DEMOKEDES. 259 Darius, probably from the talk of Demokedes himself: more- over, gigantic muscular force could be appreciated by men who had no relish either for Homer or Solon. And thus did this clever and vainglorious Greek, sending back his fifteen Persian companions to disgrace, and perhaps to death, deposit in their parting ears a braggart message, calculated to create for himself a factitious name at Susa. He paid a large sum to Milo as the price of his daughter, for this very purpose. 1 Thus finishes the history of Demokedes, and of the " first Persians (to use the phrase of Herodotus) who ever came over from Asia into Greece." 3 It is a history well deserving of atten- tion, even looking only to the liveliness of the incidents, intro- ducing us as they do into the full movement of the ancient world, incidents which I see no reason for doubting, with a reason- able allowance for the dramatic amplification of the historian. Even at that early date, Greek medical intelligence stands out in a surpassing manner, and Demokedes is the first of those many able Greek surgeons who were seized, carried up to Susa, 3 and there detained for the Great King, his court, and harem. But his history suggests, in another point of view, far more serious reflections. Like the Milesian Histia3us, of whom I shall speak hereafter,) he cared not what amount of risk he brought upon his country in order to procure his own escape from a splendid detention at Susa. And the influence which he origi- nated and brought to bear was on the point of precipitating upon Greece the whole force of the Persian empire, at a time when Greece was in no condition to resist it. Had the first aggressive 1 Herodot. iii, 137. Kara 6?) TOVTO (tot (nrevaai doKtet rbv yufiav TOVTOV reJieaas xpfyaTa fj.iya.ha A^/zo/a/ityf , Iva ^avy npbf Aapeiov EUV Kal kv ry tu'VTOV 6/JKlfl.Of. 2 Herodot. iii, 138. 3 Xenophon, Memorab. iv, 2, 33. "A/l/lcwf 6e KOGOVS oisi (says Sokratts) iitl aoipiav uvap-uarovf ;rpt)f ftaaiTiea yeyovivai, nal eael dovfavetv. We shall rim little risk in conjecturing that, among the intelligent and able men thus carried off, surgeons and physicians would be selected as the first and most essential. Apollonides of Kos whose calamitous end has been alluded to in a previous note was resident as surgeon, or physician, with Artaxerxes Longhnanus (Ktesias, Persica, c. 30), and Polykritus of Mende, as well aa Ktsias himself, with Artaxerxes Mnemon (Plutarch, Artaxerxes, c. 31).
