athlete, if prayers were enough. And common sense is the birthright of every Roman. Perhaps, Caesar, you have forgotten the cabbage leaves?'
I stirred irritably on my couch. `Well, what doctor do you recommend? I'll see just one, to please you, but no more. What about Largus? He's the Palace Physician now. Messalina says, that he's quite clever.'
'If Largus had known of a cure for your ailments he would have volunteered it quick enough. No use going to him. If you will only consent to consult a single one, consult Xenophon of Cos.'
`What, my father's old field-surgeon?'
'No, his son. He was with your brother Germanicus on his last campaign, you may remember; then he went to practise at Antioch. He was extraordinary successful there and recently he's come to Rome. He uses the motto of the great Asclepiades, Cure quickly, safely, pleasantly. No violent purges and emetics. Diet, exercise, massage, and a few simple botanical remedies. He cured me of a violent fever with a distillation of the leaves of a purple flowered weed called monk's-hood and then set me right generally with advice about diet, and so forth: told me not to drink so much, and what spices to avoid. A marvellous surgeon too, when it comes to that. He knows exactly where every nerve, bone, muscle, and sinew in the body lies.' He told me that he learned his anatomy from your brother.'
`Germanicus wasn't an anatomist.'
`No, but he was a German-killer. Xenophon picked up his knowledge on the battlefield: Germanicus provided the subjects. No surgeon can learn anatomy in Italy or Greece. He has either to go to Alexandria, where they don't mind cutting up corpses, or follow in the wake of a conquering army.'
'I suppose he'll come if I send for him?'
`What doctor wouldn't? Do you forget who you are? But of course, if he cures you you'll have to pay him handsomely. He likes money. What Greek doesn't?'
`If he cures me.'
I sent for Xenophon. I took an immediate liking to him because his professional interest in me as a case made him forget that I was Emperor and had the power of life and death over him. He was a man of about fifty. After his first formal obeisances and compliments he talked curtly and dryly and kept strictly to the point.
`Your pulse. Thanks. Your tongue. Thanks. Excuse me (he turned up my eyelids). `Eyes somewhat inflamed. Can cure that. I'll give you a lotion to bathe them with. Slight retraction of eyelids. Stand up, please. Yes, infantile paralysis. Can't cure that, naturally. Too late. Could have done so before you stopped growing.'
`You were only a child yourself at the time, Xenophon,' I smiled.
He appeared not to hear me. `Were you a premature birth? Yes? I suspected it. Malaria too?'
`Malaria, measles, colitis, scrofula, erysipelas. The whole battalion answers 'present', Xenophon, except epilepsy, venereal disease, and megalomania.'
He consented to smile briefly. `Strip!' he said. I stripped.. `You eat too much and drink too much. You must stop that. Make it a rule never to rise from the table without an unsatisfied longing for just one little thing more. Yes, left leg much shrunk. No good prescribing exercise. Massage will have to do instead. You may dress again.' He asked me a few more intimate questions, and always in a way that showed he knew the answer and was merely confirming it from my mouth as a matter of routine. `You dribble on your pillow at night, of course?' I owned with shame that this was so. `Fits of sudden anger? Involuntary twitching of the facial muscles? Stuttering when in a state of embarrassment? Occasional weakness of bladder? Fits of aphasia? Rigidity of muscles, so that you often wake up cold and stiff even on warm nights?' He even told me the sort of things I dreamed about.
I asked, astonished: `Can you interpret them, too, Xenophon? That ought to be easy.'
`Yes,' he answered in a matter-of-fact way, 'but there's a law against it. Now, Caesar, I'll tell you about yourself. You have a good many more years to live if you care to live them. You work too hard, but I, cannot, prevent you from doing that, I suppose. I recommend reading as little as possible. The fatigue of which you complain is largely due to eyestrain. Make your secretaries read everything possible out to you. Do as little writing as you can. Rest for an hour after your principal meal: don't rush off to the law-courts as soon as you have gobbled your dessert. You must find time for twenty minutes' massage twice a day. You will need a properly trained masseur. The only properly trained masseurs in Rome are slaves of mine. The best is Charmes: I shall give him special instructions in your case. If you break my rules you must not expect a complete cure, though the medicine that I shall prescribe will do you appreciable good. For instance, the violent cramp in the stomach of which you complain, the cardiac passion as we call it if you neglect your massage and eat a heavy meal in a hurry, when in a state of nervous excitement about something or other, that cramp will come on you again, as sure as fate, in spite of my medicine. But follow my directions and you'll be a sound man.'
