Legatio Ad Gaium

But no doubt he with great felicity gave a new representation of the medical skill of Apollo, for this god was the inventor of healing medicines, [*](This is one of the attributes of Apollo of which he boasts to Daphne. Inventum medicina meum est, opiferque per orbem Dicor et herbarum subjecta potentia nobis: Hic mihi quod nullis amor est medicabilis herbis Nec prosunt domino quae prosunt omnibus artes.Met.1.461. Or as it is translated by Dryden— Medicine is mine; what herbs and simples grow In fields and forests, all their powers I know, And am the great physician called below. Alas, that fields and forests can afford No remedies to heal their love-sick lord. To cure the pains of love no plant avails, And his own physic the physician fails.) so as to cause health to men, thinking fit himself to heal the diseases which were inflicted by others, by reason of the excessive mildness and gentleness of his own nature and habits,