d retired to a little island opposite to the city, where a
temple was erected to the god, and the pestilence ceased.

The animals sacrificed to Aesculapius were the goat; some say on
account of his having been nursed by this animal; others because this
creature is unhealthy, as labouring under a perpetual fever. The dog and
the cock were sacrificed to him, on account of their fidelity and
vigilance; the raven was also devoted to him for its forecast, and being
skilled in divination. Authors are not agreed as to his being the
inventor of physic, some affirming he perfected that part only which
relates to the regimen of the sick.

The origin of this fable is as follows:--the public sign or symbol
exposed by the Egyptians in their assemblies, to warn the people to mark
the depth of the inundation of the Nile, in order to regulate their
ploughing accordingly, was the figure of a man with a dog's head,
carrying a pole with serpents twisted round it, to which they gave the
name of Anubis,[35] Thaaut,[36] and Aesculapius.[37] In process of time,
they made use of this representation for a real king, who by the study
of physic, sought the preservation of his subjects. Thus the dog and the
serpents became the characteristics of Aesculapius amongst the Romans
and Greeks, who were entirely strangers to the original meaning of these
hieroglyphics.

Aesculapius was represented as an old man, with a long beard, crowned
with a branch of bay tree; in his hands was a staff full of knots, about
which a serpent had twisted itself: at his feet stood an owl or a
dog--characteristics of the qualities of a good physician, who must be
as cunning as a serpent, as vigilant as a dog, as cunning and
experienced as an old bashaw, to handle a thing so difficult as physic.
At Epidaurus his statue was of gold and ivory,[38] seated on a throne of
the same materials, with a long beard, having a knotty stick in one
hand, the other entwined with a serpent, and a dog lying at his feet.
The Phliasians depicted him as beardless, and the Romans crowned him
with a laurel, to denote his descent from Apollo. The knots in his staff
signify the difficulties that occur in the study of medicine. He had by
his wife Epione two sons, Machaon and Podalirius, both skilled in
surgery, and who are mentioned by Homer as having been present at the
siege of Troy, and who were very serviceable to the Greeks. He had also
two daughters, called Hygiaea and Jaso.

FOOTNOTES: