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.