VARIOUS ATTRIBUTES OF ÆSCULAPIUS.
In this chapter I will speak briefly of various attributes, more or less
generally accorded to Æsculapius. Some of them are decidedly significant,
but none so much so as the staff and serpent of which I have fully
treated.
In many, indeed most, of the representations of Æsculapius, he is
crowned with A WREATH OF LAUREL. This mark of merit, like rays of light
which were given in some instances, has been commonly held to have been
accorded him because he was the son of Apollo, to whom the tree was
sacred. According to this view, one has in it a remnant of the oracular
laurel at Delphi. Another way of accounting for it is, to use the words
of Tooke, “because that tree is powerful in curing many diseases,”[265]
an exaggerated claim. The ancients regarded it as effective against evil
spirits.[266]
A BUNCH OF HERBS was at times represented in one of the hands of the
god. This was very appropriate. The district of Greece[267] in which,
according to the legend, he studied under Chiron, was famous for its
medicinal plants.
A BOWL was occasionally shown in connection with figures of Æsculapius.
It was indicative of the administration by him of medicinal potions.
A SCROLL was an attribute of some Æsculapian figures. It is an admirable
one for an ideal physician. In modern times it should certainly be
regarded as an indispensable one. Medicine has been evolved from recorded
experience, and its progress is dependent on the same.
An unpublished discovery of any kind is, in a manner, none at all.
Curiously enough the name of the Egyptian god of medicine, Imhotep,
means, “I bring the offering,” the ideograph for _hotep_, or offering,
being a papyrus roll.
[Illustration: FIG. 10.—TELESPHORUS.]
I will now say a few words about a remarkable attribute of some
representations of the god of medicine. I refer to TELESPHORUS,
EUEMERION, or ACESIUS,[268] a small figure, a boy, but not a son, as is
sometimes stated. As will be seen in the cut of him given, and which is
copied from one given by Tooke,[269] as seen in a statue in the Louvre,
he is wrapped in a mantle and is barefooted. Figures of him, however,
vary considerably in appearance. In him we have, according to some, a
sort of dæmon or familiar spirit, such as that which Socrates is said to
have had. It is better, I think, to regard him as a genius,[270] meant to
symbolize the hidden sustaining vital force, the _vis medicatrix naturæ_,
or _anima medica_, upon which greatly depends the recovery of the sick.
It has been suggested that the careful wrapping may be intended to
indicate the need of such protection during convalescence.
The DOG was prominent in connection with the Epidaurian and other statues
of Æsculapius. The fidelity and watchfulness of this friendly animal
render it a very fit attribute of the god. The part played with the goat,
according to the legend, has been taken by some to afford an explanation
of the connection. Another is furnished by the name, which, as will be
pointed out in the next chapter, apparently means man-dog.
The Parsis believed that dogs with four eyes could drive away the
death-fiend; but such not being procurable, one “with two spots above
the eyes” was used for the purpose. In their great sacred book,[271] the
animal is represented to be the special one of Ormazd. Herodotus states
that the Magi do not hesitate to kill all animals, “excepting dogs and
men.”[272]
The Oriental Mardux, in whom was assimilated the more ancient
Silik-mulu-khi, a healing divinity, was attended by dogs, as was Nimrod,
the hunter, with whom he may have been identical.[273]
The COCK, as well as the dog, was a prominent attribute in many
representations of Æsculapius. This alert bird, a bird watchful of the
returning light, was very properly associated with a sun-god. It was a
common object of sacrifice to the god, by patients who were grateful
for relief or cure. Socrates has, through Plato, made this memorable.
Said the dying sage, as he felt his limbs growing cold: “When the poison
reaches the heart, that will be the end.” Feeling his body gradually
losing its vital heat, and realizing that relief from his troubles was at
hand, he said, as he passed away, “Crito, I owe a cock to Æsculapius;
will you remember to pay the debt?” “The debt shall be paid,” responded
his friend.[274]
The practice of sacrificing[275] a cock for the restoration of health
was not exclusively practiced by the votaries of Æsculapius. In his
“Life of Pyrrhus, King of Epirus,” Plutarch says that “a white cock” was
sacrificed generally by each of the patients he touched “for swelling
of the spleen.” The full quotation will be given in a succeeding
chapter. The bird is still sacrificed in some parts of Scotland and
other countries, for the removal of at least one disease,—epilepsy. Dr.
Mitchell, of Edinburgh, states that the practice is very familiar to
him. In the northern part of his native country, “on the spot,” says he,
“where the epileptic first falls, a black cock is buried alive, along
with a lock of the patient’s hair and some parings of his nails.”[276]
There is yet another animal associated with the god of medicine,—the
GOAT. It was especially by the Cyrenians that the connection was much
emphasized. Pausanias remarks that “the Cyrenians sacrifice goats,
although this rite was not delivered by the Epidaurians.”[277] Still,
as already pointed out, on Epidaurian coins, Æsculapius was represented
sucking a goat,—an illustration of the legend.
Why the goat was connected in sacrifice with the god is explained by
Tooke thus: “A goat is always in a fever, and, therefore, a goat’s
constitution is very contrary to health.”[278] Shakespeare, in “King
Lear,” uses the phrase “goatish disposition” in reference to a
“whoremaster man.” The fabled satyrs were in part goats in form. I am not
aware that there was anything of the Biblical scape-goat principle[279]
about the sacrifice, a superstition similar to the one which prevailed
“all over Egypt,” as we are told by Herodotus,[280] of praying that evils
impending over the people might fall on the head of the sacrificial
victim, and then casting it into the Nile, if there was no Greek at hand
to whom it could be sold.
The great prominence of the goat in the Æsculapian rites in Cyrene may
have been due, to some extent at least, to the proximity of Egypt, a
country in which the animal played a prominent part. In the goat of
Mendes,[281] the incarnation of Khem or Min, was personified, says
Lenormant, “in the most brutish manner the reproductive power.”[282] Both
the goat and the cock were often associated with the Egyptian Hermes.
I may add that the cause of the association of the goat with Æsculapius
has been referred to the name. The Abbé Banier states the case thus:
“_Es_ or _ex_, which begins the name of the god, signifies a goat in the
language of the Phœnicians,[283] and, with a little variation, the same
thing in Greek;[284] and this had given rise to the fable of Æsculapius
being nursed by that animal.”[285]