of these."[11]

There were several physicians of the name of Themison at different
times, and it is probably the founder of the Methodici who was satirized
by Juvenal thus:--

"How many patients Themison dispatched
In one short autumn."[12]

The joke which is based on attributing a cure to Nature alone, and death
solely to the physician's want of skill, is one of the most
time-honoured.

Themison lived at the close of the Roman Republic, and it will now be
necessary to consider the state of the healing art in Rome under the
rule of the emperors.

Julius Caesar--one of the first triumvirate--invaded and conquered Gaul
and Britain, and after these great military achievements, found that he
could not sheath his sword until he had met in battle his rival Pompey.
Caesar defeated Pompey at Pharsalia, in Thessaly (48 B.C.), and pursued
him to Egypt. Pompey was murdered in Egypt, and his last followers
finally defeated in Spain, and in 45 B.C. Julius Caesar returned to Rome,
and was declared perpetual _imperator_. On March 15, 44 B.C., he was
assassinated. It is possible that the career of this great man may have
promoted the surgery of the battlefield, but his reign as Emperor was
too short, and the political situation of his time too acute, to permit
of much progress in the arts of peace generally, and in the medical art
particularly. Julius Caesar bestowed the right of Roman citizenship on
all medical practitioners in the city.

Referring to the death of Julius Caesar, Suetonius writes that among so
many wounds there was none that was mortal, in the opinion of the
surgeon Antistus, except the second, which he received in the breast.

Octavianus was appointed one of the second triumvirate, his colleagues
being Mark Antony and Lepidus. Lepidus was first forced out of the
triumvirate, and Octavianus and Mark Antony then came into conflict.
During these rivalries, a great civic work was accomplished by Marcus
Agrippa, who built the aqueduct known as _Aqua Julia_. A landmark in
history is the battle of Actium, in which Octavianus defeated Mark
Antony and his ally Cleopatra, and within a few years Octavianus was
proclaimed Emperor as Augustus Caesar (27 B.C.). Under his rule Rome
greatly prospered, and we shall now consider the state of medicine and
of sanitation during his illustrious reign.

In the Roman Empire there was a spirit of toleration abroad, "and the
various modes of worship which prevailed in the Rom