Everything about Aesculapius totally explained
» For the Hermetic text of the same name, see the Corpus Hermeticum.:
For the Alexandrian scholar, student of Ammonius Hermiae, see Asclepius of Tralles.
For the asteroid, see 4581 Asclepius .
Asclepius (
Greek Ἀσκληπιός, transliterated
Asklēpiós;
Latin Aesculapius) is the god of
medicine and healing in ancient
Greek mythology. Asclepius represents the healing aspect of the medical arts, while his daughters
Hygieia,
Meditrina,
Iaso,
Aceso,
Aglæa/Ægle and
Panacea (literally, "all-healing") symbolize the forces of cleanliness, medicine and healing, respectively.
Mythology
Asclepius was married to
Epione, with whom he'd six daughters:
Hygieia,
Meditrina (the serpent-bearer),
Panacea,
Aceso,
Iaso, and
Aglaea, and three sons:
Machaon,
Telesphoros, and
Podalirius. He also bore a son,
Aratus, with
Aristodama.
Coronis (or
Arsinoe) became pregnant with Asclepius by
Apollo but fell in love with
Ischys, son of
Elatus. A crow informed Apollo of the affair and he sent his sister,
Artemis, to kill Coronis. Her body was burned on a funeral pyre, staining the white feathers of the crows permanently black. Apollo rescued the baby by performing the first
caesarean section and gave it to the
centaur Chiron to raise. Enraged by his grief, Coronis' father
Phlegyas torched the Apollonian temple at Delphi, for which Apollo promptly killed him.
Chiron taught Asclepius the art of surgery, teaching him to be the most well-respected doctor of his day. According to the
Pythian Odes of
Pindar, Chiron also taught him the use of drugs, incantations and love potions. In
The Library,
Apollodorus claimed that
Athena gave him a vial of blood from the
Gorgons. Gorgon blood had magical properties: if taken from the left side of the Gorgon, it was a fatal poison; from the right side, the blood was capable of bringing the dead back to life. According to some, Asclepius fought alongside the
Achaeans in the
Trojan War, and cured
Philoctetes of his famous
snake bite. However, others have attributed this to either
Machaon or
Podalirius, Asclepius' sons, who
Homer mentions repeatedly in his
Iliad as talented healers. Asclepius, on the other hand, is only referred to by Homer in relation to Machaon and Podalirius.
Asclepius' powers were not appreciated by all, and his ability to revive the dead soon drew the ire of
Zeus, who struck him down with a thunderbolt. According to some, Zeus was angered, specifically, by Asclepius' acceptance of money in exchange for resurrection. Another story says Asclepius healed people and may have even made them immortal. This was unacceptable to the god of the Underworld, Hades, who considered these souls his rightful property. Hades prevailed upon Zeus, his brother and king of the gods, to hurl a lightningbolt through Asclepius's head. Zeus proclaimed that all of medicine thereafter could only be palliative -- make the person more comfortable while they either die or get well on their own -- but cures were not allowed. Others say that Zeus killed Asclepius after he agreed to resurrect
Hippolytus at the behest of
Artemis. Zeus may or may not have smitten Hippolytus with the same bolt. Either way, Asclepius' death at the hands of Zeus may symbolize man's inability to challenge the natural order that separates mortal men from the gods.
In retaliation for Asclepius' murder at the hands of Zeus, Apollo killed the
Cyclopes, who fashioned Zeus' thunderbolts. According to
Euripides' play
Alkestis, Apollo was then forced into the servitude of
Admetus for one year.
Zeus, saddened at the loss of the original three Cyclops, decided to return them from Hades. Apollo also pursuaded him to bring Asclepius back. Zeus consented after much begging and made Asclepius and his daughters deities of medicine after bringing them to Olympus, much to Apollo's joy.
