Asclepius

From New World Encyclopedia


Asclepius (Greek Άσκληπιός, transliterated Asklēpiós; Latin Aesculapius) was the demigod 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.

Origins, Etymology and Epithets

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:

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' do not 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-, i.e. 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' cannot be correct, as it does not explain the velar.[1]

One might add that even though Szemerényi's etymology (Hitt. asula- + piya-) does not account for the velar, it is perhaps inserted spontaneously in Greek due to the fact that the cluster -sl- was uncommon in Greek: so, *Aslāpios would become *Asklāpios automatically.

Origin

The plague! (Mikalson, 164) <clinton, 116>

Mythic Accounts

Statue of Asclepius in the Pergamon Museum, Berlin.

Birth

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.

<grab Rose quotation about the god's uncertain status (mortal hero or divinity)>

Asclepius, Excellence in Medicine and Apotheosis

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.

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. 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 illustrates man's inability to challenge the natural order that separates mortal men from the gods.

Statue of Asclepios
Museum of Anatolian Civilizations, Ankara

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 nine years.

After he realized Asclepius' importance to the world of men, Zeus placed him in the sky as the constellation Ophiuchus.

Other Tales

Trojan War

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 in Homer in relation to Machaon and Podalirius.

Consorts and Offspring

Asclepius was married to Epione, with whom he had 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.

Symbolism

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 the Karykeion of Hermes. 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 C.E., when alchemists often used the caduceus to symbolize their association with magical or "hermetic" arts.

Cult

Though Asclepius's divinity was, at least in the mythic corpus, never definitively attested to, he remained a consistently popular deity who was the recipient of numerous types of worship and veneration. This ubiquitous respect can likely be correlated to his affiliation with health and healing, which (then as now) represents the fundamental human concern with maintaining corporeal integrity. Another notable element of this cult was that, unlike the majority of Hellenic observances, it was both non-political (i.e. not tied to the material and spiritual wellbeing of a particular deme or polis) and voluntary.[2] Indeed, participation in these practices was almost always undertaken electively by individuals who specifically required the aid of the physician god.[3]

Sacred Places

Asclepius' most famous sanctuary (asclepieion) was in Epidaurus in the Northeastern Peloponnese. Other famous temples dedicated to the god could be found on the island of Kos (where Hippocrates may have begun his medical career), and in Athens, Rhodes, Lebena (Crete), Pergamon in Asia Minor, and Corinth.[4] Describing these sites, Dillon notes:

The Asklepieia were spreading through the Greek world at the same time that medicine was developing. Nevertheless, doctors and the god do not seem to have been in competition, and the development of Hippocratic medicine did not mean the end of temple healing in the Greek world. The god was allowed his clients without any condemnation by doctors; on the contrary Asklepios was the patron of doctors at all times.[5]

While these sites often shared architectural similarities with the majority of Greek temples and sanctuaries, they had a dramatically larger range of functions (all of which were tied to the god's medical specialty)—in many cases serving as clinics, dormitories, and repositories of votive offerings, in addition to providing an altar and other apparatuses of an organized cult.[6]

Sacred Practices

Devotion to the Asclepius, which (as mentioned above) was often motivated health problems, took one of several related forms in classical Greek society.

First, the Athenians celebrated a yearly festival dedicated to the god, which took place each year on the 17 and 18thth of Boedromion. Called the Epidauria in honor of the locus of the healing god's cult, it included all of the typical elements of a Hellenic festival (including a procession, offerings, and a banquet dedicated to the deity).[7] Six months later, they also celebrated a second festival, the Asclepieia, which featured many of the same elements.[8] Both festivals were occasions for pilgrimage to the city, as they were seen as efficacious means of addressing health concerns.

