PLATE XXXI—The Stone miraculously carried by the paralyzed Hermodicos
At line 48 begins a story containing a moral which the priests may have thought it desirable to impress upon their visitors:—
Pandaros comes all the way from Thessaly in order to have a disfiguring eruption or branding mark on his forehead cured; he is quickly made well. Returning to Thessaly his cure is observed by his neighbour Echedoros, who has a similar, but slighter, eruption on the face. He also goes to Hieron, carrying with him a sum of money sent to the god by the grateful Pandaros. Echedoros contemplates retaining this money himself; he consults the god about his own case, and in answer to a question states that he has brought no gift from Pandaros. On rising in the morning he finds that, instead of having his skin disease cured, that of Pandaros has been added to it.
Line 96.—A man from Toronœa is so unfortunate as not to be in the good graces of his stepmother; she introduces a number of leeches into the wine he drinks. Being of a submissive and confiding temperament, he swallows the beverage unsuspectingly, but the results are so serious that he is obliged to visit the god. Asklepios cuts open his chest with a knife, removes the leeches, sews up the chest again, and the patient returns home next day.
From other inscriptions we find that Asklepios treats dropsy surgically, in a simple but heroic manner; he first cuts off the patient’s head, then holds him up by the heels; the fluid all runs out. He then puts the patient’s head on again, and the case terminates happily.
These, I think, are a sufficient sample of the preposterous stories of cures which the god was reported to have performed in early times.
It is quite clear that the absolute liking which many men and women have for the charlatan, and for deception, their appetites for the marvellous and incredible in all medical matters, existed as strongly among the Greeks as among ourselves, though the superstitious beliefs and the ignorance of science prevailing in those times rendered such folly more excusable than it is now.
In later times it seems clear that superstition and deception had a less share, and art a larger one, in the work of healing at Hieron. Probably among the acute citizens of Athens, at no period were the frauds of the god so outrageous as in the early times at Hieron. We find the priests prescribing many things that were prudent and judicious; diet of a plain and simple character, hot and cold baths, poulticing for certain chest ailments, and a variety of medicaments—hemlock juice, oxide of iron, hellebore, squills, lime-water, and drugs for the allaying of pain—are incidentally mentioned. Water was used extensively both internally and externally; active gymnastic exercise, riding, friction of the skin, a sort of massage, and counter-irritation.
The tablet of Apellas of Idria tells us that when visiting the Hieron on account of frequent illness and severe indigestion, the god or his priests ordered a diet of bread and curdled milk, with parsley and lettuce, lemons boiled in water, also milk and honey. Apellas being an irascible person, the god ordered careful avoidance of the emotion of anger, and desired him to run and swing in the gymnasium, and use vigorous friction and counter-irritation to the surface of the body. Probably Apellas was a wealthy and luxurious city-dweller, who took too much food and Chian wine, and who suffered, as many in that age did, from gout. He is eventually cured, and erects a tablet to show his gratitude.