Note 422 — WAS THE ROMAN ARMY PROVIDED WITH MEDICAL OFFICERS?

Lib. iii. p. 413. “Nam et Medicos supplicio affecit, quod sibi parum obtemperaverant, jubenti senis maturare necem.” This, as stated in the text, was one of the first, if not the first, act of cruelty which Caracalla committed after Severus’ death. Dion affirms that, after murdering his brother Geta, he ordered about 20,000 of Geta’s supposed friends to be put to death; and amongst others he condemned to death, according to Spartian, a class which is medically not uninteresting—namely, all those who wore amulets or charms about their necks for the cure of agues, a custom which would appear to have been much in use both among the Greeks and Romans.—See Hart’s Herodian, p. 177.