It was
achieved in the midst of the emperor's flatterers and followers; in a
city and amongst a populace before-hand devoted to his interest, and to
the worship of the god: where it would have been treason and blasphemy
together to have contradicted the fame of the cure, or even to have
questioned it. And what is very observable in the account is, that the
report of the physicians is just such a report as would have been made
of a case in which no external marks of the disease existed, and which,
consequently, was capable of being easily counterfeited; viz. that in
the first of the patients the organs of vision were not destroyed, that
the weakness of the second was in his joints. The strongest circumstance
in Tacitus's narration is, that the first patient was "notus tabe
oculorum," remarked or notorious for the disease in his eyes. But this
was a circumstance which might have found its way into the story in its
progress from a distant country, and during an interval of thirty years;
or it might be true that the malady of the eyes was notorious, yet that
the nature and degree of the disease had never been ascertained; a case
by no means uncommon.
Pages:
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298