There, in the shadows of a building that dated back to the Soviet occupation, by the look of it, she smoked as I sipped beer. But chatting about our day of exploring the city, we weren’t expecting the slice of Budapest life that was about to unfold.

And we would have missed it completely if our accommodation plans had worked out as intended.

Several floors up, a door opened and a man hovered on the threshold. From the shadows inside the front door a woman softly called…

But I’m getting ahead of myself here.

A birthday surprise

The trip to the Hungarian capital came as a complete surprise. It was my birthday a few days before, so I had just a few days to prepare myself and plan for the trip. I was flying on a Friday evening to meet my other half, already in the city for a conference. But rather than stay in the conference hotel, she had booked an apartment for a couple of nights.

Online, it looked pretty good. And I’m sure it is.

But when she collected the keys from the agent, it turned out we’d been allocated quite a different property. Whereas the apartment we had seen online was refurbished to a pretty good standard, the one we got was a shambles and was poorly furnished. The double bed seemed to be a couple of pieces of furniture pushed together. I didn’t investigate what, but no bed is that shape. And there was a danger of us falling through the gap. The front door didn’t even lock, although thankfully there was a grill that did. 

But there was hot and cold running water, a small kitchen with a fridge, and there was wi-fi. And it was located right in the centre of Budapest, so couldn’t have been more ideal, from that single point of view. Not exactly luxury accommodation.

That was what we had, so that was what we would make do with. We were not planning on spending hours in our apartment. We just needed somewhere to sleep and a place to store our luggage while we were out exploring the city.

Friday night: banks of the Danube

And explore Budapest we did. I arrived just in time for us to go to a nearby restaurant for a much-needed beer and something to eat.

I was looking forward to Hungarian food and drink, and on the whole I was not disappointed. Almost everything we ate was really good and excellent value for money. The local brew tasted good, too.

You see a lot of goulash on restaurant menus, a dish that is definitely worth trying at least once. Many dishes are spiced with paprika, and sour cream is another frequent ingredient.

After dinner, we took a stroll along the bank of the Danube, watching the moonlight on the surface of the black water compete with the lights of the city and the occasional river traffic.

Budapest was created in the nineteenth century by the unification of three towns; Buda and Óbuda on the west bank of the Danube, and Pest—where we stayed—on the east.

Walking along the riverside, there were plenty of youngsters sitting and drinking, enjoying the warm weather before it finally broke. We got as far as the Chain Bridge, a suspension bridge opened in 1849 and, according to Wikipedia, the first permanent bridge across the Danube. On that Friday night they appeared to be filming though, the area taken over by a film crew and a car crash staged on the bridge.

On the way back along the banks of the river, we came to a small square where a dance class was taking place. A number of couples danced their own tango, with music provided by a portable music player. It was surreal, but nice to see the locals enjoying themselves on a warm Friday night.

Saturday sightseeing

We slept surprisingly well on that odd bed, and woke to another glorious day.

First job of the day was to find somewhere for breakfast while we decided exactly what to do with ourselves. I had had little time to plan our sightseeing but spent a couple of hours the day before flying looking at some of the itineraries posted online. From those, I added the most frequently recommended sites to a custom Google map I had access to on my iPhone, while on the move.

Buda Castle at night

While enjoying a delicious “Budapest breakfast” at Anna Café on Váci Street, we talked about what we would do for the day. From there we walked to Kossuth Lajos Square and the Parliament building. It is pretty impressive, but best seen from the other side of the river, but from our position, we could take the metro under the river to go to and explore the Castle District. This area is dominated by Buda Castle, but consists of many architectural gems, including the Fisherman’s Bastion and Matthias Church. Here, the cobbled streets and mixture of Medieval, Baroque, and 19th-century buildings make it a natural draw for tourists, and the Fisherman’s Bastion provides a spectacular vantage point for viewing the Pest side of the city.

