Wife. To the deuce with you, how did you see since you say you were covered up?

Karion. Through my old cloak; for, by Zeus, it had holes not a few. First of all, he took in hand to pound a plaster for Neokleides, and he threw in three cloves of Tenian garlic. Then he bruised them in the mortar, mixing therewith the acid juice of the fig-tree and squill; then, having diluted it with Sphettian vinegar, he turned his eyelids inside out that he might feel more pain, and then applied the mixture. But he, squalling and bawling, jumped up and was running away, when the god said with a laugh:—“Sit down there now, smeared with thy plaster, that I may stop thee from going to the Assembly, having for once a real excuse.”

Wife. What a patriot and sage the god is!

Karion. After that he sat down by the side of Ploutos, and first he touched his head, and then, taking a clean towel, he wiped his eyelids all round, and Panakeia covered his head and all his face with a cloth of purple dye; and the god then whistled. Thereupon two snakes of monstrous size darted forth from the temple.

Wife. Dear Gods!

Karion. And these two (snakes) having quietly glided under the crimson cloth, licked his eyelids all around, methought. And before you could drink ten cups of wine, my mistress, Ploutos stood up and was able to see: and I clapped my hands with delight and awoke my master. And the god suddenly took himself off from our view with the snakes into the temple.

If one examines carefully the facts connected with the Aesculapian temple treatment, so far as they are known to us, one cannot fail to be impressed with their strong resemblance to what has been the experience of similar semi-religious movements in more recent times, not only in European countries but also in the United States. In all of them there may be found a kernel of true religious belief, and no candid observer can deny the fact that many persons have been benefited thereby both in body and in mind. But, sooner or later, the method has fallen into disrepute, either because it was employed in the vain hope that it might accomplish a cure which surgical means alone could effect, or else because unscrupulous persons, taking advantage of the credulousness of those associated with the movement, utilized it for their own selfish advantage.

CHAPTER V
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE SERPENT IN THE STATUES AND VOTIVE OFFERINGS EXPOSED TO VIEW IN THE AESCULAPIAN TEMPLES

Almost every important gallery of sculpture in Europe possesses at least one marble statue of Aesculapius, and in the majority of these the god is represented as a middle-aged or elderly man of powerful frame, having a full head of hair and full beard, and clothed only with the pallium or mantle, which is so placed as to leave the right shoulder and a large part of the chest uncovered. He holds in his right hand a knotted staff around which, in many of the statues, is coiled a serpent whose head approaches very closely to the hand. The expression of the god’s countenance is strikingly peaceful and serene, yet without any evidence of weakness. In not a few instances other animals are represented alongside the statue, usually at the god’s feet—as, for example, the cock, the owl, the eagle, the hawk or the ram—and occasionally his daughter Hygieia is shown at his side feeding the serpent. The cock is the symbol of watchfulness—a physician should be vigilant; the owl symbolizes his need of clear-sightedness and of readiness to care for his patients in the night as well as during the day; the eagle has a penetrating eye and it is the emblem of long life—a benefit which the healing art is capable of procuring; the hawk was the bird consecrated to Isis, Queen of Egypt, who was believed by the Egyptians to have been highly skilled in medicine; and the ram is the symbol of dreams and divination. Pliny says that the patients who were brought to the temple of Aesculapius were made to lie down at night wrapped in the skin of a ram, in order that they might have divine dreams. The presence of the serpent in nearly all of the statues of Aesculapius is explained in a variety of ways. Some say that this reptile, which sheds his skin once a year, is emblematic of the sick person’s need to acquire a new body, or at least cast off his old skin in the same manner as does the snake. Others consider the serpent as merely the symbol of wisdom, as it is admittedly the shrewdest and most cunning of all animals. In a few instances it is represented as drinking from a receptacle held in the hand of Hygieia. Perhaps the sculptor’s intention here was to show that the serpent, although the wisest of all animals, believed that he might add to his stock of wisdom by drinking from the fountain under the control of Aesculapius, thus conveying the impression that the wisdom of the latter was greater than his own. But all these interpretations are too subtle for the uneducated mind to appreciate at a glance. They fail also to satisfy our preconceived ideas of what such a statue should be—viz., a memorial of the godlike character of Aesculapius and of the priceless benefits which he conferred upon his fellow men, and, at the same time, an object which, when first contemplated by one who is ill, would at once evoke in that person feelings of perfect confidence in the ability and the willingness of the god represented by the statue to effect a cure. Some, perhaps even a majority, of the statues thus far recovered from the ruins of the different Aesculapian temples certainly fail to arouse any such sentiments in the minds of ordinary observers; but there are others which do in some measure accomplish this, and among the number the statue which may be seen in the Berlin Museum and of which a photographic copy (Fig. 4) is here reproduced, should certainly be included. The head of the god is less imposing and the expression less kindly than are these features in some of the other statues (see, for example, Fig. 5), but, to offset this, the serpent represented in the latter is of the non-poisonous variety.[20] The addition of such a harmless creature to the figure representing the god contributes nothing to the power of the statue as a whole to impress the people—i.e., the uneducated masses, as, for example, the peasants, etc. On the other hand, the significance of the poisonous snake in a statue of this character will be readily appreciated if one considers the fact that in ancient times, as it is even to-day in India, the loss of life caused by the bites of poisonous snakes was enormous. In the presence of such a fact, therefore, it would be difficult for a sculptor who was desirous of emphasizing the extraordinary healing powers of his hero to accomplish this more effectively than by embodying in his statue, along with other impressive features, such characters as would show him to have gained the mastery over that terribly fatal malady—the bite of the viper and of the still more deadly serpents of India and parts of Africa. Although we possess no facts which would warrant the statement that Aesculapius had been particularly successful in the treatment of this form of poisoning, these temple statues furnish indirect proof of a strong character that his healing power in this direction had been very great,—so great, indeed, as to have been largely instrumental in winning for him the appellation of a god. Such a striking object, especially when its more important features were commented upon by the priest who accompanied the patient on his or her first tour of inspection of temple wonders, could scarcely have failed to produce a very deep impression upon the imagination.