| TI CLAVDIO HYMNO |
| MEDICO. LEG. XXI. |
| CLAVDIÆ QUIETÆ EIUS |
| ATTICUS. PATRONUS. |
Orelli gives in the same work (vol. ii. No. 4996), another tablet found at Salon, in which a third physician to a legion is named; the tablet being erected by M. BESIUS TERTULLUS, physician of the eleventh Legion, to the memory of his “hospes,” Papiria Pyrallis.
I have already alluded to a passage in Vegetius, showing in relation to the government of the Roman medical staff, that the medical officers as well as their patients were both placed under the control of the Præfect of the Camp, to whose multifarious duties, these, among other matters, pertained. “Praeterea aegri contubernales, et medici a quibus curantur, expensae etiam ad ejus industriam pertinebant.”[405] Vegetius does not allude to the existence of any special sick quarters; but a writer of the second century, who lived under Trajan and Hadrian, Hyginus Gromaticus, in his essay “De Castrametatione,”[406] in laying down the proportions and measurements of the different parts of a Roman camp, describes the proper situation in it for the Hospital or “Valetudinarium.” This observation of Hyginus is interesting as far as regards the probable date of the first institution of camp hospitals; for we have no allusion to them in Polybius’ earlier account of the different points and parts of a Roman camp of his day; and even in the first century of our era, when Tacitus describes Germanicus as visiting and encouraging the wounded soldiers under his command, he uses such an expression, “circumire saucios”as to lead to the supposition, that the invalids in the Roman camp were still, like the old Homeric heroes, laid up in their own tents.[407] Indeed, Lampridius speaks of the Emperor Alexander Severus in the third century, still visiting his sick soldiers in their tents (aegrotantes ipse visitavit per tentoria milites).[408] Let me add, that medical stores appear, as we might expect, to have been carried with the imperial armies. At least in the war conducted by Germanicus against Arminius, we are told by Tacitus, that in one of their contests with the German army, the Roman troops lost their intrenching tools, tents, and remedies or dressings for the wounded (fomenta sauciis);[409] and subsequently we find Agrippina the wife of the Roman general, distributing gratuitously among the soldiers, clothes to the needy, and dressings to the wounded (militibusque, ut quis inops aut saucius, vestem et fomenta dilargita est).[410] We have the transport of the wounded sick sometimes spoken of; as, for example, when Tempanius leads back his victorious troops from the Volscian war;[411] but the only instance in which, as far as I remember, any special description of ambulance is mentioned, occurs in Hirtius’ Commentaries, where he tells us that, after the battle fought near Ruspina, Labienus ordered his wounded to be carried to Adrumentum, bound in waggons (saucios suos jubet in plostris deligatos Adrumentum deportari).[412] The passage should more probably read “plostris decubitos.”
The remarks which I have hitherto made refer only to the medical staff and organisation of the Roman army. If, however, as the preceding facts tend to show, the Roman troops were furnished with a medical staff, there is, a priori, every probability that the Roman fleet was similarly provided. The contingencies, however, of a naval, as compared with a military life, render the preservation of such monumental proofs as we have already adduced in relation to the existence of army medical officers much less likely in relation to the existence of medical officers in the fleet. Indeed I am only aware of the discovery of one ancient tablet referring to the naval medical service. In his late splendid work on the Latin inscriptions found in the kingdom of Naples, Mommsen has given a careful copy of the tablet in question.[413] The inscription upon it was first, I believe, published by Marini.[414] The tablet itself, which is now placed in the antiquarian collection at Dresden, was originally discovered in the Elysian fields, near Baiæ; and consequently in the vicinity of the famous Pontus Julius, and the station of the imperial Misenian fleet. The inscription on the stone bears that M.
SATRIUS LONGINUS, physician to the three-banked ship or trirem, the CUPID,[415] and those or the heirs of those freed by Julia Venerias, his wife, erected the tablet to the manes of this deserving lady.
| D. M. |
| IVLIÆ VENERIÆ. |
| M. SATRIUS LONGIN |
| MEDIC. DVPL. III. CVPID |
| ET. IVLIA VENERIA LIBER |
| HER. BEN. MER |
| FECER |
In the preceding inscription LONGINUS is designated Medicus Duplicarius; the term duplicarius in this as other inscriptions signifying that, by the length or superiority of his service, he was entitled to double pay and rewards. The “duplex stupendium” and “duplex frumentum” is repeatedly alluded to by Varro, Livy, Virgil, and other classical authors, as a military reward accorded to the more deserving soldiers and officers of the army; and the corresponding adjective “duplicarius” not unfrequently occurs in old Roman inscriptions.
In a previous page it has been stated that nowhere in the Roman classics does there exist any distinct allusion to physicians or surgeons as forming a regular part of the staff of the Roman army. There are several references, however, in ancient medical and classical authors to the fact of medical men being placed in professional attendance upon Roman Senators,[416] Consuls,[417] and Emperors during the course of their military campaigns. Thus Galen tells us that he himself was summoned in this last capacity to attend upon the Emperors M. Aurelius and L. Verus at Apuleia during their proposed campaign against some of the German tribes.[418]