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| "A sick child brought into the temple of Aesculapius" by Waterhouse (1877) |
Mythological origins of Aesculapius
In the Roman tradition Aesculapius is the God of medicine. Myth proclaims him as the son of the God of healing (Apollo); the father of the Goddess of good health (Salus);* a favourite of the Goddess of skilfulness (Minerva, who gifted him the blood of Medusa, which could restore the dead to life), and as a child he was said to have been a student of Chiron – a centaur renowned for his wisdom and skill as a doctor. There are a number of stories associated with Aesculapius, most of them Greek in origin, like the God himself. In The Nature of the Gods Cicero (1st century BC) tells us:
“As for the sundry figures called Aesculapius, the first is the son of Apollo and is worshipped by the Arcadians; he is said to have invented the probe, and to have been the first to use splints for healing. The second is that [he is] the brother of Mercury mark two. The story goes that he was struck by lightning, and that he is buried at Cynosura. The third, the son of Arsippus and Arsinoe, was reportedly a pioneer in the application of purgatives and the extraction of teeth. His tomb and grove are open to inspection in Arcadia [3.57]”.
In the same work Cicero informs us that Aesculapius was not born to Godhead, but was one of those “men who conferred outstanding benefits [and so] were translated to heaven through their fame and our gratitude … These men were duly regarded as Gods because their souls survived to enjoy eternal life, for they were both outstandingly good and immortal”. Other examples of men who became Gods include Hercules, Liber, Romulus and the brothers Castor and Pollux (Cicero, 2.62). The most popular story of the apotheosis of Aesculapius describes how he brought back to life Hippolytus, who had been killed in a chariot crash; Jupiter then struck Aesculapius dead in retaliation for disrupting the natural order.
“Hippolytus, after [being] … torn apart by stampeding horses … came again to the heavenly stars, and the upper air beneath the sky, recalled by Apollo’s herbs and Diana’s love. Then the all-powerful father, indignant that any mortal should rise from the shadows to the light of life, hurled Aesculapius, Apollo’s son, the discoverer of such skill and healing, down to the Stygian waves [Virgil, The Aeneid, 7.641-782]”.