523 



The passage is as follows : ' Cassar, having been captui-ed by 

 pirates near the island of Pharmacusa, was detained by them 

 for forty days, with one physician and two servants; for he 

 had sent away his companions and his other slaves to obtain 

 money for his ransom.' The words in the old copies are ' cmn 

 uno medico et cubiculariis duobus.' Plutarch, in alluding to 

 the circumstance, calls the physician the friend (^tAov) of 

 Csesar ; on which account, Robertellus altered the text from 

 * uno medico' to ' uno amico,' assigning as his reason that 

 the physicians of Rome were slaves, and that therefore it was 

 improbable that Caesar would cultivate or permit an intimacy 

 with one of that condition. Caesar, however, might have been 

 of the opinion of Epicm'us and Seneca, that slaves are no other 

 than friends of a more humble class. Eudemus is called, by 

 Tacitus, the physician and friend of Livia. But Philippus Ber- 

 caldus adopted the correction, and also the statement that ' in 

 ancient times the physicians were amongst the number of 

 slaves:' he says that 'competent authorities have decided the 

 point, and chiefly Seneca.' Several others, on the same autho- 

 rities, have arrived at the same conclusion ; amongst whom 

 may be munbered J. J. Hoffman (Lex.), Forcellini, and Fac- 

 ciolati (Lex.), and C. F. Hermann. On the other hand, the 

 learned Casaubon, commenting on the reading of Robertellus, 

 says : ' In the first place, it is false that all who then professed 

 medicine at Rome were slaves ; many Greeks, excelhng in that 

 art, frequented Rome for the profitable practice of their pro- 

 fession ; some of them having been rendered free, and others 

 being not only free themselves, but the sons of freemen {inge- 

 nui): ' It is most false that the physicians were not received 

 in the relation of friends by the Roman magnates.' He then 

 gives instances where they were admitted to the friendship of 

 emperors. 



" The object of Casaubon being merely to restore what he 

 conceived to be the true reading of his author, he has not 

 brought forward the evidences which were within his reach. 