`What's the medicine? Is it difficult to come by? Will I have to send to Egypt or India for it?' '
Xenophon permitted himself a little creaking laugh. 'No, nor any farther than the nearest bit of waste land. I belong to the Cos school of medicine: I am a native of Cos, in fact, a descendant of Aesculapius himself. At Cos we classify diseases by their remedies, which are for the most part the herbs that if eaten in great quantities produce the very symptoms that when eaten in moderate quantities they cure. Thus if a child wets his bed after the age of three or four and shows certain other cretinous symptoms associated with bed-wetting we say: 'That child has the Dandelion disease.' Dandelion eaten in large quantities produces these symptoms, and a decoction of dandelion cures them. When I first came into the room and noticed the twitch of your head and the tremor of your hand and the slight stutter of your greeting, together with the rather harsh quality of your voice, I summed you up at once. 'A typical bryony case,' I said to myself.' 'Bryony, massage, diet. '
`What, Common Bryony'
'The same I’ll write out a prescription for its preparation.' `And the prayers?'
`What prayers?'
'Don't you prescribe special prayers to be used when taking the medicine? All the other doctors who have tried to cure me have always given me special prayers to repeat while mixing and taking the medicine.'
He answered, rather stiffly: `I suggest, Caesar, that as High Pontiff and the author of a history of religious origins at Rome, you are better equipped than myself for undertaking the theurgical side of the cure.'
I could see that he was an unbeliever, like so many Greeks, so I did not press the matter, and that ended the interview : he begged to be excused because he had patients' waiting in his consulting-room.
Well, bryony cured me. For the first time in my life I knew what it was to be perfectly well. I followed Xenophon's advice to the letter and have hardly had a day's illness since. Of course, I remain lame and occasionally I stammer and twitch my head from old habit if I get excited. But my aphasia has disappeared, my hand hardly trembles at all, and I can still at the age of sixty-four do a good fourteen hours work a day, if necessary, and not feel utterly exhausted at the end of it. The cardiac passion has recurred occasionally, but only in the circumstances against which Xenophon warned me.
You may be .sure that I paid Xenophon well for my bryony. I persuaded him to come and live at the Palace as Largus's colleague: Largus was a good physician in his way, and had written several books on medical subjects. Xenophon would not come at first. He had built up a large private practice during the few months he had been at Rome: he assessed it as now worth 3,000 gold pieces a year. I offered him 6,000 - Largus's salary was only 3,000 and when he hesitated even then I said: `Xenophon, you must come: I insist. And when you have kept me alive and well for fifteen years, the Governors of Cos will be sent an official letter informing, them that the island where you learned medicine will henceforth be excused from furnishing its military contingent and from paying tribute to the Imperial Government.'
So he consented. If you wish to know to whom my freedman addressed prayers when mixing my medicine and to whom I addressed mine when taking it, it was the Goddess Carna, an old Sabine Goddess whom we Claudians have always cultivated since the time of Appius Claudius, of Regillus. Medicine mixed and taken without prayers would have seemed to me as unlucky and useless as a wedding celebrated without guests, sacrifice, or music.
Before I forget it, I must record two valuable health hints that I learned from Xenophon. He used to say `The man is a fool who puts good manners before health. If you are troubled with wind, never hold it in. It does great injury to the stomach. I knew a man who once nearly killed himself by holding; in his wind. If for some reason or other you cannot conveniently leave the room - say you are sacrificing, or addressing the Senate - don't be afraid to belch or break wind downwards where you stand. Better that the company should suffer some slight inconvenience than that you should permanently injure yourself. And again, when you suffer from a cold, don't constantly blow your nose. That only increases the flow of rheum and inflames the delicate membranes of your nose. Let it run.
