Chiron lived in a cave on Mount Pelion, in Thessaly. It will be remembered that it was from there that he got the ashen spear[129] for Peleus, which the son brought into use, a ponderous spear, which— “Stern Achilles only wields, The death of heroes and the dread of fields.”[130] According to Homer,[131] Hercules received instruction in medicine from Chiron; and it is stated, by Pindar,[132] that Jason was another pupil of his. With these Æsculapius went, as physician, on the celebrated Argonautic expedition. At the end of his career, the Centaur became, it is said, the sign of the zodiac, Sagittarius.[133] In treating the sick, Æsculapius soon proved himself a master. His patients did not die, and it appears that he recalled a few from “the shades below.” But, sad to relate, the great success he had in curing the sick, and especially his recalling some from the other world, led to his destruction. Pluto, the god of the nether regions, not wishing a sparse population,[134] became displeased with him and complained to Zeus, who, probably believing that he was becoming too powerful, so much so as to make man undying,[135] cut short his career with a thunderbolt,—a tragedy which caused his father, Apollo, to wander away to the land of the Hyperboreans and to shed tears of gold. At the request of Apollo he was placed among the stars.[136] The eighth day of the Eleusinian Mysteries was devoted to sacrifices to him, and was called Epidauria. From what Virgil says, it would seem that it was not because of the direct exercise of his power to restore life that Æsculapius was destroyed, but because of the degree of perfection to which he had brought the medical art. The event, “the fable,”[137] as Pliny designates it, is connected with the restoration of Hippolytus or Virbius, and is thus referred to by the Roman poet:— “But chaste Diana who his death deplor’d With Æsculapian herbs his life restor’d; Then Jove, who saw from high with just disdain The dead inspired with vital breath again, Struck to the centre with his flaming dart The unhappy founder of the god-like art.”[138] The plan of treatment pursued by Æsculapius was variable. After speaking of the sick, “a host forlorn” that flocked to him, Pindar says:— “Some spells brought back to life; These drank the potion plan’d; for these he bound With drugs the aching wound; Some leaped to strength beneath the helpful knife.”[139] The lines just given certainly serve to disprove the statement of Pliny, that in Homeric times “the healing art confined itself solely to the treatment of wounds.”[140] It is doubtless true, however, that nothing is said in Homer’s works about particular diseases.