_Fool or a Physician--Rising and Setting Sun_ (Vol. i., p. 157.).--The
inquiry of your correspondent C. FORBES, respecting the authorship of
the two well-known sayings on these subjects, seems to have received no
reply. He thinks that we owe them both to that "imperial Macchiavel,
Tiberius." He is right with respect to the one, and wrong with regard to
the other. The saying, "that a man after thirty must be either a fool or
a physician," had, as it appears, its origin from Tiberius; but the
observation that "more worship the rising than the setting sun," is to
be attributed to Pompey.
Tacitus says of Tiberius, that he was "solitus eludere medicorum artes,
atque eos qui post tricesimum ætatis annum ad internoscenda corpori
{316} suo utilia vel noxia alieni consilia indigerent." _Annal_. vi. 46.
Suetonius says: "Valetudine prosperrimâ usus est,--quamvis a tricesimo
ætatis anno arbitratu eam suo rexerit, sine adjumento consiliove
medicorum." _Tib._ c. 68. And Plutarch, in his precepts _de Valetudine
tuendâ_, c. 49., says--
[Greek: "Aekousa Tiberion pote Kaisara eipein, hos anaer huper
hexaekonta [sic vulgò, sed bene corrigit Lipsius ad Tac. loc.
cit. triakonta] gegonos etae, kai proteinon iatro cheira,
katagelastos estin."]
These passages sufficiently indicate the origin of the saying; but who
first gave it the pointed form in which we now have it, by coupling
_fool_ with _physician_, I am not able to tell.
The authority for giving the other saying to Pompey, is Plutarch, who
says that when Pompey, after his return from Africa, applied to the
senate for the honour of a triumph, he was opposed by Sylla, to whom he
observed, [Greek: "Oti ton aelion anatellonta pleiones ae duomenon
proskunousin,"] that more worship the rising than the setting
sun--intimating that his own power was increasing, and that of Sylla
verging to its fall. (_Vit. Pomp_. c. 22.)