqaat, etc. The Krotoniate Alkmaeon, a younger contemporary of Pythagoras (Aris- totel. Metaph. i, 5), is among the earliest names mentioned as philosophiz- ing upon physical and medical subjects. See Brandis, Handbuch der Geschicht. der Philos. sect. Ixxxiii, p. 508, and Aristotel. De General. Animal, iii, 2, p. 752, Bekker. The medical art in Egypt, at the time when Pythr.goras visited that oonntiy, was sufficiently far advanced to excite the attention of an inquisi- tive traveller, the branches of it minutely subdivided and strict rules laid down for practice (Herodot. ii, 84 ; Aristotel. Politic, iii 0, 4).