We visited the ruins of the church of Mary Magdalene, and here the true horror of Budapest’s more recent history became apparent. A tower that is almost all that remains of the church, mostly reduced to rubble during the Second World War.

Here among the ruins is an exhibition of photography comparing modern Budapest side by side with shell-damaged buildings. The damage remains atrocious, and much of the city’s glorious architecture has been rebuilt, having been flattened; first by allied bombers, and then during the siege of Budapest. For 50 days from December 1944, the city, defended by Hungarian and German troops, was surrounded by Soviet forces and pounded mercilessly. It wasn’t until the 1960s that most of the city began to be reconstructed to reclaim its former glory.

After being refuelled and refreshed by a beer and goulash at one of the many restaurants in the area, we headed for Buda Castle. But when we arrived we found there was a chocolate festival, and decided to not go in after all. Instead we explored as much as we could of the castle and its gardens from the outside. In fact, it consists of a rather spectacular palace surrounded by the castle walls, and is immensely impressive when illuminated at night. However, it is largely a post-war reconstruction. The communist regime tore down much of what remained during the 1950s, and even rooms that survived were gutted. The interior was modernised and several surviving exterior details were simply demolished.

After Buda Castle, we walked down the hill and along the Danube again before taking the tram across the river to Deák Ferenc Square and back to the apartment.

St Stephen’s Basilica

That night we headed to see St Stephen’s Basilica, and then to the area where you find the so-called “ruin bars” for a beer and a bite to eat.

There we went into the Yellow Zebra Pub, which as well as food and drink, weirdly, offers bike rental. It was extremely relaxed and the staff were friendly, but the bar did get packed. But that’s as it should be on a Saturday night.

Locals and tourists alike enjoyed live music. I sampled one of a selection of local beers and we shared a bottle of a local red wine.

For starter we tried camembert marinated in some kind of pickle, the only wrong move we made all weekend. It was one of the worst-tasting things I have ever eaten. The main dish was a selection of cold meats, which was interesting, although not spectacular. The Yellow Zebra was great value, though, and after dinner we took a leisurely stroll back to the apartment via the Danube. And that brings us back to where we began.

A slice of real Budapest life

Back at the apartment we sat outside in the dark, with a cigarette and a beer while planning our Sunday morning. Several floors above us a woman called softly to a man just outside the front door. When the man tried to leave she wrapped her arms around him, kissing him, unwilling to let him go.

And as he tried to disentangle himself, she just held on tighter until she followed him out onto the gangway, running the full width of the apartment block.

She was completely naked. Although she appeared to become aware of our silent presence several floors down, she continued to call to the man as he escaped her clutches, blowing kisses and waving at him as he descended the stairwell. Only after he disappeared into the night did she slip inside her apartment and softly close the door.

Photo Credits

Photos by David Leigh – All Rights Reserved

Guest Author Bio

David Leigh
David Leigh has lived in Catalonia since 2001, where he runs Simply Barcelona Tickets. He visited Budapest in September 2015.

Blog / Website: Simply Barcelona Tickets

I open my eyes and see blue. Not the blue of skies or seas, but Wedgewood blue. The colour of my mother’s china. The colour of my grandmother’s serving platters. The colour of my brother’s GI Joe rucksack.

I allow my gaze to drift; there is nothing to focus on, nothing to see, then suddenly my eyes settle on something which is distinctly not blue. It is yellow, scarlet, green, and black. A Picasso come to life. It is Karen. “What in the hell are you doing here?” I ask. “You’ve been dead for almost twenty years.“ My eyes narrow a bit. When it comes to Karen my suspicions always go into overdrive. “Or at least you’re supposed to be dead.”

She smiles at me and waves her arms in the air and then spins around in a giddy circle. “I’m not dead silly,” she says. “There is no dead. Not really. Not in the expanding multiverse.”

Typical Karen, I think. She was always blathering on about the universe and the multiverse. Always going on about string theory, Schrodinger’s cat, and quantum particles.

