On Medicine in Eight Books

transferred to the Greeks; or rather, that there was no authority for those treating it otherwise than in Greek, even among those unskilled and unversed in that language. If these things are true, just as we have no reason not to believe an eyewitness, why do we believe Celsus—who hailed from the Cornelian gens, the most noble of all in Rome—practiced an art that the public, having experienced it, condemned? I do not wish to persuade anyone that he was one of the periegetai itinerant practitioners, whom Modestinus calls out in the Digest, book 6, section 1, concerning Excuses; nor that he was accustomed to wandering through the city, and going around visiting the sick for the sake of payment. The same Secundus referring to Pliny the Elder mentions that M. Cato Marcus Porcius Cato professed to have a commentary by which he might heal his son, slaves, and household. I do not think Cornelius practiced medicine for any other reason; nor among others, unless perhaps—which I see pleases some—in more serious cases he allowed himself to be approached, and that service to be requested,