had once beheld it could forget the manly bearded face, with the grave,
thoughtful eyes, whose gaze deliberately sought their goal.

The other also belonged to the great men in the realm of intellect.
Hermon knew him well, for he had listened eagerly in the Museum to the
lectures of the famous Herophilus, and his image also had stamped itself
upon his soul.

Even at that time the long, smooth hair of the famous investigator had
turned gray. From the oval of his closely shaven, well-formed face, with
the long, thin, slightly hooked nose, a pair of sparkling eyes had gazed
with penetrating keenness at the listeners. Hermon had imagined
Aristotle like him, while the bust of Pythagoras, with which he was
familiar, resembled Erasistratus.

The convalescent could scarcely expect anything more than beneficial
advice from Herophilus; for this tireless investigator rarely rendered
assistance to the sick in the city, because the lion's share of his time
and strength were devoted to difficult researches. The King favoured
these by placing at his disposal the criminals sentenced to death. In
his work of dissection he had found that the human brain was the seat
of the soul, and the nerves originated in it.

Erasistratus, on the contrary, devoted himself to a large medical
practice, though science owed him no less important discoveries.

The circle of artists had heard what he taught concerning the blood in
the veins and the air bubbles in the arteries, how he explained the
process of breathing, and what he had found in the investigation of the
beating of the heart.