“So am I dead?” I ask. That is soooo inconvenient. I just finished my last novel and already sold it to a big publishing company. It is scheduled to come out in the fall. Just my luck!

“I told you there is no death,” she says and then smiles her big wide smile at me. Her teeth glow white against the blue background. She reaches down and with surprisingly no effort at all pops me up onto my feet. “When I felt the waves in the quantum tide and realized that it smelled of chlorine, sunshine, and you, I decided to come and fetch you.”

I pucker my eyebrows and turn the corners of my mouth down, but the effort is too much and my “grump face” disappears into a puffy grin. Karen! Oh how I have missed her. I missed our long talks which lasted into the wee hours of the night. I missed having someone to toilet paper houses with. I missed someone whose shoulder I could cry on and puke over.

“We seem to be floating around in a can of paint,” I say. My fingers are tightly wound around her hand and I squeeze it tight.

“I miss you too,” she says. The flicker of a sad smile flashes across her face and is gone. Then she moves her other hand up to shoulder height and undulates it across the air like a hula dancer. Ripples appear in the floating dye. “See how right we were,” she says. “Quantum is a wave but it is also particles, and strings, and booms, and anything else you can think of. And the best part is that no one’s cat has to live and die to prove it.”

Lifting my hands I experiment with the hula myself, and then I add a little hip motion; suddenly I am swaying in a grass skirt, coconut bra, and have Koa wood beads on my bare ankles. We hula, Karen and I, as tiki torches come into existence and burn with an ethereal pale blue flame, and the mouth-watering aroma of suckling pig wafts through the air. “This is just like the first time we went to Maui,” I say. “Except we’re better dancers than those girls at the luau ever were.” I reach up and touch the crimson hibiscus bloom in her hair and we both smile.

I watch as the blue transmutes and blanches into bright skies and sun-dappled waves. Water crashes against a white shore, and the sucking, scraping sound of the beach, as it is dragged back into the depths becomes our only music. I curl my toes into the wet smooth-edged sand, then look up into Karen’s eyes.

“Humu-humu poop!” we both scream at the same time. Then we are off and running hand in hand across the beach and splashing water into sparkling crystals which hang like dew drops in the air. I dive beneath a big curler and feel the sudden silence and darkness close around my head. The sunshine, water, and Wedgewood colour is gone and I am surrounded by night.

“I had the strangest dream,” I tell my husband the next morning. “I dreamt I actually had my novel accepted by a publisher. Can you believe it?”

“Stranger things have happened in this universe,” he says. “Do you want some pineapple?”

Image Credit

“Red Green Blue” by @Doug88888. Flickr. Some rights reserved.

Goats on rooftops are a familiar view in Coombs, British Columbia

The weird and the wonderful, the interesting and the bizarre — in virtually every region of Canada you can find an activity or a sight that’ll set your awe button on overload, boggle your mind or simply leave you scratching your head in puzzled amazement. Some of these selections are either well-known though oddly neglected by those who have them in their own backyards, or so obscure that even the locals can’t give you directions. Regardless, this list will give the prospective trans-Canadian traveller an itinerary that few will duplicate.

Newfoundland and Labrador: Basque Whaling Galleons

Canada’s easternmost province boasts evidence of some of the earliest contact with European civilizations. While many have heard of the Viking settlement at L’Anse aux Meadows, few know that there were at least 20 thriving Basque whaling stations along the coast of Labrador at Red Bay in the 1500s. The Red Bay National Historic Site describes these settlements, which capitalized on the 16th century demand for whale oil, prized for its use in making medications, soaps and cosmetics. Three superbly preserved sunken Basque whaling galleons have been discovered and excavated in the waters off Red Bay, as well as a number of smaller fishing vessels. One vessel, the Red Bay Chalupa, has been meticulously preserved and is on display for visitors to enjoy. Info