However, likely due to the time-sensitive nature of medical misfortunes, the most common form of devotion was through pilgrimage to a local Asclepieion (a temple of Asclepius). When a devotee reached the temple, he or she would retire to a structure called the abaton, where they would spend the night hoping to be visited in their dreams by the god and cured. Upon waking, they would reveal their dreams to a priest and prescribed a cure, often a visit to the baths or a gymnasium.[9] Additionally, the temple priests would, at times, perform healing rituals—many utilizing sacred animals (including snakes and dogs).[10] For instance, non-venomous snakes were left to crawl on the floor in dormitories where the sick and injured slept.

In the inscriptions found at Epidaurus, there are several instances of patients being cured by snakes (Ephemris Arch. 1883, p. 215 1. 115 ;id. 1855, p. 22, 1. 117, 130). Similarly Plutus was cured of his blindness by the licking of the tongue of the sacred snakes which lived in the temple of Asclepius (Arist. PI. 730-740). They were regarded with veneration and were fed by the worshippers (Paus. ii. 11, 8) and were thought to be the embodiment of the god (Paus. ii. 10 ; Aurelius Victor de viris illustribus xxii. 1; Valerius Maximus i. 8, 2 etc.).[11]

Once a cure had been effected, it was customary to offer Asclepius a of thanksgiving offer. These took numerous forms, from animal sacrifices and wreaths, to engraved tablets describing the illness and its cure and terra cotta votives depicting the afflicted area. [12]

The excavations conducted at this temple site reveal that patients who came to the Asclepium for treatment often left votive offerings to the god as an expression of their gratitude for healing. The form of these votive offerings ... were terra-cotta representations of individual body parts. Large numbers of clay replicas of hands and feet, arms and legs, breasts and genitals, eyes and ears, and heads were found in the ruins of the temple.[13]

The sentiments prompting this type of worship are eloquently summarized by Aristides, a famed orator who survived some notable medical misfortunes:

Truly just as the seers, initiated into the service of the gods who have given their name to their specialty, I have knowledge from the gods themselves. Through their aid, contrary to the likelihood of the circumstances, I am alive, having escaped at different times through various kinds of consolation and advice on the part of the god [Asclepius] from things which no doctor knew what to call, to say nothing of cure, nor had seen befall human nature.[14]

Given the prominence of the (demi)god and his universal appeal as a promoter of health and well-being, it is not surprising that the classical corpus contains numerous invocations to Asclepius. Intriguingly, one finds examples of these religious utterances in the words attributed to two of the preeminent figures of the classical Hellenistic period: Hippocrates (the founder of modern medicine) and Socrates. Specifically, the original 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."[15] In a like manner, the famous last words of Socrates also make reference to the god: "Crito, we owe a cock to Æsculapius [Asclepius]; pay it, therefore; and do not neglect it."[16] While varying theories have been suggested as to the meaning of this oblique utterance, it seems reasonable to follow Minadeo's interpretation (quoted below)—especially when noting that the previous sections of the dialogue describe the philosopher's various other pious preparations for his execution:

I suggest, therefore, that at the dialogue's close Asclepius is quite naturally singled out as a chief representative of those gods whom one must leave behind at death and that Socrates' last words are a simple but due expression of pious gratitude for the therapeia-the care-which the god has accorded him during his long life.[17]

Resonances

In one intriguing resonance, Saint Paul's sermon to the people of Corinth (site of a famed Asclepieion) seems to have been based upon images from the worship of the god of health. The biblical passage in question reads as follows:

The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.
Now the body is not made up of one part but of many. If the foot should say, "Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body," it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. And if the ear should say, "Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body," it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body.
... God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it (1 Corinthians 12:12-19, 24-26. NIV).[18]

Commenting on it, Hill notes:

This Corinthian source may well be the Temple of Asclepius dedicated to the son of Apollo and the Greek god of healing. The Asclepian healing cult was widespread in the ancient Mediterranean world and was extremely popular in the city of Corinth.... Paul, no doubt, was familiar with the practices of the Asclepium ... and this emphasis on the individual dismembered body parts, in contrast to the whole person, is probably at least a contributory influence on the thought and language of Paul who refers to such dismembered parts in 1 Cor 12:14-25.[19]

On an unrelated note, one text in the occultic corpus of the Hermetic tradition (credited to Hermes Trismegistus) is written as a dialogue with (or prayer to) Asclepius.[20]

Trivia

  • The botanical genus Asclepias (commonly known as milkweed), is named after him, due to its numerous uses in folk medicine.

