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And the sun sank, and all the ways were darkened. And they came to Pherae, to the house of Diocles, son of Orsilochus, the child begotten of Alpheus. There they rested for the night, and by them he set the entertainment of strangers. Now so soon as early Dawn shone forth, the rosy-fingered, they yoked the horses and mounted the inlaid car.
This narrative, for the most part given by Fabius and Diocles of Peparethus, who seem to be the earliest historians of the foundation of Rome, is suspected by some, because of its dramatic and fictitious appearance; but it would not wholly be disbelieved, if men would remember what a poet fortune sometimes shows herself, and consider that the Roman power would hardly have reached so high a pitch without a divinely ordered origin, attended with great and extraordinary circumstances.
An instrument called beluleum was invented during the long Peloponnesian War, over four hundred years before the Christian era. It was a rude extracting-forceps, and was used by Hippocrates in the many campaigns in which he served. His immediate successor, Diocles, invented a complicated instrument for extracting foreign bodies, called graphiscos, which consisted of a canula with hooks.
He became a great hunter, but no wild boar that he killed seemed to bring him nearer to the purple, till, when the army was fighting on the Tigris, the Emperor Numerianus died, and an officer named Aper offered himself as his successor. Aper is the Latin for a boar, and Diocles, perceiving the scope of the prophecy, thrust his sword into his rival's breast, and was hailed Emperor by the legions.
Although general of the Achæan League, and one of the greatest men of his day, Aratus was far from being rich; and, in order to obtain the required sum, he had to sell all he had, and even pawn his wife's few jewels. Then, in the midst of the darkness, one rainy night, Diocles led the Achæan soldiers along a steep path, which they had to climb in Indian file.
Most of the company had heard enough of this kind of conversation, and had turned their attention to the professor, who seemed transported with delight, especially when Malcolm quoted from Diocles on sweet-breads, Hicesius on potted pigeons, and Dionysius on sugar sops.
Then came a succession of strong soldiers who reestablished unity: Claudius Gothicaus, an Illyrian peasant; Aurelian, an Illyrian peasant; Tacitus, a Roman senator, for one year only; Probus, an Illyrian peasant; Caus, an Illyrian; then the greatest of all statesmen since Hadian, who refounded the empire on a new plan, the Illyrian who began life as Docles the slave, rose to be Diocles the soldier, and finally, in 284, tiaraed Diocletian reigning with all the pomp and mystery and magnificence of an Eastern King of kings.
Herophilus lodges the original cause of all diseases in the humours; Erasistratus, in the blood of the arteries; Asclepiades, in the invisible atoms of the pores; Alcmaeon, in the exuberance or defect of our bodily strength; Diocles, in the inequality of the elements of which the body is composed, and in the quality of the air we breathe; Strato, in the abundance, crudity, and corruption of the nourishment we take; and Hippocrates lodges it in the spirits.
"Ay, but, Meg, we shall not want your assistance, for here's a student from Oxford that kens much better than you how to spae its fortune he does it by the stars." "Certainly, sir," said Mannering, entering into the simple humour of his landlord, "I will calculate his nativity according to the rule of the Triplicities, as recommended by Pythagoras, Hippocrates, Diocles, and Avicenna.
War recognizes only success, whatever may be the virtues and talents of the commanders; and this is one of the worst phases of war, when accident and circumstances contribute more to military rewards than genius itself. The laws of Diocles did not remain in force long, and were exceeding severe in their penalties.
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