Asclepius

“ So much for Dionysus. I now proceed—
Zeus. Now, Momus, I see what you are coming to: but you will kindly leave Asclepius and Heracles alone. Asclepius is a physician, and restores the sick; he is
More worth than many men.
And Heracles is my own son, and purchased his immortality with many toils. ”

“ For as Helios — if my argument may again employ in reference to you a simile from the god, — even as Helios, I say, when he shines in full splendour with his brilliant rays rejects naught of what encounters his beams, but ever performs his function, so ought you also not to shrink from bountifully pouring forth the flood of your blessings like light over the Hellenic world even when, whether from modesty, or fear of you, one is too bashful to make any return. Asclepius, again, does not heal mankind in the hope of repayment, but everywhere fulfils his own function of beneficence to mankind. ”

“ It was in this [275] guise that he came to Sicyon, Epidaurus Limera, and Rome [725] ; and in later times Lucian tells a humorous tale of how an impostor effected by trickery a supposed re-incarnation of Asclepius in snake-form before the very eyes of the people out of whose superstitions he made a living and indeed a fortune [726] . Here again, if we may argue from modern custom, the serpent-form carried with it the traditional offering of a ‘cock to Asclepius.’ But other gods too had sometimes their attendant snakes, as had Asclepius at Epidaurus ”

“ Nevertheless, the tragedians and Pindar disobeying our behests, although they acknowledge that Asclepius was the son of Apollo, say also that he was bribed into healing a rich man who was at the point of death, and for this reason he was struck by lightning. But we, in accordance with the principle already affirmed by us, will not believe them when they tell us both;—if he was the son of a god, we maintain that he was not avaricious ”

“ Although the actual organization of medicine among the Homeric Greeks was thus quite distinct from religion, the worship of Asclepius (or Aesculapius) as the god of healing demands some notice. This cult spread very widely among the Greeks; it had great civil importance, and lasted even into Christian times; but there is no reason to attribute to it any special connexion with the development of the science or profession of medicine. ”

“ He was the greatest conqueror among all my pupils; but he won, not by strength like Heracles, nor by guile like Jason, but through gentleness and sympathy and brotherly love, and by knowledge and skill and patient self-sacrifice; and to him men gave the highest honor, because he cured while others killed. But the powers of darkness are ever hateful towards the good; and Hades, when he saw that Asclepius snatched back to life even those who were at death's door, complained that the great healer was robbing his kingdom. ”

“ One such case has been recorded and exposed with the graphic skill and penetrating observation of the greatest genius of the age. Lucian’s description of the foundation of the new oracle of Asclepius at Abonoteichos in Paphlagonia, if it is wanting in the sympathetic handling which modern criticism has attained or can affect, is an unrivalled revelation of the superstition of the time. ”

“ Then others of the companions of Oneirocritus added other stories all tending to the honor of Asclepius; some indeed possible and deserving of attention, but others absurd and fit only to move laughter; how, for example, a sculptor in Pergamus had been punished with immediate disease for making a statue of the god with inferior marble, but having atoned for his fault by making a second statue of fit material, he straightway recovered ”

“ Immediately west of the theatre of Dionysus is the sacred precinct of Asclepius, which was excavated by the Archaeological Society in 1876-1878. Here were discovered the foundations of the celebrated Asclepieum, together with several inscriptions and a great number of votive reliefs offered by grateful invalids and valetudinarians to the god of healing. Many of the reliefs belong to the best period of Greek art. A Doric colonnade with a double row of columns was found to have extended along the base of the Acropolis for a distance of 54 yds. ”

“ From the one at Cyrene was founded the sanctuary of Asclepius at Lebene, in Crete. There is this difference between the Cyreneans and the Epidaurians, that whereas the former sacrifice goats, it is against the custom of the Epidaurians to do so.
2.26.10 That Asclepius was considered a god from the first, and did not receive the title only in course of time, I infer from several signs, including the evidence of Homer, who makes Agamemnon say about Machaon: “Talthybius, with all speed go summon me hither Machaon, mortal son of Asclepius.” As who should say, “human son of a god.” ”

