[425] Ἀσκληπιός γέ τοι καὶ Διόνυσος, εἴτ᾽ ἄνθρωποι πρότερον ἤστην εἴτε καὶ ἀρχῆθεν θεοί (Galen, Protreptic. 9. t. 1. p. 22, Kühn.). Pausanias considers him as θεὸς ἐξ ἀρχῆς (ii. 26, 7). In the important temple at Smyrna he was worshipped as Ζεὺς Ἀσκληπιός (Aristidês, Or. 6. p. 64; Or. 23. p. 456, Dind.).
[426] Apollodôr. ap. Clem. Alex. Strom. i. p. 381; see Heyne, Fragment. Apollodôr. p. 410. According to Apollodôrus, the apotheosis of Hêraklês and of Æsculapius took place at the same time, thirty-eight years after Hêraklês began to reign at Argos.
[427] About Hekatæus, Herodot. ii. 143; about Solôn, Diogen. Laërt. Vit. Platon. init.
A curious fragment, preserved from the lost works of Dikæarchus, tells us of the descendants of the Centaur Cheirôn at the town of Pêlion, or perhaps at the neighboring town of Dêmêtrias,—it is not quite certain which, perhaps at both (see Dikæarch. Fragment. ed. Fuhr, p. 408). Ταύτην δὲ τὴν δύναμιν ἓν τῶν πολιτῶν οἶδε γένος, ὁ δὴ λέγεται Χείρωνος ἀπόγονον εἶναι· παραδίδωσι δὲ καὶ δείκνυσι πατὴρ υἱῷ, καὶ οὕτως ἡ δύναμις φυλάσσεται, ὡς οὐδεὶς ἄλλος οἶδε τῶν πολιτῶν· οὐχ ὅσιον δὲ τοὺς ἐπισταμένους τὰ φάρμακα μισθοῦ τοῖς καμνοῦσι βοηθεῖν, ἀλλὰ προῖκα.
Plato, de Republ. iii. 4 (p. 391). Ἀχιλλεὺς ὑπὸ τῷ σοφωτάτῳ Χείρωνι τεθραμμένος. Compare Xenophôn, De Venat. c. 1.
[428] See the genealogy at length in Le Clerc, Historie de la Médecine, lib. ii. c. 2. p. 78, also p. 287; also Littré, Introduction aux Œuvres Complètes d’Hippocrate, t. i. p. 35. Hippocratês was the seventeenth from Æsculapius.
Theopompus the historian went at considerable length into the pedigree of the Asklêpiads of Kôs and Knidus, tracing them up to Podaleirius and his first settlement at Syrnus in Karia (see Theopomp. Fragm. 111, Didot): Polyanthus of Kyrênê composed a special treatise περὶ τῆς τῶν Ἀσκληπιαδῶν γενέσεως (Sextus Empiric. adv. Grammat. i. 12. p. 271); see Stephan. Byz. v. Κῶς, and especially Aristidês, Orat. vii. Asclêpiadæ. The Asklêpiads were even reckoned among the Ἀρχηγέται of Rhodes, jointly with the Hêrakleids (Aristidês, Or. 44, ad Rhod. p. 839, Dind.).
In the extensive sacred enclosure at Epidaurus stood the statues of Asklêpius and his wife Epionê (Pausan. ii. 29, 1): two daughters are coupled with him by Aristophanês, and he was considered especially εὔπαις (Plutus, 654); Jaso, Panakeia and Hygieia are named by Aristidês.
[429] Plato, Protagor. c. 6 (p. 311). Ἱπποκράτη τὸν Κῶον, τὸν τῶν Ἀσκληπιαδῶν; also Phædr. c. 121. (p. 270). About Ktêsias, Galen, Opp. t. v. p. 652, Basil.; and Bahrt, Fragm. Ktêsiæ, p. 20. Aristotle (see Stahr. Aristotelia, i. p. 32) and Xenophôn, the physician of the emperor Claudius, were both Asklêpiads (Tacit. Annal. xii. 61). Plato, de Republ. iii. 405, calls them τοὺς κομψοὺς Ἀσκληπιάδας.
Pausanias, a distinguished physician at Gela in Sicily, and contemporary of the philosopher Empedoklês, was also an Asklêpiad: see the verses of Empedoklês upon him, Diogen. Laërt. viii. 61.