Contemporary with the great master of language was the great master of medicine, Hippokrates, (460-357) who is to his science what Homer is to poetry and Herodotus to history--the first historical founder of the art of healing. He was a native of Kōs, a small island of the S.W. coast of Lesser Asia, the traditional cradle and home of the disciples of Asklepios, or Æsculapius (as he was termed by the Latins), the semi-divine author and patron of medicine. And it may be remarked, in passing, that the College of Asklepiads of Kōs were careful to exercise a despotism as severe and exclusive as that which obtains, for the most part, with the modern orthodox schools. Amongst a large number of writings of various kinds attributed to Hippokrates is the treatise _On Regimen in Acute Diseases_ (περὶ Διαίτης Ὀξέων), which is generally received as genuine; and _On the Healthful Regimen_ (περὶ Διαίτης Ὑγιεινῆς), which belongs to the same age, though not to the _canonical_ writings of the founder of the school himself. He was the author, real or reputed, of some of the most valuable apophthegms of Greek antiquity. _Ars longa--Vita brevis_ (education is slow; life is short) is the best known, and most often quoted. What is still more to our purpose is his maxim--“Over-drinking is _almost as bad_ as over-eating.” Of all the productions of this most voluminous of writers, his _Aphorisms_ (Ἀφορισμοί), in which these specimens of laconic wisdom are collected, and which consists of some four hundred short practical sentences, are the most popular. About a century after the death of Plato appeared a popular exposition of the Pythagorean teaching, in hexameters, which is known by the title given to it by Iamblichus--the _Golden Verses_. “More than half of them,” says Professor Clifford, “consist of a sort of versified ‘Duty to God and my Neighbour,’ except that it is not designed by the rich to be obeyed by the poor; that it lays stress on the laws of health; and that it is just such sensible counsel for the good and right conduct of life as an Englishman might now-a-days give to his son.” Hierokles, an eminent Neo-Platonist of the fifth century, A.D., gave a course of lectures upon them at Alexandria--which since the time of the Ptolemies had been one of the chief centres of Greek learning and science--and his commentary is sufficiently interesting. Suïdas, the lexicographer, speaks of his matter and style in the highest terms of praise. “He astonished his hearers everywhere,” he tells us, “by the calm, the magnificence, the width of his superlative intellect, and by the sweetness of his speech, full of the most beautiful words and things.” The Alexandrian lecturer quotes the old Pythagorean maxims: