The Cult of Asclepius:

Its Origins and Early Development

TREVOR CURNOW
Abstract
This article explores the origins and early development of the cult of Asclepius.
Most of the relevant materials are found in classical literature, although archaeol-
ogy can also help to shine some light on certain areas. Unsurprisingly, the origins
of the cult are quite obscure. A number of places in ancient Greece competed for
the honour of being his birthplace, and there is no conclusive reason for deciding
in favour of any of them. One thing that is constant in the stories told about him
is that Apollo was usually his father. Another constant in the history of the cult
is the practice of incubation. It seems likely that the cult brought together and
combined elements of several healing cults that were originally quite separate.
The cult emerged at the same time that Hippocratic medicine was developing.
A new understanding of the nature of the soul, and the relationship between it
and the body was also taking root. It is reasonable to believe that these facts are
related, although harder to say exactly how.
Keywords: Apollo; Asclepius; body and soul; Coronis; Epidaurus; healing cults;
Hippocratic medicine; incubation; Maleatas; Plato

The cult of Asclepius was one of the most popular and widespread in antiquity.
There is evidence of over 700 different cult centres of one kind or another scattered
across the ancient world.1 The most important of them developed into large-scale
enterprises, visited by thousands of people over hundreds of years. The remains
of three of the biggest, those at Pergamum, Epidaurus and on the island of Kos,
can still be seen. In each case, a large self-contained complex was built outside and
away from the main settlement. At Messene, the cult of Asclepius came to occupy
a set of substantial buildings at the very centre of the city (Plate 1). At Corinth the
buildings were also substantial, but situated just inside the city walls. Much more
modest affairs have been unearthed at sites such as Alipheira (Plate 2), where a
temple, an altar and what may be an ancillary building have been discovered.2
Many more have been lost altogether.
Archaeological remains are often insufficient to establish what a building was
used for or how it was used. While at places like Gortys (in the Peloponnese)
what is clearly a bathing complex is an integral part of an Asclepius sanctuary
(Plate 3), at Epidaurus opinions are still divided as to the purpose of the distinc-
tive circular building (tholos) found there. It is therefore fortunate that surviving
works of ancient literature constitute another source of information. For the cult of

1
  Jürgen W. Riethmuller, Asklepios: Heiligtümer und Kulte, 2 vols (Heidelberg: Verlag Archäologie
und Geschichte, 2005).
2
 See Trevor Curnow, The Oracles of the Ancient World (London: Duckworth, 2004) for more
­information on, and illustrations of, all the sites named and many others.

67
68 BULLETIN JOHN RYLANDS LIBRARY

Plate 1  The Asclepion of Messene.

Plate 2  The temple of Asclepius at Alipheira.

Asclepius, the writings of Aelius Aristides are particularly useful.3 He was a sophist
and hypochondriac of the second century ad who spent a great deal of time having
real or imagined illnesses treated at Pergamum, because Asclepius was the greatest

3
  Translations of the complete surviving works of Aelius Aristides can be found in the Loeb Classical
Library series.
 THE CULT OF ASCLEPIUS 69

Plate 3  Baths at the north Asclepion of Gortys.

healer of antiquity. The fact that a cult primarily concerned with healing attracted a
large following is not in itself surprising. However, there were plenty of other cults
offering assistance to the sick and suffering that achieved nothing like the same
prominence.4 For some reason, in this regard at least, the cult of Asclepius came to
surpass them all.
To trace the entire history of the cult is beyond the scope of this article. To some
extent the middle part of that history can be explained by the fact that, once estab-
lished, the cult took on an expansionist momentum of its own, and the story of its
decline is in large measure the story of the rise of Christianity. However, the cult’s
origins and early development remain a matter of some vagueness and dispute.
Consequently, that will be my first and main focus here.
The name of Asclepius is mentioned in the Iliad, but always in association with
one or both of his sons, Machaon and Podaleirius.5 The only thing said about
Asclepius himself is that he is an excellent healer. Homeric Hymn 16 is dedicated
to him, and there he is identified as the son of Apollo and Coronis (daughter of
Phleygas, a king of the Lapiths). There was a competing tradition that claimed
Arsinoe (daughter of Leucippus, king of Messenia) to be his mother. Other tradi-
tions agreed that either Coronis or Arsinoe was his mother but disagreed as to the

4
  See Curnow Oracles again, particularly the section on France.
5
 At Iliad, 2.731, 4.194, 11.518, 11.614 and 14.1.
70 BULLETIN JOHN RYLANDS LIBRARY

identity of his father.6 The poet Theognis used the term ‘Asclepiades’ apparently to
mean healers in general rather than literally ‘the sons of Asclepius’. This suggests
that Asclepius was regarded as the epitome or embodiment of the healing arts by
that time.7 Unfortunately, there is no firm agreement as to when ‘that time’ was,
although the sixth century bc seems most likely. The most common version of his
story saw him being trained in the healing arts by Chiron the centaur, and going
on to be so proficient that he could bring the dead back to life. For such acts of
hubris he was killed by Zeus with a thunderbolt, but subsequently transformed
into a god.8
The earliest archaeological evidence for the cult of Asclepius seems to come from
Epidaurus. A bronze offering bowl unearthed there bears a dedicatory inscription
to him, but its date is disputed.9 It is likely to be somewhere in the region of 500
bc. During the fifth century the evidence grows, and the official introduction of
the cult to Athens in 420 bc is well attested, even if the reasons for its occurrence
remain a matter of debate.10
This brief outline establishes the basic framework for approaching the origins of
the cult. It immediately presents a number of problems. Where there is not vague-
ness, there is confusion. Homer nowhere makes it explicit whether he understands
Asclepius to be a god or a man, and mythology identifies more than one woman as
his mother, and more than one person as his father. However, one of the recurrent
and dominant themes running through the literature and archaeological evidence
relating to Asclepius is his close association with Apollo. Indeed, Macrobius was
even moved to observe that the two should be regarded as one and the same.11
Diodorus Siculus believed that Apollo, as well as Chiron, taught Asclepius his
medical arts.12 Isidore of Seville claimed that Asclepius only helped to advance
knowledge in the discipline his father had founded.13 He also claimed that this
knowledge was lost for a period of 500 years, and rediscovered by Hippocrates.
Although round figures are always to be treated with caution, this points to a belief
that Asclepius died during the tenth century. Given the Homeric tradition that
his own sons Machaon and Podaleirius were physicians attendant on the Greeks
at Troy, this idea that his medical knowledge died with Asclepius is a curious one

6
  The article by E. Thrämer on ‘Health and Gods of Healing (Greek)’, in Encyclopaedia of Religion
and Ethics, vol. 6, ed. James Hastings (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1913), 540–53 is still worth reading
for its discussion of Asclepius and his origins.
7
  Elegies, line 432.
8
  Many of the literary sources relating to Asclepius can be found gathered together in Emma J.
Edelstein and Ludwig Edelstein, Asclepius: A Collection and Interpretation of the Testimonies (New
York: Arno Press, 1975). This is a reprint of the two volumes of the 1945 edition in one book.
9
  See R.A. Tomlinson, Epidauros (St Albans: Granada, 1983), 23, and references.
10
  See Bronwen L. Wickkiser, Asklepios, Medicine and the Politics of Healing in Fifth-Century Greece:
Between Craft and Cult (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008).
11
  Saturnalia 1.20, 1–4, cited in Edelstein and Edelstein, Asclepius, I, 150.
12
  Library of History 5.74.6, cited in Edelstein and Edelstein, Asclepius, I, 184.
13
  Etymologiae 4.3, 1–2, cited in Edelstein and Edelstein, Asclepius, I, 185.
 THE CULT OF ASCLEPIUS 71

and it is by no means clear why Isidore should have believed it or felt it worth
recording.
The fact that Apollo was seen as a healer or founder of medicine, and that in the
course of time the cults of mythological father and son became closely integrated
with each other, makes it at least plausible that the cult of Asclepius took over and
specialized in what had been only one of the functions of the cult of his father. The
rise of the cult of Asclepius seems to have been contemporaneous with the decline
of Apollo’s healing activities, and the dream was the principal healing medium
used by both cults.14
At Epidaurus, there is evidence of a further twist to the connection between
Asclepius and Apollo. On the hill behind the famous theatre are the remains of a
less well-known sanctuary dedicated to Apollo Maleatas (or Maleates). The ruined
temple dates back to the early fourth century bc, and underneath it are remains of
an earlier one dated to the mid-sixth century bc.15 There is evidence that the site
may have been a cult centre for hundreds of years before that.16 Apollo Maleatas
himself is something of a mystery. The meaning of ‘Maleatas’ is not at all clear. It
might suggest a connection with somewhere called Malea, but no evidence of his
cult has been found in any such place. The name also contains echoes of Malos,
who was said to have built an altar to the god at Epidaurus (and, according to one
version of the god’s ancestry, to have been the maternal grandfather of Asclepius).
Although the origin of his name is obscure, it seems most likely that Maleatas was
a hero or god whose cult became conjoined with that of Apollo. The age of the site
at Epidaurus makes it likely that the presence of Maleatas there predates that of
Apollo.17
The little that is known about Apollo Maleatas suggests that he had associa-
tions with both healing and hunting. The earliest reference to him seems to be an
inscription found in Tegea and dated to the sixth century.18 Most of the scant evi-
dence available ties him to the Peloponnese, and Pausanias mentions the presence
of his cult in Sparta,19 but a fourth-century bc poem by Isyllus claims that sacrifices
were made to him by those entering the temple of Asclepius in Tricca. However,
the value of this testimony is disputed.20 As will be seen, the fact that this reference
is specifically to Tricca is particularly significant.
14
  See Alison Burford, The Greek Temple Builders at Epidauros (Liverpool: Liverpool University
Press, 1969), 19.
15
  See V.K. Lambrinoudakis, Argolida: Archaeological Sites and Museums (Editions Apollo, n.d.),
138–45.
16
  See Bogdan Rutkowski, The Cult Places of the Aegean (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986),
202–3.
17
  See Simon Price and Emily Kearns, The Oxford Dictionary of Classical Myth and Religion (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2003), 39.
18
  See Lewis Richard Farnell, The Cults of the Greek States, vol. 4 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1907),
236.
19
  Pausanias, 3.12.8. The edition used here is the translation by Peter Levi, Pausanias: Guide to
Greece, 2 vols (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1971).
20
  See Tomlinson, Epidauros, 13–17.
72 BULLETIN JOHN RYLANDS LIBRARY

One possible interpretation of the Apollo Maleatas material is that, at Epidaurus

at least, the cult of Apollo merged with an already existing and present cult of
Maleatas, which also had a healing function. When this healing function later
became separated off, it took the form of the cult of Asclepius who was, in a sense,
Maleatas reborn.21 This interpretation might help to explain why Asclepius was
sometimes associated with dogs. Dogs are most obviously connected with hunting,
and this was one of the domains of Apollo Maleatas. Although there seems to have
been some kind of perceived association of dogs with healing in Greek and Roman
culture, it may be that this was more the result of the animal’s association with
Asclepius than a cause of it. There appears to be little evidence of the association
outside the context of this particular cult, whereas the association with hunting is
widespread.22
Consideration of the father of Asclepius has revealed a strong connection
with Epidaurus, and indeed this became the most important centre of his cult on
mainland Greece. However, when attention shifts to his mother, a rather different
­picture emerges.
According to one story, his mother was called Coronis, and her father was a
Thessalian king. She became the lover of Apollo, who set a white crow (or raven)
to watch over her. Despite this, and although already pregnant with Apollo’s child,
she took another lover. In his anger, Apollo cursed the bird, which turned black
as a result. He also complained to his sister Artemis, who killed Coronis with her
arrows, but he asked Hermes to save his unborn child, which he did. This child,
Asclepius, he sent to be with Chiron. No precise birthplace is mentioned in this
version of the story, but it is presumed to be in Thessaly, and Tricca claimed to be
the place in question. However, there is an alternative version according to which
Coronis accompanied her father (who was unaware of the fact that she was preg-
nant by Apollo) on a spying mission to Epidaurus, and gave birth to her son there.
She abandoned him but he survived, having been protected by a dog.
Opinions are still strongly divided as to which version to prefer, whether to
give precedence to Tricca or Epidaurus. According to Pausanias, Apollo himself
resolved the controversy through his oracle at Delphi.23 He awarded the honours
to Epidaurus, indicating that Asclepius was not only born there but conceived
there too. However, since in both cases the main characters are clearly identified
as Thessalian, it is tempting to conclude that an Epidaurian tail has been pinned
onto a Thessalian tale. There seems little point to the Epidaurian variation other
than to establish a connection with Epidaurus that the core of the story lacks. The
Thessalian version seems both more coherent and more self-contained. There is a
narrative tidiness to it: we learn the fate of both mother and child. In the Epidaurian

21
  See Edelstein and Edelstein, Asclepius, II, 99–100.
22
  It is always dangerous to be too dogmatic or parochial about these things. In his Continuum
Encyclopaedia of Symbols (New York: Continuum, 1994), Udo Becker suggests that in Africa (at least)
the dog is associated with wisdom.
23
  Pausanias, 2.26.6.
 THE CULT OF ASCLEPIUS 73

version, Coronis disappears from the narrative once she has given birth. None of
this is conclusive, and in any event it is possible that the Epidaurians had the worse
story but the better claim.24
Before moving on to the third version of the story, it is worth noting the
significance of the name ‘Coronis’. Since it can mean ‘crow’ or ‘chough’, the
Thessalian version contains a very strong connection with black birds. In effect,
one black bird is watched over by another. On one level, this version resembles a
‘just so’ story that explains why the crow (or similar bird) is black. Robert Graves,
however, suggests that there is more to it than that.25 He identifies two possible
connections. One is with Athena, and there is another ‘just so’ story that makes
her, rather than Apollo, responsible for turning the crow black.26 At the very least,
this is a curious coincidence. The other connection is with ‘the oracular shrines
of local heroes reincarnate as serpents, or crows, or ravens’.27 The role of birds
as omens, as messengers of the gods, and sometimes as the forms in which gods
make themselves visible to humans, is well known.28 Jack Lindsay has also sug-
gested that the significance attached to birds might derive from associations with
shamanistic ‘flight’.29
These possible or genuine connections shed little clear light on the origins of
Asclepius. However, the dual role played by black birds in the Thessalian story
of his birth is strongly suggestive of at least some important connection, how-
ever remote, however obscure. It is also noteworthy that Coronis appears to have
had no independent existence in mythology outside of the story of the birth of
Asclepius.30 This suggests that she was there for a particular purpose, even if that
purpose was only dimly understood. (Apart from this story of his birth, the crow
plays no further role in the cult of Asclepius.) The idea that a god who came to
specialize in healing through dreams had a largely forgotten lineage connecting
him with a more archaic cult is far from implausible. Indeed, it offers an interesting
parallel to the connection between Asclepius and (Apollo) Maleatas.
The Messenian story of the god’s birth differs significantly from the other two.
Although Apollo remains the father, the mother is an otherwise unknown Arsinoe
and the birth is usually claimed to have taken place at Tricca in Messenia. At
first sight the fact that the birthplace has the same name as a Thessalian claimant
might suggest a crude borrowing, but the reality is more complex. There is literary

24
  In his note (152) to Pausanias II.26.4, however, Peter Levi characterizes the Epidaurian version as
‘one of the few examples we have of the literary form of the evangelion’ (Pausanias, vol. 1, 192). The
genre may be authentic even if the details are not.
25
  See Robert Graves, The Greek Myths: 1 (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1970), 176.
26
  See Graves, Greek Myths: 1, 97.
27
 Graves, Greek Myths: 1, 176.
28
  See John Pollard, Birds in Greek Life and Myth (London: Thames & Hudson, 1977).
29
  See Jack Lindsay, The Clashing Rocks: Early Greek Religion and Culture and the Origins of Drama,
1965), 249.
30
  This assumes that other mentions of a Coronis refer to a different character, as seems likely. See
Graves, Greek Myths: 1, 108 and 170.
74 BULLETIN JOHN RYLANDS LIBRARY

e­ vidence for the existence of a place called Tricca in Messenia, although there is no
archaeological confirmation, and some of the literary evidence is hard to interpret.
The earliest mention of a Tricca is in the Iliad, where it is mentioned in con-
junction with Ithome and Oichalia.31 The men from these places were led by
Podaleirius and Machaon, the sons of Asclepius, and there were certainly places
called Ithome and Oichalia in both Thessaly and Messenia. Homer specifies that
the Oichalia to which he is referring is the one associated with Eurytus. He also
mentions Oichalia and Eurytus in connection with Pylos and Gerenia, both of
which are to be found in Messenia.32 And Gerenia was where Machaon had a post-
humous healing cult. There are therefore good reasons to link both Oichalia and
Machaon with Messenia. The crucial question is whether Podaleirius and Tricca
are to be linked with Messenia as well. Unfortunately, nothing else that is known of
the story of Podaleirius connects him in any way with Messenia. The only possible
evidence for such a connection appears to be the problematic lines from Homer.
Archaeological evidence for the existence of Tricca in Messenia is unlikely to be
forthcoming, since Pausanias, writing in the second century ad, speaks only of a
deserted place to which local people gave that name.33 The remains of Thessalian
Tricca, on the other hand, have been found at modern Trikala.
The material is too thin to support any firm conclusions. A few ambiguous, or
perhaps confused, lines from the Iliad do not weigh too heavily in the balance. Yet
the fact that the Messenian story of the god’s birth differs significantly from both
the Thessalian and the Epidaurian versions, specifically with regard to the identity
of the mother, may point to the existence of a genuinely independent tradition.
While the evidence may be largely circumstantial, there are no obvious reasons for
rejecting it out of hand. If Apollo Maleatas and Coronis embody originally very
different traditions that eventually came to be combined in the cult of Asclepius, it
may be that the Messenian story represents a third element that also found its way
into the picture.
A fourth element that has so far received only the briefest of mentions also needs
to be considered. The cult of Asclepius was strongly connected with serpents or
snakes. Pausanias tells of how the cult was introduced into Sicyon in the form of a
snake carried on the back of a mule-cart.34 (This was not an isolated event; a snake
also accompanied Asclepius to both Athens and Rome.) He also indicates that a
special kind of snake ‘of a rather yellowish colour’ was particularly sacred to the
god, and that these snakes came only from Epidaurus.35
The symbolism of the snake is highly suggestive, conjuring up a variety of asso-
ciations. To have one’s ears licked by snakes was believed to confer the gift of
prophecy. As beings that were constantly in touch with the ground, snakes were