See also

Wikisource-logo.svg
Wikisource has an original article from the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica about:
Asclepius
  • Rod of Asclepius

Notes

  1. Greek Etymology Database. Retrieved June 22, 2007.
  2. Mikalson, 202.
  3. Price, 109.
  4. See Dillon (1997); Price (1999) for a general overview of these sites, and Ferdinand Joseph de Waele, "The Sanctuary of Asklepios and Hygieia at Corinth," American Journal of Archaeology, Volume 37(3) (July-September, 1933), 417-451, for an extensive description of the excavation of one of these temple sites.
  5. Dillon, 76.
  6. Price, 109-112; Dillon, 73-81.
  7. Parke, 64-65.
  8. Parke, 135.
  9. Dillon, 76.
  10. For instance, Farnell (1921) notes that some healing temples used sacred dogs to lick the wounds of the sick petitioners. 240.
  11. E. F. Benson, 185.
  12. Dillon, 169-172; Mikalson, 142-143.
  13. Hill, 438.
  14. Aristides, quoted in Price, 112.
  15. Farnell (1921), 269. Though evidence concerning the institution of this oath by Hippocrates himself is not extant, it has been demonstrated that it was already an ancient and well-respected formula at the academy established by the great clinician. As Farnell notes, "the famous Hippocratic oath may not be an authentic deliverance of the great master, but is an ancient formula current in his school."
  16. Plato, Phaedo (155).
  17. Minadeo, 296.
  18. New International Version of the Bible accessed at biblegateway.com. Retrieved June 22, 2007.
  19. Hill, 437-438.
  20. Asclepius 21-29, The Nag Hammadi Library. Retrieved June 22, 2007.

References
ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

  • Apollodorus. Gods & Heroes of the Greeks. Translated and with an Introduction and Notes by Michael Simpson. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 1977. ISBN 0-87023-205-3.
  • Benson, E. F. "Two Epidaurian Cures by Asclepius." The Classical Review. Volume 7(4), (April 1893). 185-186.
  • Dillon, Matthew. Pilgrims and Pilgrimage in Ancient Greece. London; New York: Routledge, 1997. ISBN 0415127750.
  • Farnell, Lewis Richard. The Cults of the Greek States (in Five Volumes). Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1907.
  • Farnell, Lewis Richard. "The Cult of Asklepios" in Greek Hero Cults and Ideas of Immortality, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1921. 234-279.
  • Gantz, Timothy. Early Greek Myth: A Guide to Literary and Artistic Sources. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993. ISBN 080184410X.
  • Graves, Robert. The Greek Myths (Complete Edition). London: Penguin Books, 1993. ISBN 0140171991.
  • Harrison, Jane Ellen. Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1908.
  • Hill, Andrew E. "The Temple of Asclepius: An Alternative Source for Paul's Body Theology?" Journal of Biblical Literature. Volume 99(3) (September 1980). 437-439.
  • Kerenyi, Karl. The Gods of the Greeks. London & New York: Thames and Hudson, 1951. ISBN 0500270481.
  • Mikalson, Jon D. Ancient Greek Religion. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2005. ISBN 0631232222.
  • Minadeo, Richard. "Socrates' Debt to Asclepius." The Classical Journal Volume 66(4) (April/May, 1971). 294-297.
  • Parke, H. W. Festivals of the Athenians. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1977. ISBN 0-8014-1054-1.
  • Plato. Apology, Crito And Phædo of Socrates. Translated by Henry Cary. Accessed online at Project Gutenberg. Retrieved June 22, 2007.
  • Powell, Barry B. Classical Myth (Second Edition). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1998. ISBN 0-13-716714-8.
  • Rose, H. J. A Handbook of Greek Mythology. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1959. ISBN 0-525-47041-7.

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