Indeed the healing powers of this goddess were such, that, as we
are told by Diodorus,[99] the remedies she prescribed never failed of
their effect, and that convalescents were daily seen returning from her
temple, many of whom had been abandoned as incurable by the physicians.
The third oracle of the sick was consecrated to Phthas, and lay near
Memphis, but it is seldom mentioned by the ancients.[100]
In Italy there existed two oracles, whose responses were imparted in
dreams, before the worship of Esculapius was introduced from Greece. One
of them only belongs to this place, that of the physician Podalirus, in
Daunia,[101] which is mentioned by Lycophron.[102] Subsequently it is well
known incubation was practised after the Grecian form in the Roman
temple of Aesculapius on the Insula Tiberina.[103]
This description of oracles abounded throughout Greece; the most
memorable of which was that on the Asiatic coast, between Trattis and
Nyssa, which is more particularly described by Strabo than any other.
Not far from the town of Nyssa, says he, there is a place called
Charaka, where we find a grove and temple sacred to Pluto and
Proserpine, and close to the grove a subterraneous cave, of a most
extraordinary nature.
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