throwing of dice, which was the case in the game of “five-lines” (πεντέγραμμος). But even here there seem to have been modifications, which would enable a skilful player to compensate himself for an unfavourable throw, by the choice of various moves open to him. The games played with knuckle-bones and dice were pure games of chance, and were very often played for money. In playing dice they used several, generally three, dice, corresponding exactly to those of the present day, and a cup from which they threw them, and a board or a table with a raised edge on to which they were thrown. The victory depended on the number of points thrown. The best throw, three times six, was called the “Coan,” the worst, three times one, was called the “dog,” but there were various rules of the game dealing with particular combinations, such as is still the case in dice-playing at the present day.

There were several ways of playing with astragals, or knuckle-bones, which were really the ball of the ankle-joint of a lamb, or else were artificially imitated in other material. One way of playing, chiefly used by children, but also sometimes by grown-up people, was a real game of skill, and consisted in throwing up a number, usually five, of knuckle-bones, pebbles, beans, coins, etc., and catching them again on the back of the hand, meantime picking up with the stretched-out fingers those which had fallen down. Sometimes they only played “odd or even,” and one of the players had to guess straight away whether the other had an odd or even number of these astragals, which took the place of our counters, in his closed hand. Sometimes they played with astragals in the same way as with dice. In this case the four large sides of the bone, on which it might fall, had a particular numerical value, which was not written upon it, but depended on the shape of the bone, as each side differed from the others. The convex narrow side counted as one, the other, concave, narrow side as six, the broad convex side as three, and the broad concave side as four; two and five were wanting altogether, for the other little surfaces of the bone were not counted, since it could never fall upon them. Four pieces were generally used for playing, and they were treated just like dice; the best throw was that in which each of the astragals lay in a different position, and thus all values were represented, sometimes they counted according to the highest number thrown. In works of art we very often see girls playing astragal. One of the prettiest of these is the terra-cotta figure from Tanagra, represented in Fig. 103.

Another game of chance was “fast and loose,” which very closely resembled the game still played at fairs

by sharpers. A strap was folded double and wound round several times on a table; the player then pricked it with a dagger or other pointed instrument, and if, when the strap was unwound, it appeared that the point had gone between the layers of the strap, he won; but he lost if the strap could be entirely wound off. Another favourite game was similar to morra, still popular in Italy. Two players quickly thrust out their right hands with some fingers bent in and others stretched out, and they have at one glance to notice and exclaim how many fingers of both hands together are stretched out. This game is often represented on ancient works of art; for instance, on the vase painting depicted in Fig. 104. Here a youth and a girl are playing, both are seated, though morra players of the present day stand; in their left hands they hold a stick, the object of which is to prevent them in the excitement of the game from using their left hands by mistake. Similarly the Italians put their left hands behind their backs while playing. The youth is stretching out four fingers, the girl two, so that the number to be called out in this case is six. A Cupid seated above is handing a wreath to the girl, and thus pointing her out as victorious.

A popular amusement in Greece was cock and quail fighting, a pursuit which played so important a part at Athens that even the great theatre of Dionysus had to be used for the purpose, and the Athenians actually maintained that this was a spectacle calculated to rouse the courage of the citizens to brave deeds. Fighting cocks were trained at Tanagra and Rhodes; both young and old men aimed at the possession of fighting cocks or quails, carried them about for hours, and tried by all possible means to excite their courage in order to obtain prizes. For this purpose they were fed with garlic, and sometimes brazen spurs were even tied on them in order to make the wounds they inflicted more serious. The representations (compare the vase painting, Fig. 105) show

that before the beginning of the fight each owner took his bird in his hand, knelt down, and thus gradually approached the cocks to one another in order to excite them from a distance; then they were sent against each other, and the owners stood up again. Sometimes the hens were present at the fight, because the cocks were more inclined to fight in their presence. A curious custom is mentioned—namely, that the owner of the defeated bird took it up as quickly as possible and shouted loud into its ear; the object of this was supposed to be to prevent the defeated cock from hearing the triumphant crow of his conqueror, and thus being discouraged for future combats.

