—Peon sprinkling heavenly balm around,
Assuaged the glowing pangs and closed the wound.
Æsculapius.
Æsculapius, son of Apollo and Coronis, had a more immediate connection with medicine than his father. He was taught its mysteries by Chiron the Centaur, another of the legendary inventors of the art, who also taught Achilles and others. Æsculapius became so skilful that Castor and Pollux insisted on his accompanying the expedition of the Argonauts. Ultimately he acquired the power of restoring the dead to life. But this perfection of his art was his ruin.
Æsculapius.
From the Casalius Collection of Medals, &c. (17th century).
From the Louvre Statue, Paris.
Pluto, alarmed for the future of his own dominions, complained to Jupiter, and the Olympian ruler slew Æsculapius with a thunderbolt. Apollo was so incensed at this cruel judgment that he killed the Cyclops who had forged the thunderbolt. For this act of rebellion Apollo was banished from Olympia and spent nine years on earth, for some time as a shepherd in the service of the king of Thessaly. It was during this period that the story of his adventure with Daphne, told by Ovid, and from which the quotation on
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