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Celse · Unknown

...Pliny certainly would not have separated him from the physicians in the index of individual books. Furthermore, it is certain that Cornelius lived in the times of Augustus, or Tiberius, or C. Caesar, since Columella, who wrote his books on Rural Affairs while Claudius was in power, made mention of him as being from an earlier time. In that age, if we believe Pliny, very few Roman citizens practiced the medical art, having delegated that care and meditation either to Greek men, or to freedmen, or to slaves. Such were Sallustius, Dionysius, and Curio, and those whom I named above. Wherefore, for killing a physician, because they were mostly slaves, the penalty from the constitutions was not a very large sum of money, for there is no valuation of a free man. That Cornelius, however, was a free-born Roman is sufficiently indicated by his three names tria nomina: the Roman convention for free citizens, since it is established that freedmen were demonstrated by two, and slaves by only one name. But whatever he may have been, he is truly worthy, both for his learning and his elegance, not only to be read, but to be always kept in one's hands. Although Fabius Quintilianus criticizes him everywhere, and so sometimes lightly, so that you recognize he is doing it out of zeal and rivalry (for both wrote books on Rhetoric), yet with truth so compelling...