To return to the symposium. We have already mentioned that, in spite of the custom of mixing the wine with water, the great quantities consumed, since drinking went on far into the night, did often conduce to drunkenness. The scenes which were sometimes enacted by the light of the quivering oil lamps were not always very attractive or indicative of the grace and moderation which we are apt to regard as the special qualities of Greeks. The vase painting depicted in Fig. 106 shows us the immediate consequences of excessive drinking: we see a youth vomiting his wine, while a pretty girl is smiling and holding his head.

The official termination of the symposium was a libation to Hermes, but even then they did not always set out on their homeward journey in company with the slaves who were waiting for their masters with torches or lanterns, but sometimes their excitement led them to wander noisily through the streets with the flute girls and torch bearers in a Comus (κῶμος), and they thus entered the houses of friends who were still sitting at their wine, or carried on all manner of jokes and absurdities. This naturally led to other scenes, such as fighting, etc., especially if one of the participants tried to obtain entrance to an hetaera, when a quarrel often ensued between the rivals. The vase painting depicted in Fig. 107 represents a scene from the Comus, the chief person in which is the drunken Hercules, accompanied by satyrs, but in reality it is only a scene from real life transported to the heroic domain. The hero, who is lying dead drunk on the

ground, appears to have demanded admittance at a door which remained closed to him, and some old woman has poured water upon him from a window over the doorway. Two young satyrs, adorned with fillets and wreaths, of whom one bears a thyrsus and a basket of fruit and cakes, the other a mixing-bowl and fillets, and a harp girl with a thyrsus wand, and a flute player with a torch, are the attendants of this night wanderer. These scenes furnish an unpleasant contrast to the conclusion of the Platonic Symposium, when Socrates, who has been drinking hard all night, but at the same time carrying on serious conversation with some friends as staunch as himself, gets up at daybreak, while the rest of the participants have fallen fast asleep, walks with steady step to the well in the Lyceum, and then, as usual, proceeds to his day’s occupations.

CHAPTER VII.

SICKNESS AND PHYSICIANS, DEATH AND BURIAL.

The Great Plague—Homer’s References to Physicians—Asklepiadae—The Oath of Hippocrates—General Practitioners and Specialists—Plutus of Aristophanes—Customs connected with Death, Burial, and Burning—Tombs and their Ornaments.

Greek mythology tells us that in the golden age mankind lived without trouble or sorrows, equally unacquainted with vice and with cruel disease; but when fatal curiosity opened the disastrous box of Pandora, along with a thousand other troubles which pursue mankind, there came forth also the countless diseases which attack men by day and night. The myth thus expresses in simple language that, with the advance of civilisation and the disappearance of the ancient simple mode of life in accordance with nature, the number of diseases also increased. But the greater the number of these attacks on the health and life of mankind, the more eagerly do men seek to avoid them, though, at first, in a purely empirical manner, and, therefore, the beginnings of the healing art are as ancient as human civilisation itself. The oldest literary monument of Greek life, the Homeric Epic, makes little mention of disease, with the exception of the great plague, which devastated the camp of the Greeks before Troy. The reason of this, however, lies in the nature of the poet’s subject, and we must not on that account infer that illness was little known. Even in Homer mention is made of physicians, and though the Homeric doctors were chiefly concerned with healing the wounds inflicted in war, still they possessed some surgical skill in cutting arrows out of wounds, putting on bandages, etc., and were also acquainted with the healing qualities of certain herbs, which they used not only for external treatment of injuries, but also apparently for internal use, in reducing fever, etc. Knowledge of this kind always appears very early, even among nations of slight civilisation, and is handed down from generation to generation. But the healing art was not confined to heroes or demigods, such as Aesculapius and Podalirius, who were afterwards regarded as ancestors of the physicians’ profession, and who traced their origin and their knowledge alike to the gods. There were also, even at that time, professional physicians, and certainly it cannot have been left to chance to determine that some persons possessing surgical and medical knowledge should be with every army.

It is no longer possible to trace in detail the development of the medical profession after the times of Homer. In the historical period we find the healing art developed in two special directions; first, as practised by an actual medical profession; secondly, as a kind of religious mystery in the hands of priests; besides these, quackery was known in antiquity, as in all times.