31
  Iliad, 2. 29–30.
32
  Iliad, 2.591–602.
33
  Pausanias, 4.3.2.
34
  Pausanias, 2.10.3.
35
  Pausanias, 2.28.1.
 THE CULT OF ASCLEPIUS 75

believed to have a special connection with what lay below or in the ground, includ-
ing buried heroes and underground gods. Some tombs of heroes even seem to have
had snakes painted on them.36 If Asclepius had originally been a hero, this would
be one possible explanation of his association with snakes.
Erwin Rohde has argued that some Panhellenic heroes such as Trophonius were
themselves originally local underground gods.37 Although not a healer, Trophonius
had his own oracle at Lebadeia, located, as would befit a sometime underground
god, in a cave (although it may have been an artificial rather than a natural one).38
Pluto, the pre-eminent underground god of classical times, had oracles in caves
at Acharaca, Hierapolis and Thymbria.39 If Asclepius had similar underground
origins, then one might expect to find his cult based in caves too. Although there is
evidence of some cult centres, such as that at Kyphanta in the Peloponnese, being
located in caves, these are relatively rare. There was a tradition that his temple at
Tricca contained an underground chamber, but excavations in Trikala have pro-
duced nothing to support this. There is the possibility, however, that this tradition
derives from the lost Messenian Tricca rather than the Thessalian one. While it is
possible that Asclepius was once a local underground god, if it ever existed, that
trail has long gone cold.
One of the important differences between cults of heroes and cults of gods is
that cults of heroes were generally restricted to one place, for the good reason that
they were usually only buried in one place. If Asclepius had originally been a hero,
it would be reasonable to expect to encounter at least one tradition relating to a
tomb or burial place. Such traditions did exist, but it is unclear how much weight
to attach to them. None of the traditions seem to have been particularly strong,
and they are mostly late, while the earliest seems most at variance with the known
facts.40 Opinions remain divided as to what if any credence to attach to them. The
tradition that Asclepius had a tomb at Epidaurus has been used as a basis for argu-
ing that the mysterious round building there known as the thymele could be that
very tomb.41
If the traditions are unreliable and there never was a tomb, then there are at least
three possible explanations for this. First, there never was one because Asclepius
was always a god. Second, there never was one because it was believed that when
he was killed by a thunderbolt he immediately became a god and so left no mortal

36
  See Lindsay, Clashing Rocks, 225.
37
  See Erwin Rohde, Psyche: The Cult of Souls and the Belief in Immortality among the Greeks, trans.
W. Harris (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner, 1925), especially ch. 3.
38
  In his article on ‘Health and Gods of Healing (Greek)’, Thrämer refers to a passage in Cicero’s On
the Nature of the Gods (3.57). This suggests that one story about Asclepius seems to make him the
brother of Trophonius (assuming that mythology respects normal logic, which can by no means be
assumed).
39
  See the relevant entries in Curnow Oracles.
40
  See Alice Walton, Asclepius: The Cult of the Greek God of Medicine (La Vergne, Tenn.: Kessinger,
2010 [1894]), 26–7.
41
  See Tomlinson, Epidauros, 66–7.
76 BULLETIN JOHN RYLANDS LIBRARY

Plate 4  The Amphiarion at Oropus.

remains. Third, there was one, but when he came to be regarded as a god it became
an irrelevance (or even an embarrassment?) and so was forgotten. What does seem
noteworthy is that unlike Heracles, who began as a hero and ended as a god, there
is little sense of Asclepius ever having lived any kind of heroic life. Few deeds,
however implausible, are preserved in legend. Perhaps this was one of the reasons
that led Pausanias to suggest that Asclepius had always been a god.42 If he had been
a hero, he had been an unusual one.
One of the advantages of being or becoming a god was that his cult enjoyed
freedom of movement, and this was an important factor in its development. It
grew because it could. Healing cults were not a novelty but many of them, like
the famous one of Amphiaraus at Oropus (Plate 4), were heroic and therefore
intrinsically local. But that in itself can only have been one factor. Even gods were
subject to local variations. Demeter, for example, could be consulted on matters of
health, but only in Patrai. Even Apollo, perhaps the god most often associated with
oracles, only had them in some of his temples. In large part this may reflect differ-
ent practices in smaller local cults that became subsumed into larger Panhellenic
ones. So although a god’s healing cult had intrinsic advantages over a hero’s, that
did not mean they were necessarily exploited. The fact that Asclepius was regarded
as a god made certain things possible, but it did not ensure that they happened. It is
therefore necessary to consider not only the sources that fed into the cult, but also
the context that provided it with fertile ground in which to prosper.
It is generally acknowledged that one factor was a plague that blighted parts

