Chap. 38.] 
GEOMETRY AND AECHITECTUEE. 
183 
much skill, that, although the sight was lost, there was no 
defect to be seen.*^ Asclepiades of Prusa, however, acquired 
the greatest fame of all — he founded a new sect, treated with 
disdain the promises of King Mithridates conveyed to him 
by an embassy, discovered a method of successfully treating 
diseases by wine,^^ and, breaking in upon the funeral ceremony, 
saved the life of a man, who was actually placed**^ on the fune- 
ral pile. He rendered himself, however, more celebrated than 
all, by staking his reputation as a physician against Fortune 
herself, and asserting that he did not wish to be so much as 
looked upon as a physician, if he should ever happen in any 
way to fall sick ; and he won his wager, for he met his death 
at an extreme old age, by falling down stairs. 
CHAP. 38. — GEOMETEY AKD AECHITECTUEE. 
M. Marcellus, too, at the taking of Syracuse, offered a re- 
markable homage to the sciences of geometry and mechanics, 
by giving orders that Archimedes was to be the only person 
who should not be molested ; his commands, however, were 
disregarded, in consequence of the imprudence of one of the 
soldiers.^ Chersiphron, also, the Cnossian,^^ was rendered fa- 
mitted to depart, however, when the city was taken, with one garment to 
each person. 
^1 This accident occurred to Philip, at the siege of Methone, of which 
we have a hrief account in Diodorus Siculus, B. xvi. c. 7, and in Justin, 
B. vii. c. 6 ; but neither of these authors makes any mention of Critobulus. 
Quintus Curtius, B. ix. c. 5, informs us, that Critobulus exhibited great skill 
in relieving Alexander the Great from the effects of a dangerous wound, 
which he received in India ; but he does not refer to the fact here men- 
tioned. — B, 
*2 At the present day, this mode of treatment would have figured as the 
^' wine-cure.'* 
See B. xxvi. c. 8. 
^ Pliny again speaks of Asclepiades, in B. xxvi. c. 7, and B. xxix. c. 5. 
The anecdote respecting the man who was saved from the funeral pile is 
referred to by Celsus, B. ii. c. 6. — B. Pliny says, in B, xxvi. c. 7, that 
Asclepiades first came to Rome as a teacher of rhetoric, and that being un- 
successful, he turned his attention to medicine. Bruce, the Abyssinian 
traveller, also met his death by falling down stairs. Rabelais, in the pro- 
logue to his Fourth Book, refers to this peculiar death of Asclepiades. 
^5 This is related more at large by Yal. Maximus, B. viii, c. 7, and by 
Plutarch.— B. 
^6 Mentioned in B. xxxvi. c. 31. 
