The doctors of Ancient Rome took no regular course of study, nor were any standards specified, but as a rule knowledge was acquired by pupilage to a practising physician, for which a honorarium was paid. Subsequently the Archiatri, after the manner of trade guilds, received apprentices, but Pliny had cause to complain of the system of medical education, or rather, to deplore the want of it. He wrote: "People believed in anyone who gave himself out for a doctor, even if the falsehood directly entailed the greatest danger. Unfortunately, there is no law which punishes doctors for ignorance, and no one takes revenge on a doctor if through his fault someone dies. It is permitted him by our danger to learn for the future, at our death to make experiments, and, without having to fear punishment, to set at naught the life of a human being." Before the time when Greek doctors settled in Rome, medical treatment was mainly under the direct charge of the head of each household. The father of a family had great powers conferred upon him by the Roman law, and was physician as well as judge over his family. If he took his new-born infant in his arms he recognized him as his son, but otherwise the child had no claim upon him. He could inflict the most dire punishments on members of his household for which they had no redress. Cato, the Elder, who died in B.C. 149, wrote a guide to domestic medicine for the use of Roman fathers of the Republic, but he was a quack and full of self-conceit. He hated the physicians practising in Rome, who were mostly Greeks, and thought that their knowledge was much inferior to his own. Plutarch relates that Cato knew of the answer given to the King of Persia by Hippocrates, when sent for professionally, "I will never make use of my art in favour of barbarians who are enemies of the Greeks," and pretended to believe that all Greek physicians were bound by the same rule, and animated by the same motives. However, Cato did a great deal of good by attempting to lessen the vice and luxury of his age. The Greeks in Rome were looked at askance as foreign adventurers, and there is no doubt that although many were honourable men, others came to Rome merely to make money out of the superstitious beliefs and credulity of the Roman people. Fine clothes, a good house, and the giving of entertainments, were the best introduction to practice that some of these practitioners could devise. The medical opinions of Cato throw a sidelight upon the state of medicine in his time. He attempted to cure dislocations by uttering a nonsensical incantation: "_Huat hanat ista pista sista damiato damnaustra!_" He considered ducks, geese and hares a light and suitable diet for the sick, and had no faith in fasting.