  Pausanias, 2.26.7.
42
 THE CULT OF ASCLEPIUS 77

of Greece at the time of the Peloponnesian War. This seems to have motivated
the cult’s official introduction into Athens in 420 bc, although it may have been
present in a less official way before then.43 However, Athens already had at least
one other healing cult by then – that of Amynus. There would appear to have
been no need for Asclepius to come to Athens unless it was felt that Amynus was
not up to the task or that Asclepius could do it better. Too little is known about
the cult of Amynus to assess its capacities, but it is indisputable that the cult of
Asclepius came to enjoy a very substantial reputation. The museums at Epidaurus
and Corinth contain abundant votive inscriptions and objects testifying to the
god’s efficacy. Unfortunately, assigning any precise dates to them is problematic.
Nevertheless, logic suggests that the god’s reputation preceded the introduction
of his cult into new territories, and archaeology at least does nothing to refute
this.
There may also have been an element of prestige involved. An analogy with
modern retailing suggests itself. The cult of Asclepius was the chain store while
that of Amynus was the corner shop. With his Panhellenic credentials established
through his father, Asclepius would presumably have enjoyed a reputation and
authority with which relatively minor figures would have struggled to compete.
And the analogy with retailing is far from fanciful. It only requires the briefest
of visits to Epidaurus, Kos or Pergamum to realize that the god’s cult centres
could be very big businesses indeed. It would also be naive to rule out political
­considerations: cults had a significant civic dimension.44
However, since the god’s prestige was at least in part founded on his close asso-
ciation with his father, and since Apollo himself had an established reputation as a
healer, it may be wondered why the cult of Apollo did not simply expand its own
healing activities. On the face of it, there was no need for Asclepius. In a sense,
this is what happened. Even at Epidaurus, Apollo may have always remained, at
least technically, the senior partner.45 In practice, however, there is no doubt that
even if both father and son always sat on the board, it became increasingly clear to
everyone who was actually running the business.
On the other hand, the picture was not a uniform one. In 433 bc, for example,
when the cult of Asclepius was already well established, it was to Apollo that the
Romans turned when they had their own problems with plague. Apollo Medicus
became established as their healing god, and Asclepius did not arrive there until
293 bc when another plague struck.46 However, the general trend throughout the
fifth century bc was for Apollo to become less involved in healing and Asclepius
to become more so.
In looking for an explanation of this phenomenon, one possibility may lie in
the direction of Greek thinking about the body and the soul. Plato’s dialogue

43
  See Burford, Greek Temple Builders, 20.
44
  See Wickkiser, Asklepios, Medicine and the Politics of Healing generally.
45
  See Tomlinson, Epidauros, 22.
46
  See Price and Kearns, Oxford Dictionary of Classical Myth and Religion, 40, 63.
78 BULLETIN JOHN RYLANDS LIBRARY

Gorgias is generally acknowledged to be an early work, perhaps written soon after

400 bc, with a dramatic date of 420 bc. In it Socrates clearly articulates a view of
the soul that is separable from the body, contained within it in life, released from
it in death. The body is the immortal soul’s mortal physical shell. This view is not
put forward as controversial and the defence of it is not the main point of the dia-
logue. It is generally believed that this idea first appeared in Greek thought during
the sixth century bc through the influence of Pythagoreanism.47 From being an
idea subscribed to by a small group it appears to have gained widespread popular
acceptance during the fifth century bc.48 This would explain why Plato could refer
to it in the relatively casual way that he does.
If this is correct, then the early growth of the cult of Asclepius would appear to
have taken place in the same century as a new understanding of the relationship
between body and soul was gaining currency. While this could be a coincidence,
it is an interesting one. However, the fifth century bc was also the time when
Hippocratic medicine emerged, and this is perhaps a coincidence too far. Disease
is increasingly studied in physical terms at the same time as the body and soul are
being increasingly distinguished from each other.49 And at the same time, a cult
that specializes in healing the sick gains new prominence.
Unfortunately, this in itself is insufficient to explain why it was the cult of
Asclepius that came into prominence at this time and in this context rather than
that of Apollo who already had an established and widespread reputation as a
healer. An interesting clue may lie in the Eumenides of Aeschylus, written near
the mid-point of the fifth century bc, in 458. Here, the deranged Orestes turns up
at the temple of Apollo at Delphi. The nature of his problem is mental or spiritual
rather than physical, and it is to Apollo that he turns. The origin of his problem lies
in a kind of moral impurity, because he has killed his mother. He has, it might be
said, a disease of the soul.
Matters of purification and pollution were the particular domain of Apollo,
and the notion of pollution was a complex and multi-faceted one.50 The develop-
ment of the cult of Asclepius and Hippocratic medicine seems to have left this fact
unchanged.51 What does seem to have changed, however, is what was recognized
as a matter of pollution, to which purification was the appropriate response. The
plague that afflicted the Greeks at the beginning of the Iliad was clearly and explic-
itly seen as something caused by Apollo. The plague that afflicted them in the fifth
century bc was seen as something that Asclepius could rescue them from. Apollo
remained the god of purification, but a more scientific understanding of the nature

