and when the brotherhood (if such it may be called) broke up, as it did in the fifth century B. C., these men traveled about from one Grecian city to another; from which fact they were given the name of "periodeuts" or ambulant physicians. Crotona was also celebrated as the birthplace of Milo, the athlete.
Democedes, who was a contemporary of Pythagoras, but not one of his disciples, was a native of Crotona. Dion Cassius, the author of a Roman history, ranks him and Hippocrates as the two most eminent physicians of antiquity. Daremberg, who derived his facts from the works of Herodotus, gives the following account of the adventures of Democedes:—
Being unable to bear any longer the frequent anger and harsh
treatment of his father, Calliphon, Democedes left Crotona, and
settled in practice at Aegina, on the Saronic Gulf, not far from
Athens. Almost from the very start he attained marked success,
and already in the second year of his residence in Aegina he was
made the recipient of a pension of one talent (equal to about £240.
or $1200.) out of the public treasury. During the following year
he was induced, by the offer of a larger pension (100 minae, or
about $3000.) to settle in Athens; and, a year later, he accepted
a still larger remuneration from Polycrates, the tyrant of Samos.
Having accompanied the latter on a trip to Sardis, the capital of
Lydia, in Asia Minor, he fell a prisoner into the hands of the
governor of that city, and was made by him a slave. Not long
afterward Darius gained possession of this governor's or satrap's
property, including all his slaves; and thus, despite all his efforts
to conceal his profession through fear that a knowledge of it on
the part of the king might prolong his bondage indefinitely,
Democedes was unable to do so. The discovery came about in the
following manner. During a hunting trip Darius broke his ankle.
He called to his assistance the court physicians, who were esteemed
the most skilful that could be found in all Egypt, but they failed
to give him relief. By the violence of their manipulations they
rather made matters worse. For seven days and nights his
sufferings were so great that he was unable to obtain any sleep.
Finally, on the eighth day, one of the court attendants having told
Darius that there was a Greek physician among the slaves,
Democedes was sent for, and he appeared before the king clad in
