The ladies in a Persian harem appear to have been less unapproachable and invisible than those in modern Turkey; in spite of the observation of Plutarch, Artaxerxês, c. 27.
[472] Herodot. iii, 133. δεήσεσθαι δὲ οὐδενὸς τῶν ὅσα αἰσχύνην ἐστὶ φέροντα. Another Greek physician at the court of Susa, about seventy years afterwards,—Apollonidês of Kôs,—in attendance on a Persian princess, did not impose upon himself the same restraint: his intrigue was divulged, and he was put to death miserably (Ktêsias, Persica, c. 42).
[473] Herodot. iii, 134.
[474] Herodot. iii, 136. προσίσχοντες δὲ αὐτῆς τὰ παραθαλάσσια ἐθήσαντο καὶ ἀπεγράφοντο.
[475] Herodot. iii, 137, 138.
[476] Herodot. iii, 137. κατὰ δὴ τοῦτό μοι σπεῦσαι δοκέει τὸν γάμον τοῦτον τελέσας χρήματα μεγάλα Δημοκήδης, ἵνα φανῇ πρὸς Δαρείου ἐὼν καὶ ἐν τῇ ἑωϋτοῦ δόκιμος.
[477] Herodot. iii, 138.
[478] Xenophon, Memorab. iv, 2, 33. Ἄλλους δὲ πόσους οἴει (says Sokratês) διὰ σοφίαν ἀναρπάστους πρὸς βασιλέα γεγονέναι, καὶ ἐκεῖ δουλεύειν;
We shall run little risk in conjecturing that, among the intelligent and able men thus carried off, surgeons and physicians would be selected as the first and most essential.
Apollônidês of Kôs—whose calamitous end has been alluded to in a previous note—was resident as surgeon, or physician, with Artaxerxês Longimanus (Ktêsias, Persica, c. 30), and Polykritus of Mendê, as well as Ktêsias himself, with Artaxerxês Mnêmon (Plutarch, Artaxerxês, c. 31).