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MENECRATES

Volume 14 · 114 words · 1842 Edition

a physician of Syracuse, who flourished about 360 before Christ, was famous for his skill in his profession, but much more for his vanity. He was always attended by some of the patients he had cured, and with whom he previously stipulated that they should follow him whithersoever he went. One appeared with the attributes of Hercules, another with those of Apollo, and others again with those of Mercury or Esculapius; whilst he, clad in a purple robe, with a golden crown on his head, and a sceptre in his hand, presented himself, to the admiration of the public, under the name of Jupiter, and travelled through different countries escorted by these counterfeit deities.