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Exercise Science Department
Willamette University
900 State Street
Salem, Oregon 97301
(503) 370-6420
(503) 370-6379 fax
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[MISSION]
[STUDENT ACHIEVEMENTS]
[NEWS]
[ALUMNI]
[HISTORY]
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[HISTORY]
[ASKLEPIOS]
[VITRUVIAN]
[DA VINCI]
Asklepios, God of Medicine
At Laceria, a city in Thessaly, Phlegyas, the son of Ares, once ruled as king. This king had a beautiful daughter, Coronis, whom Apollo chanced to see one day and, falling in love with her, made her his own. The girl was ashamed of her encounter with the great god and told no one of it; besides, she was already engaged to Ischys, the son of the King of Arcadia. On the day of their wedding, a crow, seeing the preparations which were being made, flew to Delphi to inform the god that his beloved was marrying a mortal. Apollo few into a rage with the crow which had been in such a hurry to bring him the bad news and cursed it – and the crow, originally white, turned black. Then Apollo killed Ischys with his arrows, while his sister Artemis slew Coronis and the women of her entourage.
However, Coronis was pregnant and Apollo did not wish the child to be lost. So, a little before the girl’s body was burned on the funeral pyre, he snatched the infant – Asclepius – and took him to Pelion, where he entrusted him to the Centaur Chiron. From this wise Centuar Asclepius learnt, among many other things, how to heal every sickness and every wound. Such was his skill as a physician that his name rapidly became known throughout Greece and a host of the sick and wounded flocked to him to be cured. When, however, Asclepius went so far as the raise the dead, he provoked a wrath of Zeus. The god aimed a thunderbolt at the son of Apollo and struck him dead.
According to one myth, Asclepius had the power to raise the dead because he had shared with Athena the blood which had flowed when Perseus cut off the head of the Gorgon. This blood had double power: it cold either save people or wipe them out. The Greeks honoured Asclepius initially as a hero and later, from the late Classical period onwards, as a god. His wife was said to have been Epione, a figure without a history whose name is simply derived from his own. his daughters by Epione, Hygeia, Iaso, Aceso, and Panacea are personifications of abstract concepts connected with medicine. There are also references to two sons of Asclepius, Machaon and Podalirius, who took part in the campaign against Troy as warriors and physicians.
Excerpt from: Greek Mythology, 1997, by Katerina Servi (archeologist). ISBN# 960-213-373-2. Photograph: Large Beardless Asclepius at the Vatican Museum, Braccio Nuovo, #17 by Felix Just, S.J. |
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