Nova Scotia: Balancing Rock

If you happen to be driving down Nova Scotia’s Digby Neck peninsula through the town of Tiverton, you might want to stop and hike down to the shore of St. Mary’s Bay to have a look at the nine-metre high Balancing Rock. A columnar basaltic structure, or “sea stack,” dating from the Triassic Period, the vertical slab seems so precariously balanced that the mere touch of a hand might send it toppling down into the bay. Fact is, many have tried with no success, in some cases failing quite spectacularly, such as a fisherman who chained the monolith to his motor boat and then revved up to maximum speed. Info

New Brunswick: Pioneering Chocolatiers

How often do you get to visit an interesting museum AND gorge yourself on all the chocolate you can eat? The Ganong Chocolate Museum in St. Stephen, N.B., does just that with heaping platters of complimentary chocolates generously distributed throughout the facility, which is housed in the company’s original factory. Operations are now located in an ultra-modern factory just outside of town, with the exception of the exclusive hand-dipped line that you can watch being made in the museum. The exhibits provide a unique venue in which to travel through history, from the early origins of chocolate to modern times. James and Gilbert Ganong started making chocolates in 1873, and created the world’s first heart-shaped box of chocolates, not to mention their famous “chicken bones,” a cinnamon-flavoured pink-shelled candy with a chocolate centre. Info

P.E.I.: Birthplace of Confederation

It’s hard to believe that the concept of the nation known as Canada, now the second-largest country in the world by area, was born in our tiniest province. Yet Prince Edward Island, made up of less than 5,700-square kilometres, was the setting for the September 1, 1864, meeting of the Fathers of Confederation that set the stage for the foundation of our nation. Province House, Charlottetown was the setting, but don’t be surprised if, even today, you see Sir John A. Macdonald and other historic luminaries walking the halls and guiding visitors around. Costumed animators give tourists an authentic feel of what Canada was like… well, before there was a Canada. Info

Quebec: Tomb Touring

One of la belle province’s most fascinating sites is the archaeological crypt of the Pointe-à-Callière Museum in Montreal. Located at the confluence of the St. Lawrence and Little St. Pierre rivers, it is here that Father Barthélemy Vimont held a mass celebrating the founding of Montreal in 1642. In attendance were such luminaries as sieur de Maisonneuve Paul de Chomedey and nurse Jeanne Mance, who founded the city’s first hospital.

Wandering through the now below ground level landscape of the real Old Montreal, visitors get an eerie sense of being transported back in time, with old walls and floors and the dry bed of a long-gone river conveying a true, if ghost-like, feel of the 17th-century French colony. Info

Ontario: Primitive Art Expo

One of the most unusual places you’ll ever see in Ontario is the apartment of Toronto primitive art dealer Bill Jamieson. You won’t get to see his downtown apartment, however, without a personal invitation or being a part of a charitable event. Jamieson’s 6,000-square-foot loft apartment includes only one bedroom, as the rest of the space has been given over to his collection of tribal art, which at various times has included the mummy of Ramses I, a large selection of shrunken heads, decorated skulls of Tibetan monks and a 19th-century hearse converted into a saltwater aquarium. His annual Halloween party/Explorers Club meeting has become legendary with an eclectic group of guests ranging from eminent Canadian explorers to some of Toronto’s funkiest people. It’s worth seeking an invitation! Info

Manitoba: Occult Mystery

If you’re a fan of The Da Vinci Code don’t miss the Manitoba Legislative Building in Winnipeg. There is a multitude of symbols in and on this structure, many of a Masonic nature. For example, atop the building’s tower is the “Golden Boy,” a magnificently gilded 5.25-metre figure representing Hermes, the youthful Greek god who symbolized occult knowledge, with four figures representing earth, air, fire and water at his base. Guess what metal medieval alchemists believed resulted if you combined these four elements? (Hint: gold). Within the building’s rotunda the five rosettes, eight Corinthian columns and 13 Pompeian light fixtures represent the first number of the Fibonacci Sequence, also prominently featured in Dan Brown’s novels. For an in-depth look at the building’s symbolic significance, scholar Frank Albo offers tours this summer.

