Diptych of Asklepios and Hygieia. Italy, early 5th century. Ivory

Large pieces are missing from the left edge of the Hygieia plaque and the upper left corner of the Asklepios plaque. Holes drilled along the inner borders indicate that a tripartite hinge once connected the two plaques. They are slightly curved in cross section. There is no floral border at the top. Instead of being cut, inscriptions were painted in the tabulae and on the roll of the small figure of Telesphoros to the left of Asklepios.

Both Asklepios and Hygieia are depicted as statues standing on bases between pillars on which rest offerings and cult paraphernalia. In from the center of the top of each plaque hangs an oak leaf garland. Asklepios is presented in a form known from three preserved Roman statues (cf. Graeven, 1913, p. 227, fig. 1). Although the type is Hellenistic, the presence of Telesphoros dates the preserved statues to no earlier than the second century. Telesphoros was an ancient god of fertility and healing, and, as the son of Asklepios, became popular only in the second century. Asklepios is depicted loosely girt in a chiton. He holds a scroll in his hand while leaning on a club around which is wound a bearded (male) snake. The club rests on a boucranion, which, in this position, is otherwise found only in representations of Heracles leaning on his club. Yet, as suggested by Graeven (1913), the boucranion was added purposely to refer to offerings of oxen in the cult.

The statuary prototype of Hygieia is not known, but it, too, is of Hellenistic derivation. The tripod on which she leans refers to Apollo, who was often associated with the cult of Asklepios and Hygieia. The Eros of the lower left corner points to the function of Hygieia in aiding childbirth. The serpent, Hygieia's standard attribute, has climbed up the tripod and across her shoulders and is about to eat the egg that the goddess holds out for it with her right hand.

The strongly classical style of the diptych points to an origin in Rome. Delbrueck (1929) has conjectured that the models for these plaques may have been the Asklepios and Hygieia cult statues in the temple in the capital. The occasion for the making of the diptych may have been the celebration of the cult, which in late antiquity had to be paid for by private instead of public funds.

Originally in the Gaddi collection, Florence (eighteenth century); bought in 1806 by Count Michael Wiczay of Hedervar, Hungary; passed to the Fejervary collection in Eperies, Hungary, which was inherited by K. Pulszky, who sold the collection in 1856 in Liverpool; the diptych passed to Joseph Mayer who left it to the Liverpool Museum in 1867. Bibliography: Graeven, 1913, no. 1, pp. 220-243, pis. in—IV; Delbrueck, 1929, no. 55, pp. 215-218, pi. 55; Bovini and Ottolenghi, 1956, no. 19 (1st ed.), no. 15 (2nd ed.); Volbach, 1976, no. 57.