Not to mention all we are told of his parents, it will be enough to observe, that the opinion generally received in Greece, made him the son of Apollo by Corōnis, daughter of Phlegyas; and indeed the Messenians, who consulted the oracle of Delphi to know where Æsculapius was born, and of what parents, were told by the oracle, or more properly Apollo, that he himself was his father; that Corōnis was his mother, and that their son was born at Epidaurus.
Phlegyas, the most warlike man of his age, having gone into Peloponnesus under pretence of travelling, but, in truth, to spy into the condition of the country, carried his daughter Corōnis thither, who, to conceal her situation from her father, went to Epidaurus: there she was delivered of a son, whom she exposed upon a mountain, called to this day Mount Titthion, or of the breast; but before this adventure, Myrthion, from the myrtles that grew upon it.
The reason of this change of name was, that the child, having been here abandoned, was suckled by one of those goats of the mountain, which the dog of Aristhĕnes the goat-herd guarded. When Aristhĕnes came to review his flock, he found a she-goat and his dog missing, and going in search of them discovered the child. Upon approaching to lift him from the earth, he perceived his head encircled with fiery rays, which made him believe the child to be of divine origin.
As Κορωνη in the Greek language signifies a crow, hence another fable arose importing, as we see in Lucian, that Æsculapius had sprung from an egg of a bird, under the figure of a serpent. Whatever these fictions may mean, Æsculapius being removed from the mount on which he was exposed, was nursed by Trigo or Trigone, who was probably the wife of the goat-herd that found him; and when he was capable of improving by Chiron, Phlegyas (to whom he had doubtless been returned) put him under the Centaur's tuition.
Being of a quick and lively genius, he made such progress as soon to become not only a great physician, but at length to be reckoned the god and inventor of medicine; though the Greeks, not very consistent in the history of those early ages, gave to Apis, son of Phoroneus, the glory of having discovered the healing art. Æsculapius accompanied Jason in his expedition to Colchis, and in his medical capacity was of great service to the Argonauts. Within a short time after his death he was deified, and received divine honors: some add, that he formed the celestial sign, Serpentarius.
As the Greeks always carried the encomiums of their great men beyond the truth, they feigned that Æsculapius was so expert in medicine, as not only to cure the sick, but even to raise the dead. Ovid says he did this by Hippolĭtus, and Julian says the same of Tyndărus: that Pluto cited him before the tribunal of Jupiter, and complained that his empire was considerably diminished and in danger of becoming desolate, from the cures Æsculapius performed; so that Jupiter in wrath slew Æsculapius with a thunder-bolt; to which they added that Apollo, enraged at the death of his son, killed the Cyclops who forged Jupiter's thunder-bolts: a fiction which obviously signifies only, that Æsculapius had carried his art very far, and that he cured diseases believed to be desperate.
Æsculapius is always represented under the figure of a grave old man wrapped up in a cloak, having sometimes upon his head the calăthus of Serāpis, with a staff in his hand, which is commonly wreathed about with a serpent; sometimes again with a serpent in one hand, and a patĕra in the other; sometimes leaning upon a pillar, round which a serpent also twines. The cock, a bird consecrated to this god, whose vigilance represents that quality which physicians ought to have, is sometimes at the feet of his statues. Socrates, we know, when dying, said to those who stood around him in his last moments, “We owe a cock to Æsculapius; give it without delay.”
ULYSSES, king of Ithăca, was the son of Laertes, or Laertius and Anticlēa. His wife Penelŏpe, daughter of Icarius brother of Tyndărus king of Sparta, was highly famed for her prudence and virtue; and being unwilling that the Trojan war should part them, Ulysses to avoid the expedition, pretended to be mad, and not only joined different beasts to the same plough, but sowed also the furrows with salt.
Palamēdes, however, suspecting the frenzy to be assumed, threw Telemachus, then an infant, in the way of the plough, to try if his father would alter its course. This stratagem succeeded; for when Ulysses came to the child he turned off from the spot, in consequence of which Palamēdes compelled him to take part in the war. He accordingly sailed with twelve ships, and was signally serviceable to the Greeks.
To him the capture of Troy is chiefly to be ascribed, since by him the obstacles were removed, which had so long prevented it. For as Ulysses himself was detected by Palamēdes, so he in his turn detected Achilles, who, to avoid engaging in the same war, had concealed himself in the habits of a woman, at the court of Lycomēdes, king of Scyros. Ulysses there discovered him, and as it had been foretold that without Achilles Troy could not be taken, thence drew him to the siege.