“ Perhaps Irene had gone into the Anubidium, or sanctuary of Asclepius, to enquire as to the meaning of some strange vision, for there, with the priestly physicians, lived also a priestess who could interpret the dreams of those who sought to be healed even better than a certain recluse who also could exercise that science. The enquirers often had to wait a long time outside the temple of Asclepius, and this consideration encouraged Klea, and made her insensible to the burning southwest wind which was now rising, and to the heat of the sun ”

“ Bion of Ionia and Moschus of Syracuse also charm by the music and often by the pathos of their bucolic verse. Excavations on the site of the temple of Asclepius at Epidaurus have brought to light two hexameter poems and a paean (in Ionic metre) on Apollo and Asclepius by a local poet named Isyllus, who flourished about 280. Tragedy was represented by the poets known as the Alexandrian Pleiad. But it is not for its poetry of any kind that this period of Greek Erudition and science. literature is memorable. ”

“ Not only men are excluded, but even male dogs. On the following day the men come to the sanctuary, and the men and the women laugh and jeer at one another in turn.
7.27.11 At no great distance from the Mysaeum is a sanctuary of Asclepius, called Cyrus, where cures of patients are effected by the god. Here too there is a copious supply of water, and at the largest of the springs stands the image of Asclepius. Rivers come down from the mountains above Pellene, the one on the side nearest Aegeira being called Crius, after, it is said, a Titan of the same name. ”

“ The connection of Asclepius with the serpent was so close that he was received into Roman religion in the form of a living snake, while dogs were so intimately connected with his worship that Panofka believed him to have been originally a dog-god (Roscher, p. 629, Revue Archeohgique) . In another myth Apollo succeeds to the paternal honours of a totem. The Telmissians in Lycia claimed descent from Telmessus, who was the child of an amour in which Apollo assumed the form of a dog. "In this guise he lay with a daughter of Antenor." ”

“ While in classical times Asclepius and Hygieia are simply the god and goddess of health, in the declining years of paganism they are protecting divinities generally, who preserve mankind not only from sickness but from all dangers on land and sea. In works of art Hygieia is represented, together with Asclepius, as a maiden of benevolent appearance, wearing the chiton and giving food or drink to a serpent out of a dish. ”

“ When, for instance, we think that the gods stand in the way of our attainment of this, we revile even them, cast their statues to the ground, and burn their temples, as Alexander ordered the temples of Asclepius to be burned when his loved one died. ”

“ Chremylus, a worthy but poor man, falls in with a blind and aged wanderer, who proves to be the god of wealth. Asclepius restores eyesight to Plutus; whereupon all the just are made rich and all the unjust are reduced to poverty. ”

“ Notwithstanding at this time, between these two interpretations, we knew not what to think; and my master returned to Colossæ even more melancholy than before. Artemidorus said, scoffing, that we had a goodly time with the gods, only that they were slow of speech or fond of circuits; for Oneirocritus had sent us to Asclepius, and behold, that god had given us a dream but not the interpretation of the dream; and afterwards we had gone to Trophonius, and he had given us a vision, and an oracle in broad Bœotian to be the interpretation of the dream ”

“ It is, perhaps, characteristic of the times that Aelian’s stories should redound more especially to the credit of Asclêpius and Heracles, who were not gods of the first order, but demi-gods or deified mortals. Their worship, like that of the Nature-powers connected with earth rather than with heaven, belongs particularly to the popular religion, and seems to have been repressed or restrained in societies organised on aristocratic principles. ”

“ There he dreamed that a priest came to him and said, ‘This man’s only chance of salvation is to burn the impious books of Epicurus, knead the ashes up with wax, and use the mixture as a poultice for his chest and stomach.’ On awakening, he followed the divine prescription, was restored to health, and became a model of piety for the rest of his life. The same author gives us a striking instance of prayer answered, also redounding to the credit of Asclêpius, the object of whose favour is, however, on this occasion not a human being but a fighting-cock. ”

