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This Democedes left his country and became attached to Polycrates in
the following way: His father, who dwelt at Crotona, was a man of a
savage temper, and treated him cruelly. When, therefore, he could
no longer bear such constant ill-usage, Democedes left his home, and
sailed away to Egina. There he set up in business, and succeeded the
first year in surpassing all the best-skilled physicians of the place,
notwithstanding that he was without instruments, and had with him none
of the appliances needful for the practice of his art. In the second
year the state of Egina hired his services at the price of a talent;
in the third the Athenians engaged him at a hundred minae; and in the
fourth Polycrates at two talents. So he went to Samos, and there
took up his abode. It was in no small measure from his success that
the Crotoniats came to be reckoned such good physicians; for about
this period the physicians of Crotona had the name of being the best,
and those of Cyrene the second best, in all Greece. The Argives,
about the same time, were thought to be the first musicians in Greece.
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