(9) The Works of Aristotle,
Oxford, Clarendon Press, Vol.
IV, 1910, Bk. III,
Chaps. II-iv, pp. 511b-515b.
ASKLEPIOS
No god made with hands, to use the scriptural phrase,
had a more successful “run” than Asklepios—for
more than a thousand years the consoler and healer
of the sons of men. Shorn of his divine attributes
he remains our patron saint, our emblematic God of
Healing, whose figure with the serpents appears in
our seals and charters. He was originally a Thessalian
chieftain, whose sons, Machaon and Podalirius, became
famous physicians and fought in the Trojan War.
Nestor, you may remember, carried off the former,
declaring, in the oft-quoted phrase, that a doctor
was better worth saving than many warriors unskilled
in the treatment of wounds. Later genealogies
trace his origin to Apollo,(10) as whose son he is
usually regarded. “In the wake of northern
tribes this god Aesculapius—a more majestic
figure than the blameless leech of Homer’s song—came
by land to Epidaurus and was carried by sea to the
east-ward island of Cos.... Aesculapius grew in
importance with the growth of Greece, but may not
have attained his greatest power until Greece and
Rome were one."(11)
(10) W. H. Roscher:
Lexikon der griechischen und romischen
Mythologie, Leipzig,
1886, I, p. 624.
(11) Louis Dyer:
Studies of the Gods in Greece, 1891, p.
221.
A word on the idea of the serpent as an emblem of
the healing art which goes far back into antiquity.
The mystical character of the snake, and the natural
dread and awe inspired by it, early made it a symbol
of supernatural power. There is a libation vase
of Gudea, c. 2350 B.C., found at Telloh, now in the
Louvre (probably the earliest representation of the
symbol), with two serpents entwined round a staff (Jastrow,
Pl. 4). From the earliest times the snake has
been associated with mystic and magic power, and even
today, among native races, it plays a part in the
initiation of medicine men.
In Greece, the serpent became a symbol of Apollo,
and prophetic serpents were kept and fed at his shrine,
as well as at that of his son, Asklepios. There
was an idea, too, that snakes had a knowledge of herbs,
which is referred to in the famous poem of Nikander
on Theriaka.(12) You may remember that when Alexander,
the famous quack and oracle monger, depicted by Lucian,
started out “for revenue,” the first thing
he did was to provide himself with two of the large,
harmless, yellow snakes of Asia Minor.
(12) Lines 31, etc.,
and Scholia; cf. W. R. Halliday: Greek
Divination, London,
1913, p. 88.
The exact date of the introduction of the cult into
Greece is not known, but its great centres were at
Epidaurus, Cos, Pergamos and Tricca. It throve
with wonderful rapidity. Asklepios became one
of the most popular of the gods. By the time
of Alexander it is estimated that there were between
three and four hundred temples dedicated to him.