“ And whatsoever spoils thou receivest from that host, thence take a thank-offering for my bow unto my pyre.
(And these my counsels are for thee also, son of Achilles; for thou canst not subdue the Trojan realm without his help, nor he without thine: ye are as lions twain that roam together; each of you guards the other's life.)
For the healing of thy sickness, I will send Asclepius to Troy; since it is doomed to fall a second time before mine arrows. But of this be mindful, when ye lay waste1440 the land,—that ye show reverence towards the gods. ”

“ None of the inhabitants could give the name of the artist, but anyone who has already seen the Heracles at Sicyon would be led to conjecture that the Apollo in Aegeira was also a work of the same artist, Laphaes the Phliasian.
7.26.7 There are in a temple standing images of Asclepius, and elsewhere images of Serapis and of Isis, these too being of Pentelic marble. They worship most devoutly the Heavenly Goddess, but human beings must not enter her sanctuary. ”

“ Heracles had lived the life of a man, his activity had been almost uniformly beneficent, and so he was universally invoked, as a helper and healer, in the sick-chamber no less231 than on the storm-tost ship.354 Asclêpius was still more obviously the natural refuge of those who were afflicted with any bodily disease, and, in a time of profound peace, this was of all calamities the most likely to turn men’s thoughts towards a supernatural protector. ”

“ This painting was executed for the temple of Asclepius at Cos, from which it was taken to Rome by Augustus in part payment of tribute, and set up in the temple of Caesar. In the time of Nero, owing to its dilapidated condition, it was replaced by a copy made by the painter Dorotheus (Pliny, Nat. Hist. xxxv. 36) . ”

“ He receives divine honors from the Tithoreans, and no less from the other Phocians. Within the precincts are dwellings for both the suppliants of the god and his servants. In the middle is the temple of the god and an image made of stone, having a beard more than two feet long. A couch is set on the right of the image. It is usual to sacrifice to the god any animal except the goat.
10.32.13 About forty stades distant from Asclepius is a precinct and shrine sacred to Isis, the holiest of all those made by the Greeks for the Egyptian goddess. ”

“ The boy accordingly is hoisted on another’s back and flogged; but his spirit does not appear to be subdued, and the mother resorts to the old man after all. IV. is a visit of two poor women with an offering to the temple of Asclepius at Cos. While the humble cock is being sacrificed, they turn, like the women in the Ion of Euripides, to admire the works of art ”

“ Liebke, 1938
Neat pattern-wing beetles# Asklepia Liebke, 1938:113
Type species.
Asklepia strandi Liebke, 1938:113.
Derivation of genus name.
Asklepius, a Greek God of healing. Why Liebke used this name is unknown. See: http://www.mythologydictionary.com/asclepius-mythology.html
Proposed english vernacular name.
Neat pattern-wing beetles.
Diagnosis (Figs 29–55, 57–75) . Size range – ABL = 1.95 mm to 3.74 mm; with the attributes of the genus Asklepia as described by [9] . Adults with head and pronotum smooth and shiny ”

“ Of those, too, who at one time lived as men among the Egyptians, but were constituted gods by human opinion, were Hermes the Theban, and Asclepius of Memphis; Tireseus and Manto, again, at Thebes, as Euripides says. Helenus, too, and Laocoon, and Œnone, and Crenus in Ilium. For Crenus, one of the Heraclidæ, is said to have been a noted prophet. Another was Jamus in Elis, from whom came the Jamidæ; and Polyidus at Argos and Megara, who is mentioned by the tragedy. Why enumerate Telemus, who, being a prophet of the Cyclops, predicted to Polyphemus the events of Ulysses’ wandering ”

“ His statue in this temple was formed of gold and ivory, and represents him as a god seated on a throne, and holding in one hand a staff with a snake coiled around it, the other hand resting on the head of a snake; a dog, as an emblem of watchfulness, at his feet (an intimation very appropriate for the medical profession) . The Asclepiades, the followers of Æsculapius, inherited and kept the secrets of the healing art; or, assuming that Æsculapius was merely a divine symbol, the Asclepiades must be regarded as a medical, priestly caste, who preserved as mysteries the doctrine of medicine. ”