Archagathus
Ἀρχάγαθος
(Ἀρχάγαθος), a Peloponnesian the son of Lysanias, who settled at Rome as a practitioner of medicine, B. C. 219, and, according to Cassius Hemina (as quoted by Pliny, Plin. Nat. 29.6), was the first person who made it a distinct profession in that city. He was received in the first instance with great respect, the "Jus Quiritium" was given him, and a shop was bought for him at the public expense; but his practice was observed to be so severe, that he soon excited the dislike of the people at large, and produced a complete disgust to the profession generally. The practice of Archagathus seems to have been almost exclusively surgical, and to have consisted, in a great measure, in the use of the knife and powerful caustic applications. (Bostock, Hist. of Med.)
From William Smith (ed.), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Tufts University. Data accessed from https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-pdlrefwk/ on 17 October 2026.