Saskatchewan: Angler’s Paradise

Northern Saskatchewan is one of the places for anglers to experience the thrill of a lifetime and enjoy the unspoiled beauty of Canada. And since 1978, Chemo Lodge has been providing memorable fishing trips on pristine Tazin Lake, accessible only by float plane, with its fully modern facilities. Because of Tazin Lake’s cold water, the northern pike and lake trout bite well year round. Info

Alberta: Vulcan Tourism

For a quirky look at the province of Alberta you need go no further than the town of Vulcan. About an hour from both Calgary and Lethbridge, the town was not named for the home planet of Star Trek’s Mr. Spock. Rather, it received its moniker in 1910 from a Canadian Pacific Railroad survey with an interest in Roman mythology. Perched on the edge of the Canadian Badlands, however, you could be forgiven for thinking you were on an alien planet, with mushroom-shaped hoodoos and other bizarre rock formations dominating the landscape. Vulcan has capitalized on various Star Trek-themed attractions, crowned by the annual Spock Days/Galaxyfest, held this year from June 10 to 12. Though Vulcan’s 2,000 inhabitants generally don’t boast pointy ears, quite a few will be in evidence for the event. And you may find the locals are now prone to use Mr. Spock’s traditional salutation of “Live long and prosper.” Info

British Columbia: Rooftop Goats

If you find yourself in Coombs, B.C., on Vancouver Island you might want to drop by the Coombs Country Market. While the produce is fresh and plentiful, its unique feature is the authentic Norwegian sod roof complete with a herd of grazing goats. Kristian Graaten of Lillehammer, Norway, created the original market in the 1950s. The story goes that just before the Coombs Fall Fair, the grass was getting a bit long. Kristian’s son Larry suggested putting a few goats on the roof to “mow” their high-rise lawn. The rest is history. Besides being a great attraction for visitors, the green roof really is “green,” providing insulation in the winter and a cooling effect through evaporation in the summer. Info

Photo Credits

“Goat on Roof” Courtesy of The Ultimate Goat Fansite

“Balancing Rock” courtesy of Bay of Fundy

“Archaeological crypt, Pointe-à-Callière. Courtesy of Montréal Museum of Archeology and History

“Manitoba Legislative Buildings” Photographer Unknown

“Vulcan, Alberta”

Previously Published on May 19, 2011 for The Medical Post

Over the centuries there have been many famous Jeromes. For example, who could forget the famous Apache chief who successfully fought the U.S. cavalry for years? (You mean you didn’t know Geronimo is Spanish for Jerome?)

This story is about a less well known but certainly more mysterious Jerome. He was discovered on the beach at Sandy Cove, Digby Neck, Nova Scotia by an eight-year-old boy named George Colin Albright, or “Collie” as he was popularly known. Young Collie was doing a little beach combing when he spotted something odd perched in the sand. Closer inspection revealed a swarthy young man, minus both his legs. Collie ran off, trying to get help, but had a hard time making himself believed. Eventually two farmers accompanied him to the shore, and when they realized he was telling the truth, rescued the castaway.

Thus started a controversial mystery which has not been completely solved to this day. The young lad’s hands were soft, suggesting he had never had to do manual labor, and soon speculation rose that he may have been a wounded officer of some European war, or perhaps even the Civil War which raged in the United States at the time. Some thought he might have been a royal embarrassment to some European royal house, and had been unceremoniously mutilated and dumped on a far-off shore. Questioning the lad provided little additional information as he did not seem to speak English.

Half dead from hypothermia, the young man was nursed back to health in the Albright home and received many visitors, including newspapermen, local clergy and scholars. Although swarthy and Mediterranean in appearance he did not seem to understand French, Latin, Italian, Spanish or any other language. He appeared to shun the attention he received and was a surly house guest, showing gentleness only to small children with whom he loved to play. He was morose, growling like a dog at unwelcome visitors.

