How it happened that the child of Coronis, a Thessalian, first saw the light in Epidauria, a country which became particularly sacred to him, is a question which should be answered. It appears that Coronis came there with her warlike father, Phlegyas, who gave, as a reason for his visit, a desire to see the country, but, “in reality,” Pausanias says, “that he might inspect the multitude of the inhabitants, and learn whether there was a great quantity of fighting men.”[122]
Pindar states that Apollo, on rescuing his child, bore him at once to Chiron—
“To learn of human woes the healing lore,”[123]
which does away with the fabled discreditable exposure of him; but whether this be so or not, in progress of time, he did put him under the care and instruction of “the beneficent leech,”[124] Cheiron (to use the archaic expression of the historian, Grote[125]), the Thessalian Centaur, or fabulous monster, whose figure from the waist down was like the body of a horse.[126] Under the direction of this strangely-formed creature, Æsculapius proceeded to study the medical virtues of plants; for Chiron was a great herbalist, being called by Homer, in the words of Pope, “the sire of pharmacy.”[127] In time the pupil exceeded the teacher in his knowledge of drugs.
Chiron was regarded, Pindar tells us,[128] as the son of Saturn and the sea-nymph Philyra; and hence was a brother of Zeus. Saturn changed himself into a horse to conceal his amour with the nymph from his wife, Rhea. This would account for the form of the Centaur.
Chiron lived in a cave on Mount Pelion, in Thessaly. It will be remembered that it was from there that he got the ashen spear[129] for Peleus, which the son brought into use, a ponderous spear, which—
“Stern Achilles only wields,
The death of heroes and the dread of fields.”[130]
According to Homer,[131] Hercules received instruction in medicine from Chiron; and it is stated, by Pindar,[132] that Jason was another pupil of his. With these Æsculapius went, as physician, on the celebrated Argonautic expedition.
At the end of his career, the Centaur became, it is said, the sign of the zodiac, Sagittarius.[133]