Asclepius

Son of Apollo

The Homeric Hymn to Asclepius names him son of Apollo and of Coronis, daughter of King Phlegyas, born in the Dotian plain of Thessaly. Pindar's third Pythian Ode tells the darker version: Coronis was unfaithful to Apollo while carrying his child, Artemis killed her, and Apollo snatched the infant from her funeral pyre and gave him to the centaur Chiron to raise and teach.

The Healer Struck Down

In Homer, Asclepius is still a mortal physician-king whose sons Machaon and Podalirius serve as healers at Troy. Later poets make his skill boundless: he raised the dead, and Zeus, fearing the order of mortality overturned, killed him with a thunderbolt. Apollo's revenge on the Cyclopes who forged the bolt led to his year of servitude to Admetus.

Sanctuaries of Healing

Whatever his mythic death, Asclepius became one of the most widely worshipped gods of the Greek world. His great sanctuary at Epidaurus, and others at Kos, Pergamon, and Athens, practiced incubation: the sick slept in a sacred hall hoping the god would heal them or prescribe a cure in a dream. Inscriptions at Epidaurus record the cures claimed. In 293 BCE the cult was brought to Rome, where he was worshipped as Aesculapius on the Tiber Island. His snake-entwined staff remains a symbol of medicine; his daughters included Hygieia (Health) and Panacea (All-Healing).