It is doubtful the castaway’s real name was Jerome; however, he had mumbled something which sounded like that when first queried — and Jerome he became.

The Albright’s house guest was a major burden for a poor fisherman to support, and after going through several different homes, the good Baptists of Digby Neck decided such a swarthy fellow must indeed be Catholic and shipped him off to the neighboring French community of Metghan, where he would live out the rest of his days. Indeed, the government of Nova Scotia voted a special stipend of two dollars a week to support Jerome.

Jerome ended up ensconced in the home of Jean Nicola, a Corsican deserter who was known locally as “the Russian”, probably because of the few words of that language he had picked up in the Crimea. Though Jerome and Jean were constantly at odds, the mysterious man soon became a favorite of Nicola’s wife, Julitte and his stepdaughter, Madeleine.

Jerome spoke very little, but over the course of time he revealed in fragmented and hesitant speech he had come over on a vessel named the Columbo and that he was originally from Trieste.

After the death of Julitte, Nicola returned to Europe and Jerome found himself in the keeping of Dedier and Zabeth Comeau. His two dollar weekly stipend came in handy to support the Comeau’s burgeoning family, which included a son studying for the priesthood. As well, there was no shortage of curiosity seekers who were willing to pay admission to see Jerome, who many still believed to be European royalty.

Despite his exploitation, Jerome was content to play and enjoy the company of the Comeau children. On one occasion two mysterious ladies visited and asked to speak to Jerome in private. They spoke in hushed tones, and as they were leaving they said, “He is well here. Let him be.”

As time passed, more clues materialized as to the origin of the stranger. Word came that in 1859 a young foreigner wandered into the town of Chipman, New Brunswick, across the bay from Nova Scotia. The young stranger somehow managed to fall through river ice but was miraculously saved when discovered by two brothers. Eventually, he developed gangrene in both legs and had bilateral amputations performed by Dr. Harry Peters.

Here he became known as “Gamby”, probably because on wakening he kept calling for “gamba”, Italian for “legs”. Gamby proved a burden for the good people of Chipman as indeed he did to the good citizens of Digby Neck. It would appear a passing schooner captain was paid handsomely to transport the disabled man to friendlier climes. The schooner captain appears to have simply crossed the Bay of Fundy and dropped him off on the beach at Sandy Cove.

Putting our clues together, and checking shipping records, it would appear that Jerome had come over an a vessel called the Columbo which sailed from Europe, landed in Halifax and went on to New Brunswick where he jumped ship.

After his unfortunate accident, he must have been extremely traumatized to find himself waking, minus his legs, in a place where nobody spoke his language. Indeed, his inability over many years to learn French or English — or, indeed, to have been unable to communicate in his native language — would suggest that he may have suffered a stroke affecting his speech centers.

This could have occurred due to hypothermia, arrhythmia upon rewarming from hypothermia, or blood loss from his amputation. Interestingly, despite his limited speech, he was occasionally heard late at night singing beautifully in a foreign language. Dr. Oliver Sacks has described this very phenomenon in his book Musicophilia.

Jerome’s emotional difficulties, which were to last his lifetime, no doubt reflected the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a condition which occurs after extreme life stressors, subsequently marked by anxiety, depressed mood, disrupted sleep and limited ability to relate to others.

Jerome spent a total of 49 years in his involuntarily adopted home of Nova Scotia before finally passing away on April 15, 1912, the very day the RMS Titanic went down.

Herodotus was one of the most famous of ancient historians. Born between 490 and 480 B.C.E., he chronicled in The Histories much of what happened in and around ancient Greece of this time period. Among other topics, medicine and the medical profession did not escape his scrutiny.

One medical observation Herodotus made concerned his visit to the site of an old battlefield from a conflict between Persians and Egyptians. “…I noticed that the skulls of the Persians are so thin that the merest touch with a pebble will pierce them, but those of the Egyptians on the other hand [are] so tough that it is hardly possible to break them with a stone. I was told…that the reason was that the Egyptians shave their heads from childhood, so that the bone of the skull is indurated by the sun — this is why they hardly ever go bald…”

This sounds more like a recipe for sunburn and or heat stroke. Perhaps the Egyptians consumed a better diet, due to the fertility of the Nile Valley.

