Page:Greek and Roman Mythology.djvu/91

 THE GREEK GODS 77 Drew iron tears down Plato's cheek, And made Hell grant what love did seek. Pope, Song by a Person of Quality v. : Gloomy Pluto, King of terrors, Arm'd in adamantine chains. Shak., King Henry IV. pt. ii. ii. 4, 169; Chaucer, Knight's Tale 1224, et passim; Spenser, F. Q. i. iv. 11. Hypnos : Daniel, Delia, Sonnet Ii. ; Tennyson, In Memo- riam Ixvii. 2. DIVINITIES OF SICKNESS AND HEALING 102. Since the death divinities possess power over life and death, when propitiated they may become health divinities, who ward off sickness and death. To those who seek help and healing they make known their will and counsel mostly by oracular dreams, just as the dead themselves are wont to appear to their friends in dreams. So Aesculapius (Grk. Asklepios)^ the most important of them, was an oracular god, closely related to Hades, probably at first indigenous to the vicinity of the Thessa- lian town Tricca at the foot of Mount Pindus. He was believed to dwell in the depths of the earth, and there- fore, like the dead, was represented in the form of a serpent. His priests, however, the family of the Ascle- piadae, practiced the actual art of healing as an occult science, so that the remedies which were apparently prescribed by the god had the desired effect. They transplanted into Boeotia the worship of Aesculapius as the god of healing, where it was combined with the similar worship of Trophonius at Lebadia. Afterwards they carried it also into Phocis and Epidaurus in Argolis. From there it reached Rome in the year 291 B.C. 103. In Homer, on the other hand, Aesculapius has already reached the lower level of a mere me'dical hero ;