The professional physicians, who, even in later times, regarded their art as divine, and handed down by their ancestor Aesculapius (on which account they also called themselves Asklepiadae), were probably a development from the priestly physicians. It is very likely that in the first centuries after Homer, the practice of the medical art was still directly connected with the worship of Aesculapius, and that the separation which we find in the historic period, where some remained as medical assistants to the priests in the sanctuaries, and others practised independently on their own account, only gradually made way. It cannot be a mere chance that the places where the most celebrated medical schools of antiquity existed, Cos and Cnidus, were also regarded as the chief seats of the worship of Aesculapius. The professional physicians, who practised their art independently, and were not connected with the sanctuaries, naturally received a fee, and though this brought them into somewhat bad repute, with which every art that conduced to making money was regarded, yet their occupation stood in much higher general estimation than any of the trades, and it was a serious reproach if they, as sometimes happened, insisted on receiving their payment beforehand, and in case of inability to pay, refused to give any treatment at all. Their knowledge was not acquired at colleges or hospitals, like that of our modern physicians, but, as a rule, they became assistants or apprentices to old experienced physicians, whom they accompanied on their visits, and by whom they were instructed in diagnosis and therapeutics, as well as in the preparation of medicines. There were sellers of drugs, who kept the most important remedies, but there were no apothecaries in our modern sense, and physicians always prepared their own medicines. There does not appear to have been any examination necessary in early times before practising the medical profession, or any direct control or supervision of the doctors, but in later times physicians seem to have held together in a sort of guild, and, perhaps, even solemnly dismissed their apprentices at the end of their period of instruction before their assembled colleagues. This is suggested by the oath of Hippocrates, which has been preserved to us, in which the young disciple of Aesculapius promises to keep only the welfare of his patient before him, to keep silence, to give no one poison, even at his own request, etc. Probably this oath was only used in the school of Hippocrates and his followers.

Among the professional physicians there was a further distinction between those who practised privately and those who had official positions. The former either gave their advice at home or else visited their patients. Slight invalids, who were able to go out, generally visited the physician in his consulting hours, and there they received not only advice but sometimes also direct treatment, since other apartments for bathing, operating, etc., were connected with the consulting room, and the physician also prepared and dispensed his medicines here. Even those who were very ill, as, for instance, the wounded Lamachus in the “Acharnians” of Aristophanes, were carried straight to the doctor when the case was pressing. Of course a very celebrated physician could not himself treat all his patients, and he therefore employed assistants in his consulting room, who also accompanied him when he paid visits abroad, in order to profit by the master’s experience at the sick bed; and it may not have been very pleasant for the patients when the doctor thus arrived in company of a not inconsiderable troop of students. It was still more unpleasant, however, if want of means compelled them to resort to inferior assistants, who sometimes were even slaves. These slave doctors were not only summoned to the slave population, but they also treated free people, chiefly those who were too poor to pay a high fee. Of these it was said that they differed from the better physicians, who were careful and who studied and watched their patients, in paying very hasty visits, scarcely taking time to inquire after the nature of the illness, and hurrying on after giving any directions that might occur to them. Sometimes a citizen had one of his slaves taught the healing art by some physician, supposing he showed any ability for this profession, and by this means he had someone in the house who, in case of need, could supply help at once. The position of the Greek slaves, especially in Attica, was a comparatively free one, and therefore we must not be surprised that they were willing to entrust the welfare of their body to a slave, seeing that they even left much of the moral training of their children to him. Complaints were often made, too, about free physicians, not on account of their hastiness and carelessness, but rather because of their boastful and haughty bearing; thus, for instance, Menecrates, a physician of Syracuse, was accused of always dressing in the most elaborate fashion, and wishing to be called Zeus. Others were rude or inconsiderate to their patients, like that doctor who answered a patient, when he expressed fear of death, with the words of Homer:—“Patroclus, too, is dead, and he was a better man than thou.” Others gave annoyance by carelessness in their dress and noisy manner, loud talk, etc. Hippocrates insisted that a physician should aim at a certain amount of elegance in dress and care in regard to his person, though he adds characteristically that any doctor is at liberty to do otherwise supposing his patients prefer it.

