Asclepius
Greek · demigod · heroic age · demigod
Half-Olympian son of Apollo by Coronis; rescued from his mother's funeral pyre by Apollo; trained by Chiron in medicine. Resurrected the dead (variously Hippolytus, Glaucus son of Minos, or others); Zeus struck him with a thunderbolt to preserve the boundary between mortality and immortality. Posthumously worshipped as the god of healing — cult mother-sanctuary at Epidaurus, with major Asklepieia at Cos (Hippocratic medical school), Pergamon, Athens, and Rome (Tiber Island, imported 293 BCE during a plague). The Rod of Asclepius (single-serpent staff) remains the international symbol of medicine. The Hippocratic Oath invokes him alongside Apollo, Hygieia, and Panacea.
Parentage
Children
Domains
- medicine and healing
- resurrection power
- prophecy
Powers
- Cure the sick through dream-vision in temple incubation
- Stay disease and wounds as the gentlest of physicians
- Raise the dead with the Gorgon's blood
- Heal disease and wounds
- Raise the dead
Epithets
- Ἀσκληπιὸς Σωτήρ
- Παιάν
- Σωτήρ
- Παιών
- Ἀσκληπιὸς Ἐπιδώτης
Relations
- lover: Aristodama
- spouse: Epione
- father of: Machaon
- father of: Podalirius
- father of: Hygieia
- father of: Iaso
- father of: Aceso
- father of: Aegle
- father of: Panacea
- father of: Telesphorus
- father of: Aratus of Sicyon
- syncretism: Imhotep
- interpretatio: Eshmun
- syncretism: The Thracian Horseman, Hero-God of the Reliefs