47
  See Charles Kahn, Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans: A Brief History (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2001),
18.
48
  Price and Kearns, Oxford Dictionary of Classical Myth and Religion, 518.
49
  See G.E.R. Lloyd, Hippocratic Writings (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1978), introduction.
50
  See Louise Bruit Zaidman and Pauline Schmitt Pantel, Religion in the Greek City, trans. Paul
Cartledge (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1992), 9–10.
51
  See Martin P. Nilsson, Greek Folk Religion (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press 1972),
27.
 THE CULT OF ASCLEPIUS 79

of disease meant that purification came to be regarded as the cure for a narrower
range of complaints.
Diseases of the soul became increasingly seen as the domain of philosophy.
Cicero, for example, explicitly describes philosophy as ‘the art of healing the
soul’.52 Later, Diogenes Laertius observed that, ‘Phoebus gave to mortals Asclepius
and Plato, the one to save their souls, the other to save their bodies.’53 The philoso-
phers, as the lovers of wisdom, came to be seen as the god of wisdom’s helpers in
that domain. The god’s oracles at Delphi and elsewhere (to which both Socrates
and Plato deferred) might step in where the philosophers were unable to help, just
as Asclepius did when the Hippocratics reached the limits of their abilities. And it
may be noted that in a number of places, including Kos, the Hippocratics and the
cult of Asclepius enjoyed a close proximity.
Although many of the details are likely to remain forever lacking, the general
picture that emerges is of a fifth century bc where a new understanding of body
and soul gains a wide degree of acceptance. This new understanding involves a
fundamental separation, and a new kind of division of labour develops to accom-
modate it. Against the background of this new reality, Apollo retains his status as
a healer. However, problems of the body are largely delegated to Asclepius, while
Apollo continues to take a more active interest in matters of the soul. Because
Asclepius is his son, and because the son continues to be closely associated with
the father, there does not need to be a dramatic transfer of powers. Instead, there
is something more like a gradual shift of emphasis. So gradual is it that it barely
makes a ripple in the reflecting pool of mythology. (By way of contrast, the myths
surrounding Apollo’s arrival in Delphi, where he supplanted an earlier cult, are
both dramatic and violent.) A contributory factor may be that the pool itself was
becoming somewhat stagnant by this time (although the cult of Asclepius certainly
made its own contribution to it).
If this scenario is somewhere near the mark, it offers reasons for understanding
how the cult of Asclepius found itself in favourable conditions for its early devel-
opment. It might have turned out differently, but at least on this interpretation it
makes sense that it turned out the way it did. However, the questions of the cult’s
actual origins remain without clear answers.
Perhaps it is not necessary to seek too much clarity. For example, it may not be
necessary to choose between Thessaly, Epidaurus and Messenia: it may be possible
to choose Thessaly and Epidaurus and Messenia. Because he was mentioned in the
Iliad, Asclepius was a widely known figure, an archetypal healer. It would not be
surprising if a healing cult were ascribed to him, whatever its actual origins. If or
when he was recognized as a god, then there was no reason why an assortment of
local healing cults might not be attached to his name. The variety of epithets borne
by gods such as Apollo and Zeus suggest that they had themselves absorbed a
number of different local cults in exactly this way. It is possible to think of the cult

52
 Cicero, Tusculan Disputations (trans. J.E. King, London: Heinemann, 1945), 3.3.
53
  Lives of the Eminent Philosophers 3.45, cited in Edelstein and Edelstein, Asclepius, I, 164.
80 BULLETIN JOHN RYLANDS LIBRARY

of Asclepius as a kind of healing franchise. If local healing cults were associated

with heroes or local underground gods, then they might have already involved the
practice of incubation and so needed relatively few adjustments in order to fit the
standard Asclepian model.
Similarly, the connections with birds and snakes might be both relevant and
correct. If the cult of Asclepius was a kind of umbrella under which a variety of
originally quite separate healing cults became subsumed and amalgamated, it is
entirely possible, and indeed likely, that they brought with them a number of dif-
ferent connections. There is an obvious parallel with the oracles of Apollo, which
employed a number of different methods for making the god’s views known. There
are no obvious grounds for believing that a tidy picture does more justice to the
facts than a chaotic one.
To summarize, the cult of Asclepius probably had its origins in a number of
originally quite separate healing cults that over a period of time (about which
we know little) combined, perhaps loosely in the first instance, into a single cult
attached to the peerless healer of Homeric legend. What might have remained a
relatively modest affair underwent a significant expansion fuelled ultimately by
changing perceptions of the relationship between body and soul and the develop-
ment of a new understanding of the physical basis of disease. As a result of this,
for reasons that remain unclear, the healing functions of the cult of Apollo, in so
far as they related to physical problems, became attached to that of Asclepius. For
reasons of prestige, and perhaps efficacy, this cult went on to expand even further,
in due course becoming the pre-eminent healing cult of the ancient world. I now
want to consider some aspects of that process of expansion.
The complicated, confused and inconsistent mythology concerning the parents
and home of Asclepius seems to reflect not only the cult’s probable multiple origins,
but also the competition for control and precedence that developed between different
centres when the cult reached a certain size and level of importance. No one centre
ever achieved complete dominance, although Epidaurus probably came closest to
achieving this. Over time the identity of the cult, at first relatively fluid and eclectic,
became increasingly well defined, leading to greater conservatism. While the cult
was certainly expansionist, and eminently capable of absorbing other smaller ones
it encountered, there was a limit to what might be absorbed without undue discom-
fort. Here incubation seems to be a key, if not necessarily always a clinching, factor.
The origins of the practice of incubation are a matter of dispute, and multiple
sources seem entirely likely. Incubation is the practice of inducing dreams, and
might be expected to emerge in any culture that attaches significance to dreams.
Incubation lay at the heart of the cult of Asclepius, and the faithful seeking help
would go to one of its centres and spend a night in a special room hoping that
the god would visit them in a dream. Sometimes the cure might be effected in
the dream itself, sometimes it might simply communicate what had to be done.
It is clear from the testimony of Aelius Aristides that all kinds of treatments took
place at the Asclepeion in Pergamum (Plate 5), but nevertheless incubation was
­especially associated with Asclepius.
 THE CULT OF ASCLEPIUS 81

