AESCULAPIAN MYSTERIES, &C.
Apollo is said to have been one of the most gentle, and at the same
time, as may be inferred from his numerous issue, one of the most
gallant of the heathen deities. The first and most noted of his sons was
Aesculapius, whom he had by the nymph Coronis. Some say that Apollo, on
account of her infidelity, shot his mother when big with child with him;
but repenting the fact, saved the infant, and gave him to Chiron to be
instructed in physic.[32] Others report, that as King Phlegyas, her
father was carrying her with him into Peloponnesus, her pains surprised
her on the confines of Epidauria where, to conceal her shame, she
exposed the infant on a mountain. The _truth_, however is, that this
Aesculapius was a poor infant cast away, a dropt child, laid in a wood
near Epidaurus, by his unnatural parents, who were afterwards ashamed to
own him; he was shortly afterwards found by some huntsmen, who, seeing a
lighted flame or glory surrounding his head, looked upon it as a
prognostic of the child's future glory. The infant was delivered by them
to a nurse named Trigo, but the poets say he was suckled by a goat. He
studied physic under Chiron the centaur, by whose care he made such
progress in the medical art, as gained him so high a reputation that he
was even reported to have raised the dead. His first cures were wrought
upon Ascles, King of Epidaurus, and Aunes, King of Daunia, which last
was troubled with sore eyes. In short, his success was so great, that
Pluto, seeing the number of his ghosts daily decrease, complained to
Jupiter, who killed him with his thunderbolts. Such was his proficiency
in medical skill, that he was generally esteemed the god of physic.
In the city of Tetrapolis, which belonged to the Ionians, Aesculapius
had a temple full of rare cures, dedicated to him by those who ascribed
their recovery to him; and its walls were covered and hung with
memorials of the miracles he had performed.
Cicero reckons up three of the names of Aesculapius. The first the son
of Apollo, worshipped in Arcadia, who invented the probe and bandages
for wounds; the second the brother of Mercury, killed by lightning; and
the third the son of Arsippus Arsione, who first taught the art of
tooth-drawing and purging. Others make Aesculapius an Egyptian, King of
Memphis, antecedent by a thousand years to the Aesculapius of the
Greeks. The Romans numbered him among the Dii Adcititii, of such as were
raised to heaven by their merit, as Hercules, Castor and Pollux. The
Greeks received their knowledge of Aesculapius from the Phoenicians and
Egyptians. His chief temples were at Pergamus, Smyrna, and Trica, a city
of Ionia, and the isle of Coos, or Cos; in which all votive tablets were
hung up,[33] shewing the diseases cured by his assistance: but his most
famous shrine was at Epidaurus, where every five years in the spring,
solemn games were instituted to him nine days after the Isthmian games
at Corinth.
It was by accident that the Romans became acquainted with Aesculapius. A
plague happened in Italy, the oracle was consulted, and the reply was
that they should fetch the god Esculapius from Epidaurus. An embassy was
appointed of ten senators, at the head of whom was Q. Ogulnius. These
deputies, on their arrival, visiting the temple of the god, a huge
serpent came from under the altar, and crossing the city, went directly
to their ship, and lay down in the cabin of Ogulnius;[34] upon which they
set sail immediately, and arriving in the Tiber, the serpent quitted the
ship, and retired to a little island opposite to the city, where a
temple was erected to the god, and the pestilence ceased.
The animals sacrificed to Aesculapius were the goat; some say on
account of his having been nursed by this animal; others because this
creature is unhealthy, as labouring under a perpetual fever. The dog and
the cock were sacrificed to him, on account of their fidelity and
vigilance; the raven was also devoted to him for its forecast, and being
skilled in divination. Authors are not agreed as to his being the
inventor of physic, some affirming he perfected that part only which
relates to the regimen of the sick.
The origin of this fable is as follows:--the public sign or symbol
exposed by the Egyptians in their assemblies, to warn the people to mark
the depth of the inundation of the Nile, in order to regulate their
ploughing accordingly, was the figure of a man with a dog's head,
carrying a pole with serpents twisted round it, to which they gave the
name of Anubis,[35] Thaaut,[36] and Aesculapius.[37] In process of time,
they made use of this representation for a real king, who by the study
of physic, sought the preservation of his subjects. Thus the dog and the
serpents became the characteristics of Aesculapius amongst the Romans
and Greeks, who were entirely strangers to the original meaning of these
hieroglyphics.
Aesculapius was represented as an old man, with a long beard, crowned
with a branch of bay tree; in his hands was a staff full of knots, about
which a serpent had twisted itself: at his feet stood an owl or a
dog--characteristics of the qualities of a good physician, who must be
as cunning as a serpent, as vigilant as a dog, as cunning and
experienced as an old bashaw, to handle a thing so difficult as physic.
At Epidaurus his statue was of gold and ivory,[38] seated on a throne of
the same materials, with a long beard, having a knotty stick in one
hand, the other entwined with a serpent, and a dog lying at his feet.
The Phliasians depicted him as beardless, and the Romans crowned him
with a laurel, to denote his descent from Apollo. The knots in his staff
signify the difficulties that occur in the study of medicine. He had by
his wife Epione two sons, Machaon and Podalirius, both skilled in
surgery, and who are mentioned by Homer as having been present at the
siege of Troy, and who were very serviceable to the Greeks. He had also
two daughters, called Hygiaea and Jaso.
FOOTNOTES:
[32] Ovid, who relates the story of Coronis in his fanciful way, tells
us that Corvus, or the raven, who discovered her armour, had by Apollo,
his feathers changed from _black_ to _white_.
[33] From these tablets, or votive inscriptions, Hippocrates is said to
have collected his aphorisms.
[34] The Romans who sent for Aesculapius from Epidaurus, when their city
was troubled with the plague, say, that the serpent that was worshipped
there for him followed the ambassadors of its own accord to the ship
that transported it to Rome, where it was placed in a temple built in
the isle called Tiberina. In this temple the sick people were wont to
lie, and when they found themselves no better, they reviled Aesculapius:
so impatiently ungrateful and peevish were often the afflicted, that
they made no scruple to reproach the very god who administered to their
maladies.
[35] From Hannobeach, which, in the Phoenician language, signifies the
_barker_, or _warner_, Anubis.
[36] This word signifies the dog.
[37] From _Aeish_, man, and _caleph_, dog, comes _Aescaleph_, the
man-dog, or Aesculapius.
[38] This image was the work of Thrasymedes, the son of Arignotus, a
native of Paros.