The medical art, so often modified and renewed as it has been, is still on the change from day to day, and still are we impelled onwards by the puffs[2475] which emanate from the ingenuity of the Greeks. It is quite evident too, that every one among them that finds himself skilled in the art of speech, may forthwith create himself the arbiter of our life and death: as though, forsooth, there were not thousands[2476] of nations who live without any physicians at all, though not, for all that, without the aid of medicine. Such, for instance, was the Roman[2477] people, for a period of more than six hundred years; a people, too, which has never shown itself slow to adopt all useful arts, and which even welcomed the medical art with avidity, until, after a fair experience of it, there was found good reason to condemn it. CHAP. 6.—WHO FIRST PRACTISED AS A PHYSICIAN AT ROME, AND AT WHAT PERIOD. And, indeed, it appears to me not amiss to take the present opportunity of reviewing some remarkable facts in the days of our forefathers connected with this subject. Cassius Hemina,[2478] one of our most ancient writers, says that the first physician that visited Rome was Archagathus, the son of Lysanias, who came over from Peloponnesus, in the year of the City 535, L. Æmilius and M. Livius being consuls. He states also, that the right of free citizenship[2479] was granted him, and that he had a shop[2480] provided for his practice at the public expense in the Acilian Cross-way;[2481] that from his practice he received the name of “Vulnerarius;”[2482] that on his arrival he was greatly welcomed at first, but that soon afterwards, from the cruelty displayed by him in cutting and searing his patients, he acquired the new name of “Carnifex,”[2483] and brought his art and physicians in general into considerable disrepute. That such was the fact, we may readily understand from the words of M. Cato, a man whose authority stands so high of itself, that but little weight is added to it by the triumph[2484] which he gained, and the Censorship which he held. I shall, therefore, give his own words in reference to this subject. CHAP. 7.—THE OPINIONS ENTERTAINED BY THE ROMANS ON THE ANCIENT PHYSICIANS.