The position of the public physicians, who were chosen and paid by a community, and therefore bound to receive no fees for their treatment, was a different one, though it is not clear whether they treated all the citizens or only the poor ones. These public physicians sometimes received very high salaries. Thus the physician Democedes, as public doctor at Aegina, received a salary of one talent (about £326); thereupon he was summoned to Athens with a salary of a hundred minae (£393), and in the following year the tyrant Polycrates, of Samos, invited him, probably to fill the post of public physician, not as his own private doctor, and gave him a salary of two talents (probably Attic talents, therefore £471). On the other hand we sometimes hear of rich physicians treating the poor free of charge.

Specialists do not seem to have been common in ancient Greece, the same doctors treated external and internal complaints, and also men and women. It seems, however, from the oath of Hippocrates that there were specialists who undertook the operation of cutting for stone. Oculists were unknown till a later period, when the medical practice generally developed in various ways, and in particular the influence of gymnastics, and the dietetics connected therewith had a very important influence on medical methods.

These physicians, although they at times made use of strange or “sympathetic” means of treatment, yet in general aimed at scientific methods, building on the knowledge handed down to them by their predecessors, and enriching it by their own experience and studies. On the other hand, the healing processes, to which the priests of the Aesculapian sanctuaries resorted, seem to have occupied a very doubtful position between empirical therapeutics and superstitious hocus-pocus. It had been a custom from ancient times for the priests of Aesculapius to practise the healing art. Their knowledge was supposed to be in part very ancient, handed down by the god himself, and in part divine revelation, which was continually renewed. Some of the sanctuaries of Aesculapius were renowned and visited beyond all others on account of their wonderful and successful cures, in particular Cos, Cnidus, Tricca, but especially Epidaurus, and afterwards also Pergamum. To these sanctuaries the invalids who sought healing went as pilgrims, just as people still go in Catholic countries to wonder-working shrines, and as in these we see countless memorials of successful cures, pictures and descriptions of diseases, wax or silver imitations of the part or limb that was healed, etc., so in ancient times thank-offerings were made to Aesculapius, sometimes in the shape of coin, sometimes also imitations of hands, legs, eyes, ears, and breasts, etc., in marble, silver, or gold, or else in simple wax or clay, together with the name of the person who found healing there. Some also dedicated tablets, on which was inscribed a detailed account of their illness and cure, and the priests set up large tablets in the domain of the temple, on which all manner of wonderful cures were described. The geographer Strabo tells us of such inscriptions, describing diseases, in the sanctuaries of Epidaurus, Cos, and Tricca. Pausanias saw in the temple domain at Epidaurus six large tablets of this kind. Very considerable fragments of two of these were found a few years ago, which give us a very interesting insight into the proceedings at the Aesculapian sanctuaries.

The healing methods of the priests of Aesculapius were especially distinguished from those of the professional physicians by the veil of secrecy and miracle which surrounded them, since they rightly understood that the love of wonders among the common people would always bring them success. The healing was effected by what was called “incubation”; the patient had to lie down at night in the sanctuary and sleep; in a dream the god appeared to him, and either suggested to him the remedy which would cure him, or else undertook, on the spot, to heal the sleeper, so that the patient, when he awoke, found himself restored to health, and went joyfully away! Aristophanes, in his “Plutus,” drastically depicts one of these cures in the temple. The blind god of riches comes to the temple of Aesculapius to seek for healing; after taking a bath in the sea, he is conducted to the sanctuary; he offers a sacrifice and then lies down to sleep, together with other patients, and one of the temple servants warns them to keep unbroken silence. The servant who accompanies Plutus, and who relates the proceedings, seems to be a somewhat free-thinking rogue. He cannot sleep, and as he observes that after the invalids have gone to sleep, the priests take away and pocket the offerings laid upon the altars, he also takes the opportunity to filch a pot of porridge from an old woman near him. After a time the god himself appears, accompanied by two goddesses of healing. He goes round, examines the individual patients, and, at last, comes also to Plutus; he feels his head, dries his eyelids with a linen cloth, and one of the goddesses puts a purple veil over his face. Suddenly two great snakes come from the interior of the temple, creep under the veil, and lick the eyelids of Plutus, who thus recovers the power of sight. Here the cure takes place during sleep, as also in the stories which are related on the inscriptions of Epidaurus, mentioned above. There, too, an account is given of the cure of a blind woman to whom Aesculapius appears in a dream, and restores her sight by dropping some healing lotion into her eyes, in return for the promise that she will dedicate a silver pig to Aesculapius (to whom pigs were often sacrificed), as a penalty for having come to the temple in a state of unbelief. Such cures of blindness are often mentioned in the inscriptions; sometimes the dog, which was also sacred to Aesculapius, takes the place of the god, as the snakes did in Aristophanes, and cures the eyes by licking them; in another case the snake of Aesculapius cures the wounded toes of a patient by licking. Many cases are even more wonderful. A man, who has completely lost one of his eyes, receives the lost eye again by means of healing lotion poured into his sockets by the god during sleep. A woman, who has a worm in her body, dreams that Aesculapius cuts it open for her, takes the worm out, and sews it up again. A man has moles on his forehead, which the god removes by laying a bandage over his brow, whereupon next moment it appears perfectly white and pure, while the moles are left on the bandage; another man has lost the use of the fingers of one hand, the god jumps on his hand and pulls his fingers straight again, whereupon he is once more able to use them, etc., etc. Indeed, Aesculapius not only cures sick people, but also lifeless objects. A slave has broken his master’s cup, and as he sits sadly looking at it, a passer-by laughingly says that even Aesculapius could not mend that. That suggests to him taking the fragments into the temple, and next morning, when he opens the case in which he has put them, behold, the cup is whole again!

It is difficult to say which part of these stories is mere charlatanism and what refers to real medical treatment by means of operation. It is but natural that the priests at first got information by questioning each patient about his illness. The sleep in the sanctuary, which was indispensable for healing, was probably not a natural one, but either a mesmeric sleep—since undoubtedly the ancients were acquainted with this—or else a half-sleep induced by some narcotic, during which the priests in the service of Aesculapius or their assistants appeared and performed slight surgical operations on the sick people. This hypothesis is the more probable, since all the cures mentioned in these inscriptions from Epidaurus (which, though dating from the time of Alexander the Great, are copies of older inscriptions, probably of the fifth century) deal only with external means and never with internal treatment; no medicine or healing drink is mentioned.

The cures which took place later on in the sanctuaries of Aesculapius by means of incubation, or temple sleep, which were customary even in the Roman period, were of a different nature. The invalids were not actually cured during their sleep, but they received in a dream an indication from the god of the manner in which they could be freed from their sufferings, directions sometimes in reference to dietetic measures, such as baths, fasting, etc., and sometimes to medicines. In these cases, too, we must suppose that the invalid fell into a state of half-sleep, during which a priest in the form of the god appeared, and gave the directions in question, for which a quantity of medical knowledge, gradually acquired by experience, stood the priests in good stead. Sometimes healing thermae, or springs, which were found near some of the sanctuaries, did good service, especially if the invalids remained there for some time. The Greek sanctuaries of Aesculapius were almost always situated on high ground, where the air was healthy and pure. There must always have been houses for the reception of sick people, especially those who came from a great distance. Thus the sanctuary of Aesculapius at Epidaurus was about four miles from the town, but, to prevent any pollution of the holy place, no children must be born there and no one must die there, and on this account pregnant women and dying people were mercilessly sent away. Of course the priests did not give their aid for nothing, but were repaid in money or offerings to the shrine, and we find many allusions to these offerings; indeed, the sanctuary at Epidaurus could vie in wealth with that at Delphi.

It was not only in the temples of Aesculapius that dream oracles existed. Many other gods or heroes took similar care for suffering humanity, just as at the present day the shrines which possess miraculous pictures of Madonnas or relics vie with one another. Thus sick people were received in the temple of Hades, situated between Tralles and Nysa, in Lydia, but here it was the priests and not the patients to whom the method of cure was revealed in sleep, and this was also the case in the temple of Amphiaraus at Oropus, on the borders of Attica and Boeotia.

Mention must also be made of quackery and sympathetic cures. The belief in the latter was very general in antiquity, and was shared even by unprejudiced men of considerable education. This was effected by amulets, supposed to ward off or heal diseases, and also by magic words which we should now describe as conjuring; laying on of hands, symbolical washing, etc. The sellers of drugs were specially occupied with quackery; besides rouge, paint, and other means of promoting beauty, they also sold medicines and offered their wares in mountebank fashion. Very often, when sick people had failed to obtain alleviation or cure from a regular physician, they gave him up and resorted to quackery instead.

