Ancient Healers Historical Note: For more than eight hundred years -- beginning in Greece circa 420 BC -- the ill and injured sought care at more than five hundred Asclepieia, sacred temples for healing. These mystical hospitals marked the limits of the Roman empire to the fourth century AD Some also offered a therapeutic gymnasium, a library, a conservatory, a theater for sacred drama or even a stadium for athletic contests. Save for possible tales of my valor carried upon other lips, I insist my father have no news of me. Spare him the tidings that after the great battle, the point of a mounted archer's arrow remains painfully embedded in my sword arm. And that I seek the nearest high temple of healing, now journey to the closest Asclepieia, run by physicians of the Hippocratic Oath. Sworn to the Greek god, Apollo, and to Asclepius, the god of health, as well as his daughters, Hygenia and Panacea. They who, unlike magicians, promise to always support life over death. I come to this rural mountainside temple in this scenic, naturally healthy setting to heal in the clean air, drink pure spring water drawn from a holy well and -- deep in the woods -- find a soothing sacred grove. I bring offerings, including cakes and a sacrificial goat, and gladly undergo ritual purifications. I am welcomed, but reminded that those pledged to the Hippocratic way never take up the knife themselves. They leave surgery to those well-versed in it -- the magical red-robed priests of Sekhmet ...
Against Rome
