The well-known statue of Æsculapius at Berlin resembles that at Pergamus; and the same is true of one at Florence, and others. That of Berlin has the serpent-wreathed staff, or support, placed on the left side. This appears to have been frequently done. An instance of it I have observed in a gem bearing Æsculapius and Hygeia, taken from a tomb at Thron,—a piece of work of the Roman period. It is shown in General Di Cesnola’s interesting work.[155] While Æsculapius was made to appear aged in some instances, as in the Epidaurian representation, he was sometimes presented in youthful form, and beardless, like his father, Apollo. And this reminds me of the story told of Dyonysius, King of Sicily, that, on conquering the Morea, he ordered the beard to be taken off the Epidaurian statue of the god, for the reason that it was unbecoming and unjust for the son to have a beard when the father had none. Possibly if it had not been a golden one it would not have been molested. I may venture to say that both aged and youthful representations of Æsculapius are open to criticism. An ideal physician should be, as in the statue at Pergamus, a man in his prime, or, in other words, mature, but neither young nor old. The immature man is apt to be defective in judgment, and the superannuated one is nearly always of excessively routine practice and ignorant of recent advances in his profession. By way of conclusion, I will say a few words about the famous colossal head of Æsculapius, originally colored and decorated with a bronze wreath, now in the British Museum, where it has been since 1866. It represents, with marked freedom and breadth of execution, a finely-developed man of middle age, with a cast of countenance similar to that of the Phidian Zeus. The beard is of moderate length and is waved like the somewhat long hair. This is really one of the noblest remnants of Grecian art. Nichols, in whose work[156] an engraving of it is given as a frontispiece, just as it is in this one, regards it “as scarcely less remarkable” than the celebrated “Venus of Milo” in the Louvre, both of which were found, the former in 1828, on the island of Melos. It is considered to be the work of an artist of the Macedonian period, about B.C. 300,—a time when the Greek sculptor had attained perfect mastery of his art. CHAPTER VIII. THE ÆSCULAPIAN STAFF AND SERPENT. The staff[157] and serpent of Æsculapius being of special emblematic significance, I deem it proper to speak of it at some length. The confusion of ideas which appears to prevail extensively in regard to it implies that a definite, explicit account of it is much needed.