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Antinoē said to me: ‘It’s going to be necessary to decide which wounded men could benefit from our assistance, and which not. Shall we look at those between here and the baths?’ She pointed ahead along the road. ‘By that time Philodemus should be back.’
We walked along. At each stop, we inspected the wounded. I found it hard to suppress showing revulsion at some of the wounds we saw. Swords had sometimes severed limbs, or inflicted gaping wounds in the chest or stomach or neck.
Where we saw hope of survival, I said that we would return soon to provide what treatment we could, and told the family to prepare boiling water. Where there was considerable loss of blood, we showed those present how and where to make a tourniquet to stem the flow, since many did not know how to do this. Where a wounded man was apparently beyond treatment, we could do nothing but utter words of consolation. It was a very painful triage.
We had made some twenty brief visits to the wounded, when Philodemus returned. I opened my medicine chest. It contained inlaid boxes showing what each contained, and square glazed ceramic jars, the stoppers also marked to show what they contained. I took out a jar.
‘This is pulverized carline thistle root steeped in white wine. It is good for cleaning wounds and preventing infection. Antinoē, go along the row and clean the wounds as best you can.’ I gave her some fine linen cloths from a flat box in the lid of my chest. Then I put small blades, some fine twine and a needle in a wooden hardwood holder, and took two other jars. ‘I shall go along after Antinoē and trim the wounds if necessary, suture them where I can, and apply this infusion of St John’s wort, with some thyme honey,’. I said to Philodemus, taking out a box, ‘and you must follow me and apply a good layer of these leaves of knotgrass mixed with yarrow from this box. It should help stem the blood flow and aid cicatrisation.
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