vow what he could provide. The building of a temple and its facilities on the other hand was the responsibility of the magistrates. The funds came from the state treasury or from taxes. Private medicine A second signal act marked the start of sponsorship of private medicine by the state as well. In the year 219 BC, a vulnerarius, or surgeon, Archagathus, visited Rome from the Peloponnesus and was asked to stay. The state conferred citizenship on him and purchased him a taberna, or shop, near the compitium Acilii (a crossroads), which became the first officina medica. The doctor necessarily had many assistants. Some prepared and vended medicines and tended the herb garden. There were pharmacopolae (note the female ending), unguentarii and aromatarii, all of which names are easily understood by the English reader. Others attended the doctor when required (the capsarii; they prepared and carried the doctor's capsa, or bag.). Jerome Carcopino's study of occupational names in the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum turned up 51 medici, 4 medicae (female doctors), an obstetrix ("midwife") and a nutrix ("nurse") in the city of Rome. These numbers, of course, are at best proportional to the true populations, which were many times greater. At the bottom of the scale were the ubiquitous discentes ("those learning") or medical apprentices. Roman doctors of any stature combed the population for persons in any social setting who had an interest in and ability for practicing medicine. On the one hand the doctor used their services unremittingly. On the other they were treated like members of the family; i.e., they came to stay with the doctor and when they left they were themselves doctors. The best doctors were the former apprentices of the Aesculapia, who, in effect, served residencies there. The practice of medicine Medical values The Romans valued a state of valetudo, salus or sanitas. They began their correspondence with the salutation si vales valeo, "if you are well, I am" and ended it with salve, "be healthy". The Indo-European roots are *wal-, "be strong", a wholeness were to some degree perpetuated by right living. The Hippocratic Oath obliges doctors to live rightly (setting an example). The first cause thought of when people got sick was that they did not live rightly. Vegetius' brief section on the health of a Roman legion states only that a legion can avoid disease by staying out of malarial swamps, working out