The Hellenistic World
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So far we have been considering mainly organized groups, but many individuals also travelled in pursuit of their trade or profession. Traders and their importance will be looked at in more detail in Chapters 9 and 11 but travellers also included philosophers, like Clearchus of Soli, whose name we have seen recorded on the banks of the Oxus (p. 60), and doctors, many of whom were trained at Cos, with its associations with the great medical teacher Hippocrates and its famous temple of Asclepius, but might respond to requests for help from other friendly states. Thus an inscription dating to the late-third century found in the Asclepieum at Cos records the thanks conveyed by the people of Cnossus in Crete for the loan of a doctor to Gortyn. It provides an interesting picture of conditions in that turbulent island, where at that time, as a result of civil strife (Polybius, iv, 54, 7–9), Gortyn had come under the control of her old rival Cnossus.
The kosmoi and the city of the Cnossians greet the council and people of the Coans. Whereas the people of Gortyn sent an embassy to you about a doctor and you, with a generous show of haste, dispatched the doctor Hermias to them, and civil strife having then broken out in Gortyn and we, in accordance with our alliance having come to share in the battle which took place among the Gortynians in the city, it came about that some of our citizens and others who accompanied our side to the battle were wounded and many became exceedingly ill as a result of their wounds, whereupon Hermias, being a man of worth, on that occasion made every effort on our behalf and saved many of them from great peril and subsequently continued unhesitatingly to fulfil the needs of those who called upon him, and when a further battle took place near Phaestus and many suffered wounds and likewise many were critically ill, he made every effort in tending them and saved them from great peril, and subsequently showed himself zealous to those who called upon him (Syll., 528 = Austin, 124).
Here the somewhat repetitive account breaks off but the context of the battles described can be filled out from the record of this war in Polybius, iv, 54–5. Another example of a city honouring a doctor is the grant by Ilium to Metrodorus of Amphipolis mentioned below ( p. 149). The provision of doctors was a public responsibility in many cities. At Samos, for example, the assembly makes the appointment, and in several towns a special ‘medical tax’ (iatrikon) was levied to pay the doctor’s salary (cf. Syll., 437)
V
The central role of the gymnasium in Greek communities went with a long-standing passion for athletics and athletes of all ages also travelled around the Greek world bringing fame to their cities and themselves if they carried off prizes at international festivals. An example is provided by a late-second-century inscription found on the site of Cedreae, a small city lying under what is now Şehir Ada in the Ceramic Gulf in south-western Turkey, which at that time belonged to Rhodes.
The Confederation (or Guild) of the peoples of the Chersonese salutes Onasiteles the son of Onesistratus, victor in the furlong-race three times in the boys’ category at the Isthmia, in the beardless category at the Nemea and at the Asclepieia in Cos, in the men’s category at the Dorieia at Cnidus, at the Dioscureia and at the Heracleia, in the boys’ and ephebes’ category at the Tlapolemeia, victory in the furlong-race and the two-furlong-race in the boys’ category at the Dorieia in Cnidus, in the ephebes’ category at the Poseidania, in the furlong-race and the race in armour at the Heracleia and in the long race in the men’s category twice, in the torch-race ‘from the first point’ (?) in the men’s category at the great Halieia and twice in the small Halieia, twice at the Dioscureia, twice at the Poseidania, in the furlong-race and race in armour in the men’s category (Syll., 1067).
This record could be reproduced again and again, for victors in athletics contests, especially in the festivals adjudged ‘equal to the Olympic games’ (isolympia), were highly honoured for the prestige which they brought to their native cities.
Among professional men whose careers took them to many cities and even more to the royal courts, where the hope of employment was higher, were engineers, architects and teachers at all levels. Musicians and poets (and poetesses) too might wander from place to place in the expectation of patronage, adapting their verses to suit the place of performance. Thus a Tean envoy, Menecles, seeking concessions for his city in Crete is praised at Cnossus for giving frequent performances, during his stay there, on the cithara (a stringed instrument), singing the songs of Timotheus and Polyidus and other ancient poets ‘in a manner befitting an educated man’ and at Priansus in addition he performed a ‘Cretan cycle’ about the gods and heroes of the island, collected from many poets and historians. The Priansians accorded him special praise for his regard for culture (SGDI
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