The siege of Troy is supposed to have taken place about three hundred years before the Iliad was sung, and in that early time it appears that the cultivation of our art formed part of the general education of kings and warriors.[[6]]
Homer introduces us to Machaon the son of Esculapius, who, when Menelaus was treacherously wounded by Pandarus, is called to his aid:
“When the wound appeared in sight, where struck
The stinging arrow, from the clotted blood
He cleansed it, and applied with skilful hand
The healing ointments, which, in friendly guise,
The learned Chiron to his father gave.”[[7]]
Making due allowance for the debasing fable with which every great name or talent is overlaid, it is rational to suppose that Chiron, the teacher of Esculapius, was one of those shepherd philosophers, who like their Babylonian brethren absorbed all the knowledge of the times; but Homer gives us other examples in support of this idea. Chiron was the preceptor of Achilles, and when Machaon is himself wounded, Patroclus is sent by Achilles to his assistance; on his arrival he is urged by Eurypylus, to
“Draw the deadly dart,
With luke-warm water wash the gore away: