A year and a half had not passed after my father’s return from his expedition before a second terrible illness fell upon him, and wove the noose of death for him, or to speak the truth, the downfall and destruction of everything. But since the magnitude of my subject demands it, and as I was very dear to my father and mother from the cradle, I am going to transgress the laws of history and relate, little as I wish to do so, my father’s death. A race-meeting had taken place and in consequence of a violent wind which was blowing at the time, the rheumatics had ebbed, as it were, and retreated from his extremities and fixed themselves in one of his shoulders. The majority of the physicians did not appreciate the danger to us which this threatened.
But Callicles Nicholas (for so he was styled), was a foreteller to us of our fearful ills and said he was very afraid that, as the rheumatics had retreated from the extremities and attacked another part, they would cause the danger to the sick man to become incurable. But we could not believe him because we did not wish to.
Pantechnes Michael absolutely forbade
And not one of the doctors at that time, except Callicles, urged the cleansing of his system by purgatives. And he was not accustomed to taking these purgatives, in fact he was quite unaccustomed to drinking medicine. And so the majority of the doctors and above all Pantechnes Michael absolutely forbade any purging. But Callicles foresaw the future and said to them most emphatically, ” Now the matter has left the extremities and settled in the shoulder and throat; afterwards, if it is not evacuated by purgatives, it will flow into one of the principal members or into the heart itself, and cause irremediable mischief.”
For I was there myself by order of my mistress to adjudge the physicians’ arguments, and I heard all they said and for my part agreed with Callicles’ proposals. However the vote of the majority prevailed. Then at length the pain after exerting its sway over the imperial body for the usual number of days died away and the invalid recovered his health. Six months had not passed before a deadly sickness took hold of him, caused probably by his deep despondency over daily business and the mass of public duties. And I often heard him speaking about it to my mother, and, as it were, accusing it to her.
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