After he realized Asclepius' importance to the world of men, Zeus placed him in the sky as the
constellation Ophiuchus. The name, "serpent-bearer," refers to the
Rod of Asclepius, which was entwined with a single serpent. This symbol has now become a symbol for physicians across the globe. However, one should be careful not to confuse the Staff of Asclepius, which features a single serpent wrapped around a roughhewn branch, with the
Caduceus of
Mercury (Roman), or Karykeion of
Hermes (Greek). The Caduceus, which features two intertwined serpents (rather than the single serpent in Asclepius' wand), as well as a pair of wings, has long been a symbol of commerce. It is thought that the two were first confused in the seventh century A.D., when alchemists often used the caduceus to symbolize their association with magical or "hermetic" arts.
The Greeks used the name Asclepius to translate
Imhotep.
Cult
Asclepius' most famous sanctuary was in
Epidaurus in Northeastern
Peloponnese. Another famous "asclepieion" was on the island of
Kos, where
Hippocrates, the legendary doctor, may have begun his career. Other asclepieions were situated in
Trikala,
Gortys (in Arcadia), and
Pergamum in
Asia.
In honor of Asclepios, snakes were often used in healing rituals. Non-venomous snakes were left to crawl on the floor in dormitories where the sick and injured slept. Starting about
300 BC, the cult of Asclepios grew very popular. His healing temples were called
asclepieion; pilgrims flocked to them to be healed. They slept overnight and reported their dreams to a priest the following day. He prescribed a cure, often a visit to the baths or a gymnasium.
It is also written by Lewis Farnell, that some healing temples used sacred dogs to lick the wounds of the sick petitioners.
The original, ancient
Hippocratic Oath begins with the invocation "I swear | by Apollo the Physician and by Asclepius and by Hygieia and Panacea and by all the gods . . ." Scholars have written that this oath may not have been written by Hippocrates, but by or with others in his school, or followers of
Pythagoras.
Some later religious movements claimed links to Asclepios. In the 2nd Century AD
The False Prophet Alexander claimed that his god
Glycon was an incarnation of Asclepios.
The botanical genus
Asclepias (commonly known as milkweed), is named after him, and includes the medicinal plant
A. tuberosa or "Pleurisy root".
Etymology
The etymology of the name is unknown. In his revised version of
Frisk's Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch,
R.S.P. Beekes gives this summary of the different attempts:
(External Link
)
» "H. Grégoire (with R. Goossens and M. Mathieu) in
Asklépios, Apollon Smintheus et Rudra 1949 (Mém. Acad. Roy. de Belgique. Cl. d. lettres. 2. sér. 45), explains the name as 'the mole-hero', connecting σκάλοψ, ἀσπάλαξ '
mole' and refers to the resemblance of the
Tholos in
Epidauros and the
building of a mole. (Thus
Puhvel,
Comp. Mythol. 1987, 135.) But the variants of Asklepios and those of the word for 'mole' don't agree.
The name is typical for Pre-Greek words; apart from minor variations (β for π, αλ(α) for λα) we find α/αι (a well known variation;
Fur. 335 - 339) followed by -γλαπ- or -σκλαπ-/-σχλαπ/β-, for example a
voiced velar (without -σ-) or a
voiceless velar (or an
aspirated one: we know that there was no distinction between the three in the
substr. language) with a -σ-. I think that the -σ- renders an original
affricate, which (prob. as δ) was lost before the -γ- (in Greek the group -σγ- is rare, and certainly before another consonant);
Beekes Pre-Greek.
» Szemerényi's etymology (
JHS 94, 1974, 155) from
Hitt. assula(a)- 'well-being' and
piya- 'give' can't be correct, as it doesn't explain the
velar."
One might add that even though Szemerényi's etymology (Hitt.
asula- +
piya-) doesn't account for the velar, it's perhaps inserted spontaneously in Greek due to the fact that the cluster
-sl- was uncommon in Greek: so, *
Aslāpios would become *
Asklāpios automatically.
Associated with the Roman/Etruscan god
Vediovis.
Footnotes
- cf. L.R. Farnell, Greek Hero Cults and Ideas of Immortality, Chapter 10, "The Cult of Asklepios" (pp.234-279), p.240
- cf. L.R. Farnell, Greek Hero Cults and Ideas of Immortality, Chapter 10, "The Cult of Asklepios" (pp.234-279), p.269: "The famous Hippocratean oath may not be an authentic deliverance of the great master, but is an ancient formula current in his school."
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