Plate 5  The Asclepion of Pergamum.

With the conquests of Alexander the Great and his successors, and then later
the Romans, the cult of Asclepius became widespread. Evidence of the cult can
be found from (in modern terms) Spain in the west to Turkey in the east, and
from Egypt in the south to the United Kingdom in the north. It spread partly
through importation and partly through assimilation. The most dramatic exam-
ples of importation were doubtless those (as in Sicyon, Athens and Rome already
mentioned) where a snake was physically transported to the new location from an
old one, symbolising the continuity (and relative status) between the two.
Assimilation followed no clear pattern. For example, it might be thought that
the Celtic god Grannus, whose cult stretched from Brittany to the Danube, would
be an obvious candidate for assimilation. He was a healing god and incubation is
known to have been practised in his cult.54 Curiously, however, he became identi-
fied not with Asclepius but with Apollo.
In Egypt the cult of Asclepius became merged with that of Imhotep (known to
the Greeks as Imouthes).55 The ambiguous status of Asclepius coincided neatly
with that of Imhotep, a deified polymath, perhaps architect of the world’s first great
stone building (the step pyramid at Sakkara, built around 2650 bc), and apparently
a healer of note. Incubation was an aspect of his cult, found both at Sakkara and at
Deir el Bahri, on the west bank of the Nile near Egyptian Thebes.56 Another god the

54
  See Miranda J. Green, Dictionary of Celtic Myth and Legend (London: Thames & Hudson, 1992),
32.
55
  See David Frankfurter, Religion in Roman Egypt (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998).
56
  See Ian Shaw and Paul Nicholson, The British Museum Dictionary of Ancient Egypt (New York:
Harry Abrams, 2003), 139–40.
82 BULLETIN JOHN RYLANDS LIBRARY

Plate 6  The east spring of the Asclepion at Athens, now a Christian shrine.

Greeks identified with Asclepius was Eshmun, a Phoenician god connected with
healing and with a major cult centre at Sidon. Through Phoenician colonization,
his cult also spread to Carthage and then Carthago Nova in Spain.57
The process of assimilation and/or identification was far from unique to the
cult of Asclepius. The identification of the Roman Mars with the Greek Ares, the
Roman Venus with the Greek Aphrodite, and so on, is well known, but these were
only part of a wider trend. A less well-known, and rather more extreme, example
comes from Egypt where an altar was unearthed at Karanis dedicated to Sarapis-
Zeus-Amun-Helios, four originally very different deities it was apparently felt pos-

  See Glenn E. Markoe, Phoenicians (Berkeley/La: University of California Press, 2000).

57
 THE CULT OF ASCLEPIUS 83

sible to roll into a single composite one. What is difficult to tell from the sources is
what this process of identification or assimilation actually meant in practice. While
there might be a theological identification of apparently similar gods, it is not clear
how this manifested itself in cultic practices.
After years of expansion, the reasons for the ultimate decline of the cult of
Asclepius are not difficult to find or imagine. The destruction of the god’s temple
at Aigai (now Ayas, near Yumurtalik in Turkey) on the orders of Constantine the
Great somewhere between ad 330 and ad 337 was only a small part of a much
larger picture.58 From the time of Constantine onwards the cult went into a steady
decline, perhaps managing to struggle on until the sixth century ad.59 In some
places, however, this decline was relatively superficial. The advent of Christianity
did not diminish the popular demand for healing, and in some cases churches took
over the sites, if not the actual buildings, formerly dedicated to Asclepius. To this
day, part of the ancient Asclepeion in Athens is a Christian shrine as testimony to
the durability of the excellent healer’s cult (Plate 6).

58
  The story of the destruction of the temple at Aigai is told by Eusebius of Caesarea in his ‘Life of
Constantine’ (3.56).
59
  See Edelstein and Edelstein, Asclepius II, 256–7.