In due time “the salutary serpent,[22] the god, reached the Island of the Tiber and assumed again his form divine”:—
“And now no more the drooping city mourns;
Joy is again restor’d and health returns.”
There is little or no reason to doubt that there was really a formal bringing of Æsculapius to Rome, a cosmopolitan city which, indeed, as Gibbon states without much exaggeration, bestowed its freedom “on all the gods of mankind.”[23] Livy, the historian, speaks of the matter as follows:—
“The many prosperous events of the year (459) were scarcely sufficient to afford consolation for one calamity, a pestilence, which afflicted both the city and country and caused a prodigious mortality. To discover what end or what remedy was appointed by the gods for that calamity, the Books were consulted, and there it was found that Æsculapius must be brought to Rome from Epidaurus. However, as the Consuls had full employment in the wars, no farther steps were taken in that business during this year, except the performing of a supplication to Æsculapius of one day’s continence.”[24] Elsewhere[25] he says that the god was brought the following year,—that is, A.U.C. 460, or 292 B.C.
The Island of the Tiber (Insula Tiberina, now Isola Tiberina), the “inter duos pontes” of the early centuries of our era, where Æsculapius was worshipped, and which was sometimes called by his name (Insula Æsculapii), is within the limits of the city of Rome. According to tradition, it originated from alluvial accumulations within the period of Roman history.[26] It is rather remarkable that, excepting the one at the mouth (Insula Sacra, now Isola Sacra), there is no other along the whole course of the famous river. It is ship-shaped, and quite small in size, being only about a quarter of a mile in length,[27] and has been called “San Bartolomeo,” from the church which has long occupied the site of the ancient Temple of Health.[28] Mr. Davies speaks of it at length in his interesting book. After an account of the origin of the worship of Æsculapius on it, he says:—
“It was in commemoration of this event that the island was fashioned in the form of a ship. Huge blocks of travertine and peperino still remain about the prow (pointing down the stream), imitating on a grand scale the forms of the planks, upon which are chiseled the figure of a serpent twined around a rod, and, farther down, the head of an ox. A temple was raised to Æsculapius, in which his statue was placed, which probably stood in the fore part of the simulated vessel, hospitals for the sick occupying the sides, a tall column or obelisk rising in the midst to represent a mast. Temples were also dedicated to Jupiter and Faunus.[29] To these were added a prison in the days of Tiberius.”[30]
Whether the establishment of the worship of the healing divinity on the island at Rome was brought about by chance, or deliberately, is not very clear. Pliny would seem to think that it was elsewhere at first when he says, “The Temple of Æsculapius, even after he was received as a divinity, was built without the city and afterward on an island.”[31] The abhorrence of the people for physicians is given as the reason for isolating the institution. The noble Romans had no love for a class that made a trade of curing the sick, enriching themselves off the misfortunes of their fellow-men; they were shocked, says Pliny, “more particularly that man should pay so dear for the enjoyment of life.”[32] There may have been other and better reasons. The Greeks themselves placed their asclepia in rural and often insular places. Thus, the great Epidaurian Asclepion was in a secluded vale, and two very celebrated ones, those of Cos and Rhodes, were, as the names indicate, on islands. It is needless to say that there are excellent sanitary reasons for placing sanatory institutions in the country, and especially on insular sites. It will be a long step in the right direction when we somewhat unwise moderns cease to have our medical institutions within the built-up parts of our cities and towns, and treat the sick, especially those affected with contagious diseases, at a distance from the well.
Devotion to the serpentine healer appears to have lingered long in sunny Italy.[33] A bronze serpent in the basilica of St. Ambrose was worshipped as late as the year 1001, but the precise import of it is not known. Referring to it, De Gubernatis says: “Some say that it was the serpent of Æsculapius, others that of Moses, others that it was an image of Christ. For us it is enough to remark here that it was a mythical serpent before which Milanese mothers brought their children when they suffered from worms in order to relieve them, as we learn from the depositions of the visit of San Carlo Borromeo to this basilica.”[34] San Carlo suppressed the superstitious practice.[35]