There were a number of half symbolical, half superstitious, customs connected with death and burial, which were partly due to the belief that the soul would be more easily received and allowed to remain in the dark realm of shadows in consequence of this care of the body; but the ancients also regarded fitting burial and care for the grave as the fulfilment of a duty imposed by the gods, and likely also to bring blessing to the surviving members of the race. This duty was, therefore, only neglected in the very rarest cases. Criminals were buried without any ceremony, or were left to rot unburied; suicides, too, were refused the common honours of public burial, and were put away by night, a time which was not customary for funerals.

In order to gain some insight into these customs, let us turn once more to that house which we visited in order to be present at the birth and early life of an Athenian of the well-to-do class. Let us suppose that after spending a long and honourable life in the service of his country, he has lain down to take his last rest. Surrounded by the nearest members of his family, he has breathed his last breath, after having himself, with his dying hand, drawn one of the points of his garment over his face, in order to spare his friends the painful sight of the death struggle. One of the survivors now steps up to the bed, uncovers the face of the dead man, and softly closes his eyes and mouth. According to the curious ancient belief, not peculiar to the Greeks, that a human being is unclean immediately after entrance into life, and also on his departure from the world, and as this uncleanness is extended to the whole house and all who associate with it, immediately after the death a vessel of consecrated water, which must be brought from another house, is placed before the door, and everyone who leaves the dwelling sprinkles himself from it, in order to be once more pure and able to associate with others. The corpse is then washed by the women of the family, anointed with fine oil and sweet-scented essences, and clothed in pure white garments. These are the dress of common life—the chiton and the himation, but so put on that both arms are covered and only the head and feet seen. Youths were probably clad in the chlamys, and the Spartans preferred to clothe their dead in the scarlet military cloak, while at Athens coloured garments were sometimes used instead of white. On the dead man’s head they put a wreath of real flowers—whatever the season might supply—or else laurel, olive, or ivy. At burial, this was often replaced by an artificial wreath of beaten gold leaf, and numerous remains of these death-wreaths, which were often of very artistic workmanship, have been found in Greek graves. Relations and friends also sent fresh wreaths and garlands as a token of sympathy, and these were used for decking the bier and grave. In the dead man’s mouth they put a coin, as passage money for the ferryman who had to ferry the souls over the Styx; for after the belief in Charon, which was unknown in the Homeric period, had taken firm root among the Greeks, it was regarded as a pious duty to supply the dead man, as soon as possible, with this passage money, in order that the shade might not wander too long restlessly by the shore of Styx. The coin was put in his mouth, because in common life it was not unusual to put single coins in the hollow of the cheek, since pockets were unknown in ancient costume; large sums were seldom carried about, or else they were put in a bag. It was a similar superstition which made people in some places put a honey-cake by the side of the corpse to pacify the dog Cerberus, the fierce guardian of the lower regions. Previous to the funeral there was a solemn laying-out of the body, when friends and acquaintances came to see the departed for the last time, and the near relations took part in the funeral lament for the dead. This laying-out, or πρόθεσις, usually took place in the central hall of the house, but care was taken that the sun should not shine on the corpse, since even the Sun god must not pollute himself by the sight of a dead body. On a couch covered with cushions and hangings, adorned with flowers and branches, the dead man was laid, his feet turned towards the house door, through which he must take his last journey; round about him, at any rate at Athens, they placed large or small oil flasks (λήκυθοι), adorned with paintings, all depicting scenes dealing with death or graves, which were made in one of the Attic vase factories specially for this purpose, and were probably sent by sympathetic friends as funeral offerings. Besides the nearest relations, intimate friends also took part in the solemn funeral lament, and were sometimes specially invited for the purpose. The servants of the house also stood by the couch with the other mourners, and joined with them in the lament, in which men and women, standing apart, joined alternately. This lament was no wild, irregular wail, but a regular hymn of sorrow, and very often singers were specially hired in order to add to the beauty of the performance, and the hymn was sometimes broken from time to time by choruses sung either by the whole assembly or by semi-choruses. Many external marks of sorrow were also shown, such as are customary in the south, where the character of the people is more violent and excitable, viz., beating the breast, lacerating the cheeks, tearing out the hair, rending the garments; and sometimes cries of grief