perpetrators of every abomination were the fit companions
of this tyrant.

Thrasyllus, the astrologer, lived with Tiberius, who was a firm believer
in the magic arts. This reign is made illustrious in the history of
medicine by the work of Celsus.

Caligula, who became Emperor in A.D. 34, was guilty of the most inhuman
conduct. Criminals were given to the wild beasts for their food, and
even people of honourable rank had their faces branded with hot irons as
a punishment by order of this mad tyrant.

Claudius, the successor of Caligula, completed some very important
public works in his reign, including great aqueducts and drains, but
learning was at a low ebb in his day. Claudius Etruscus, the freedman of
the Emperor Claudius, erected baths referred to by Martial. The ruins of
the arches of the Aqua Claudia still remain.

Thrasyllus, a son of the astrologer who lived in the time of Tiberius,
is said to have predicted to Nero the dignity of the purple. Nero would
have been favourably disposed towards physicians if he had heeded the
advice of his tutor, Seneca, who wrote: "People pay the doctor for his
trouble; for his kindness they still remain in his debt." "Great
reverence and love is due to both the teacher and the doctor. We have
received from them priceless benefits; from the doctor, health and life;
from the teacher, the noble culture of the soul. Both are our friends,
and deserve our most sincere thanks, not so much by their merchantable
art, as by their frank goodwill."[19] The practice of necromancy in the
time of Nero had grown to such an extent that an edict of banishment
was issued against all magicians, but this did not lessen the popularity
of the magicians, who indeed prospered under the semblance of
persecution, and were honoured in times of public difficulty and danger.
The practice of astrology came from the Chaldeans, and was introduced
into Greece in the third century before Christ. It was accepted by all
classes, but specially by the Stoic philosophers. In 319 B.C., Cornelius
Hispallus banished the Chaldeans from Rome, and ordered them to leave
Italy within ten days. In 33 B.C., they were again banished by Marcus
Agrippa, and Augustus also issued an edict against them. They were
punished sometimes by death, and their calling must have been lucrative
to induce them to continue in spite of the severe punishments to which
they made themselves liable. The penal laws against them, however, were
in ope