It is recorded of Coronis that she was, like too many of the sex, fickle, and did not prove faithful to her divine paramour; she stealthily cultivated a criminal intimacy with an Arcadian youth, named Ischys. The fact of her infidelity becoming known to Apollo, either through a message of a raven,[109] or his own divine powers, he, naturally enough, was greatly displeased. And the wrath of the divinity was followed by a series of remarkable events. At this point it may be well to state that the parentage of Æsculapius was a question which early excited attention. A belief existed that “he was the offspring of Arsinoë” and “a citizen of the Messenians,” as Pausanias informs us. Apollophanes, an Arcadian,[110] being interested in the matter, went to Delos, and, putting the question of its truth to the Pythian deity, received this reply:— “O Æsculapius! source of mighty joy To mortal natures; whom Coronis fair, Daughter of Phlegyas, once with me conjoin’d, In Epidauria’s barren region bore.”[111] According to this dictum, he was, indeed, born in Epidaurus. Pausanias, by way of proof of the truth of it, says: “I find that the most illustrious rites of Æsculapius were derived from Epidaurus.”[112] From that point the worship seems to have spread. It is said, however, by Strabo,[113] that his birthplace was Tricca, in Thessaly.[114] However, to return to our story: the time of the delivery of Coronis was not far off, when the news of her perfidy reached Apollo. Notwithstanding this, he, being seemingly under the influence of the “green-eyed monster” to an ungodly degree, cruelly resolved on having revenge at once. Artemis,[115] the goddess of chastity, was directed to slay the unfaithful maid with a thunderbolt, and the order was duly executed. On coins of Pergamus the unfortunate Thessalian appears entirely veiled. After the fatal thunderbolt had descended on the _enceinte_ Coronis, and her body was being consumed in the merciless pyre, Apollo’s paternal feelings became stirred, and saying, as Pindar tells us, “I may not bear to slay my child With his sad mother, sin-defiled,”[116] proceeded forthwith to save his unborn offspring. To what manner of operation did he resort? I leave it to some all-knowing specialist to find out; but, at any rate, by some method or other, the child was rescued.[117] Another version of the affair, preserved by Pausanias, robs the god of any possible skill as a gynæcologist—surgical, I mean. According to it, when Coronis was undergoing cremation, after being slain by Artemis, “the boy is said to have been snatched by Hermes from the flames.”[118] And of this I may observe that it was not inappropriate to have Hermes, the Grecian metamorphosis of the thrice-great god of wisdom and knowledge of the Egyptians, present at the unnatural _accouchement_, and in such close relation to Æsculapius at the very beginning of his wonderful career.