At the time of the great plague in Rome (291 B.C.), ambassadors were sent to Epidaurus, in accordance with the advice of the Sibylline books, to seek aid from Æsculapius. They returned with a statue of the god, but as their boat passed up the Tiber a serpent which had lain concealed during the voyage glided from the boat, and landing on the bank was welcomed by the people in the belief that the god himself had come to their aid. The Temple of Æsculapius, which was built after this plague in 291 B.C., was situated on the island of the Tiber. Tradition states that, when the Tarquins were expelled, their crops were thrown into the river, and soil accumulated thereon until ultimately the island was formed. In consequence of the strange happening of the serpent landing from the ship the end of the island on which the Temple of Æsculapius stood was shaped into the form of the bow of a ship, and the serpent of Æsculapius was sculptured upon it in relief.
The island is not far from the Æmilian Bridge, of which one broken arch remains.
Ovid represents this divinity as speaking thus:—
"I come to leave my shrine;
This serpent view, that with ambitious play
My staff encircles, mark him every way;
His form—though larger, nobler, I'll assume,
And, changed as gods should be, bring aid to Rome."
(Ovid, "Metamorphoses," xv.)
He is said to have resumed his natural form on the island of the Tiber.
"And now no more the drooping city mourns;
Joy is again restored and health returns."
It was the custom for patients to sleep under the portico of the Temple of Æsculapius, hoping that the god of the healing art might inspire them in dreams as to the system of cure they should adopt for their illnesses. Sick slaves were left there by their masters, but the number increased to such an extent that the Emperor Claudius put a stop to the cruel practice. The Church of St. Bartholomew now stands on the ruins of the Temple of Æsculapius.
Even in very early times, however, Rome was not without medical practitioners, though not so well supplied as some other nations. The Lex Æmilia, passed 433 B.C., ordained punishment for the doctor who neglected a sick slave. In Plutarch's "Life of Cato" (the Censor, who was born in 234 B.C.), we read of a Roman ambassador who was sent to the King of Bithynia, in Asia Minor, and who had his skull trepanned.
The first regular doctor in Rome was Archagathus, who began practice in the city 219 B.C., when the authorities received him favourably and bought a surgery for him; but his methods were rather violent, and he made much use of the knife and caustics, earning for himself the title of "butcher," and thus having fallen into disfavour, he was glad to depart from Rome. A College of Æsculapius and of Health was established 154 B.C., but this was not a teaching college in the present meaning of the term.