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Updated: June 10, 2025
While the ants were busy in devouring the victims thus given up to them, the authors of all the mischief would make good their escape, and thus carry off their gold to a place of safety. These famous ants were bigger than foxes! The reconnoitering party. The physician Democedes. Story of Democedes. His boyhood. Democedes at Ægina. At Athens. At the court of Polycrates. Democedes a captive.
Darius, who was well aware of this tendency, did not believe the assurances of Democedes, and in the irritation and impatience caused by his pain, he ordered the captive to be taken out and put to the torture, in order to make him confess that he was really a physician. Democedes yielded without waiting to be actually put to the test.
"That Polykrates of Samos, whose name we heard so often in Egypt, has the best physician that Greece has ever produced. While I was lying here ill, Oroetes wrote to this Democedes, making him immense promises, if he would only come to Sardis directly. The Sainian pirates, who infest the whole Ionian coast, took the messenger captive and brought Oroetes' letter to their master Polykrates.
Happy was it for Greece that the ambitious Persian did not then seek its conquest, as Democedes, his physician, had suggested. The Athenians, then under the rule of the tyrant Pisistratus, were not the free and bold people they afterwards became, and had Darius sought their conquest at that time, the land of Greece would probably have become a part of the overgrown Persian empire.
Democedes was ingenious and cunning, and fond of roving adventure. In running away from home, he embarked on board a ship, as such characters generally do at the present day, and went to sea. After meeting with various adventures, he established himself in the island of Ægina, in the Ægean sea, where he began to practice as a physician, though he had had no regular education in that art.
The fetters which such captives wore were intended to allow them to walk, slowly and with difficulty, while they impeded the movements of the feet so as effectually to prevent any long or rapid flight, or any escape at all from free pursuers. Democedes, when questioned by Darius, denied at first that he possessed any medical knowledge or skill.
Then Herodotus tells how he cured Atossa, the daughter of Cyrus and wife of Darius, of a severe abscess of the breast, but on condition that she help him to escape, and she induced her husband to send an expedition of exploration to Greece under the guidance of Democedes, but with the instructions at all costs to bring back the much prized physician.
Democedes, who lived in the sixth century B.C., is the first physician of whom we have any trustworthy history. We learn from Herodotus that he came from Croton to aegina, where, in recognition of his skill, he was appointed medical officer of the city. From aegina he was called to Athens at an increased salary, and later was in charge of medical affairs in several other Greek cities.
The guide to this celebrated reconnoitering party was a certain Greek physician named Democedes. Though Democedes was called a Greek, he was, really, an Italian by birth. His native town was Crotona, which may be found exactly at the ball of the foot on the map of Italy.
They were to travel simply as a party of Persian noblemen, on an excursion of curiosity and pleasure, concealing their true design; and as Democedes their guide, though born in Italy, was in all important points a Greek, and was well acquainted with the countries through which they were to pass, they supposed that they could travel every where without suspicion.
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