ESCULAPIUS. Asclepios (Latin 2Esculapius) was worshipped by the Greeks as the god of Medicine. He is reputed to have been the son of Apollo (q.v.), the god of healing, by Coronis. One of the legends narrates that Coronls was secretly delivered of her child on a journey to the Peloponnesus. She exposed him on a mountain, but be was suckled by a she-goat. According to another legend the boy was snatched by Apollo from the pyre on which his mother was about to be burnt, and was committed to the charge of a centaur, Chiron, who reared him and taught him how to cure all diseases. Homer and Pindar represent him as a hero endowed with the skill of a successful leech. He then appears as the god of healing worshipped throughout Greece in groves, on mountains, and by medicinal springs. He was able even to bring the dead to life. " Often the cure was effected by the dreams of the patients, who were required to sleep In the sacred building, in which there sometimes stood, as might be expected, a statue of Sleep or Dream ing " (O. Seyffert). The introduction of the worship of
"Esculapius among the Romans is supposed to have been enjoined by the Sibylline Books. It took place about 290 B.C. It is said that the god used to reveal himself in the form of a snake. A coiled serpent and a staff are represented on his statues, and snakes were kept in his temples. J. M. Robertson points out that the title Saviour was given by the Greeks to Zeus, Helios, Artemis, Dionysos, Heracles, the Dioscuri, Cybele, and iEscul apius. There is nothing surprising in this. Anyone may be called a saviour (cp., in the Old Testament, Judges iii., 9, II Kings xiii., 5). See O. Seyffert, Diet.; Reinach, O.; J. M. Robertson, C.M.; P.C.; J. G. Frazer, G.B.