Page:History of Greece Vol I.djvu/212

 180 mSTORY OF GR2ECE. % "especting the details of his birth and adventures : in particular, his mother was by some called Arsinoe. But a formal applica- tion had been made on this subject (so the Epidaurians told Pausanias) to the oracle of Delphi, and the god in reply acknowl- edged that Asklepius was his son by Koronis. 1 The tale above recounted seems to have been both the oldest and the most cur- rent. It is adorned by Pindar in a noble ode, wherein however he omits all mention of the raven as messenger not specifying who or what the spy was frym whom Apollo learnt the infidelity of Koronis. By many this was considered as an improvement in respect of poetical effect, but it illustrates the mode in which the characteristic details and simplicity of the old fables 3 came to be exchanged for dignified generalities, adapted to the altered taste of society. Machaon and Podaleirius, the two sons of Asklepius, com mand the contingent from Trikka, in the north-west region of Thessaly, at the siege of Troy by Agamemnon. 3 They are the leeches of the Grecian army, highly prized and consulted by all the wounded chiefs. Their medical renown was further pro- longed in the subsequent poem of Arktinus, the Iliu-Persis, wherein the one was represented as unrivalled in surgical opera- tions, the other as sagacious in detecting and appreciating morbid symptoms. It was Podaleirius who first noticed the glaring 1 Pausan. ii. 26, where several distinct stories are mentioned, each spring ing up at some one or other of the sanctuaries of the god : quite enough to justify the idea of these JEsculapii (Cicero, N. D. iii. 22). Homer, Hymn, ad ^Esculap. 2. The tale briefly alluded to in the Homeric Hymn, ad Apollin. 209. is evidently different : Ischys is there the companion of Apollo, and Koronis is an Arcadian damsel. Aristide's, the fervent worshipper of Asklepius, adopted the story of Koro- nis, and composed hymns on the yu.fj.ov Kopuvidor Kal yeveciv TOV tfeoi (Orat. 23. p. 463, Bind.). 2 See Pindar, Pyth. iii. The Scholiast puts a construction upon Pindar's words which is at any rate far-fetched, if indeed it be at all admissible : he supposes that Apollo knew the fact from his own omniscience, without any in- formant, and he praises Pindar for having th as transformed the old fable. But the words ov6 J shade GKOITOV seem certainly to imply some informant : to suppose that CTKOTTOV means the god's own mind, is a strained interpretation. 3 Iliad, ii. 730. The Messnians laid claim to the sons of Asklepius at their heroes, and tried to justify tke pretension by a forced construction, oi Homer { Pausan. iii. 4, 2