Asklepios and the Healing Arts

In Greek mythology and folklore, Asklepios (also given as Asclepius) was the god of healing. His place of birth is hotly disputed, with some saying that he was born at Tricca in Thessaly, while others believe it was at Mount Titthion, near Epidaurus; from the fifth century onward, the latter became his preferred place of origin.

There is a gold and ivory statue of the manly god sitting on a throne with one hand on a dragon or serpent, while the other held a staff. Epidaurus, in the eastern Peloponnese, had multiple springs and had been inhabited since the Neolithic period. The city had been founded by Epidauros, the son of Apollo, who was also known for healing. His mother was Coronis, a Thessalian princess and lover of Apollo, or Arsinoe, the daughter of Leucippus, a prince in Messenia.

Bronze sculpture of Asklepios. (Asklepios, bronze figure. Original at Berlin. Wellcome Collection. Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0))

In the version of the story with Coronis, she was killed by Apollo’s sister, Artemis, for being unfaithful during her pregnancy, and Apollo rescued the child from her womb. Apollo raised Asklepios at first, teaching him some of the arts of healing, but then he entrusted his upbringing to the centaur Chiron, who taught him both medicine and hunting.

Asklepios continued to excel in medicine, with some legends indicating that a snake, a symbol of wisdom in Greece, imparted the knowledge of medicine to him. In another story, Asklepios was commanded to bring Glaucus, a Cretan prince, back to life and was kept a prisoner in his tomb until he had done so. While there, a snake entered the prison and wrapped itself around Asklepios’s staff without his knowledge. As he was contemplating what to do, he kept hitting his staff against the wall with the snake on it, killing it.

Another snake entered with an herb and placed it in the dead snake’s mouth, bringing it back to life. With this knowledge, Asklepios revived Glaucus and other individuals as well. The symbol of Asklepios and his healing power became a staff with a snake wrapped around it, which is still used by the medical profession.

Asklepios married Epione, the goddess of soothing pain, and together, they had three sons: Telesphoros, Machaon, and Podaleirios. Asklepios and Epione also had five daughters: Hygieia, goddess of health and cleanliness or hygiene; Panacea, goddess of universal health, who delivered a potion for curing (hence the term panacea, meaning “curing all things”); Aceso, goddess of the curing process; Iaso, the goddess of recuperation; and Aegle, the goddess of radiant good health, whose name means “brightness” or “one associated with good health.” Machaon and Podaleirios both served as doctors for the Greek fleet at Troy; Machaon died, but Podaleirios survived, living in Caria after the war.

Telesphoros, a dwarf, helped his sister Hygieia in curing the sick. As everyone in the family was associated with healing, they were worshipped communally and independently as gods and goddesses of healing. The daughters in particular were closely associated with Asklepios in his temples and sacred places. His knowledge of the medical arts surpassed even his father, Apollo, and his tutor, Chiron.

Asklepios’s fame soon spread, and he was sought for his ability to restore life. This soon brought him into conflict with the other gods, though, most notably Hades, god of the underworld. Hades argued that Asklepios’s ability to help people evade death would create an imbalance in the world. He in fact charged Asklepios with stealing his subjects from the underworld. In response, Zeus decided to kill Asklepios with a thunderbolt.

According to Apollodorus, a writer in the Roman imperial period, Apollo then killed the Cyclops, maker of the thunderbolts, and was punished by having to serve the king of Thessaly for a year. In later mythology as recounted by the Romans, Apollo asked Zeus to restore Asklepios to life, and since Asklepios was the son of a god, Zeus, as king of the gods, made him a god and allowed him to be at Olympus with the other gods.

Asklepios’s fame led to many areas being proclaimed as his sacred locations. He was worshipped all over Greece, with shrines to him built in favorable places, usually near springs, which many believed had curative powers. In addition to Epidaurus, famous shrines were located in Athens, on the western slope just below the Acropolis, and at Messina (or Zancle) in Italy, which had an important shrine that was especially known during the Hellenistic period.

The Peloponnese city of Tegea had a temple to Asklepios, as did the island of Kos, which became famous for producing many physicians. In the fourth century, the cult spread to Asia Minor to Pergamon, said to have been brought by a patient cured at Epidaurus. The Romans even took a sacred snake from Epidaurus to Tiber Island in 293 to cure a plague affecting Rome. Many of these temples and shrines were frequented by sick people hoping to be cured.

The priests were often trained in helping the ill, and many of these locales came to be seen as convalescence homes or even hospitals. The sick would usually spend time in the temple and observe the rules laid down by the priests.

Originally, illness was seen as divine punishment, and healing as divine salvation. Priests were often tasked with tending to the ill, and that often occurred through incantations and sacrifices. During the Classical Age, there was an attempt to apply logic and science to medical issues. Treatments often centered on one’s diet, and being proactive could have beneficial results. But the religious nature of curing was never removed. Where the priests could provide cures and healing methods, they would receive the information in dreams from Asklepios.

The most famous doctor was Hippocrates, from the island of Kos, who established a medical school there. Although many works were attributed to him, most of the literary pieces were written by his pupils in his name. These works all mention a number of main themes: diagnosis, biology, treatment, and practical advice for doctors. The famed Hippocratic Oath centered on doing no harm to the patient, either physically or emotionally. The oath is still viewed today as the central pillar of modern medicine.