Sometimes Herodotus teased with tidbits such as: “The Scythians who robbed the temple of Ascalon were punished by the goddess with the infliction of what is called ‘the female disease’, and their descendants still suffer from it.” He told his readers that they could still go to their country and see what it was like, so the condition was evidently something a casual observer could detect. He added, “The Scythians call those who suffer from it ‘Enarees’.” What was this mysterious ailment?

Herodotus praised the Babylonians of the time who had no doctors but placed all their invalids out on the street. All passersby were required by law to ask what was the matter and offer advice on the ailment. I don’t know about Babylonian times but my patient’s family and friends have never had to have any inducement to offer free medical advice. In any event, this would surely save on health care costs. Herodotus added that the Babylonians bured their dead in honey, literally going to the sweet hereafter.

He described how the ancient Egyptians split the practice of medicine into separate parts, with each doctor being responsible for the treatment of only one disease. Egyptian doctors were considered to be the best in the ancient world of the time. One eye specialist in particular was to cause his countrymen a great deal of grief. It seems the King of Persia requested an ophthalmologist from Egyptian king, Amasis. In resentment for being torn away from his wife and family, the doctor devised a scheme for revenge. He convinced the Persian monarch, Cambyses, to ask for the hand of the daughter of Amasis in marriage. Knowing the pharaoh would never agree to this match, he speculated a war would break out. Amasis initially tricked Cambyses by sending the daughter of a previous pharaoh. When the deception was discovered, Persian troops conquered Egypt and the eye doctor had his revenge.

The most extensive medical story Herodotus related was that of the Greek physician, Democedes. The Persian King, Darius, dislocated his ankle as he dismounted from a horse. Certain Egyptian doctors of high repute attempted to treat the king, “But in their efforts to reduce the joint, they wrenched the foot so clumsily that they only made matters worse.”

Darius was in severe pain for one week, and on the eighth day one of his courtiers informed him of Democedes’ skill as a physician. He sent for the medic, who was a slave of a Persian named Oroetes. In chains and in a disheveled state Democedes appeared before Darius, but initially he denied being a doctor. The threat of whips and iron spikes convinced him to admit his qualifications and he soon cured the Persian king. The grateful monarch showered Democedes with wealth, gave him a home and insisted he dine at the royal table. Being rather peeved with his Egyptian doctors, Darius intended to impale them, a process in which a victim has a sharpened spike inserted through the anus. With a commendable display of professional courtesy, Democedes convinced Darius to let them go unharmed.

Shortly after these events, Atossa, the wife of Darius, developed a breast abscess which burst and began to spread. Shamed, she concealed it, but then became dangerously ill and sent for Democedes. He agreed to cure her but on the condition she would do him any service he might choose to ask. After effecting a cure he asked Atossa to influence Darius to send him on a Persian scouting party, ostensibly as a prelude to the conquest of Greece. His intention was to escape and make his way back to his home in Crotona.

Darius assented to his wife’s request. When the vessel the physician was aboard arrived in the Greek colony of Tarentum, Democedes induced the ruler to arrest the Persians as spies. They were later released, tracking the medic to Crotona, but the town’s people beat them with sticks when they attempted to recapture their beloved doctor. Herodotus writes, “Just before they left, Democedes told them to let Darius know that he was engaged to be married to the daughter of Milo the wrestler, whose name was held in high esteem in the Persian court.” This was apparently supposed to spite the Persian king in some way, though I think something is lost in the translation.

We tend to think of ancient Greek doctors as practicing quietly under plane trees on rustic islands. But it is evident that their lives could be every bit as exciting, dangerous and downright weird as in modern times. They even got involved in politics!

Photo Credit

“Herodotus” Library of Congress