Although, as will be remembered, Ovid makes Æsculapius refer to his serpent-enwreathed staff when addressing the commission which came from Rome to Epidaurus, in the famous representation of him given there, none was present. The poet may possibly have been misled by what had become familiar to him at home; for one was to be seen in connection with the statue of the god at Rome. It is probable, however, that it was a common occurrence for a living serpent, one of the species kept and viewed as sacred in the Hierum, to climb the staff in the hand of the Epidaurian statue. It is very likely that the staff bearing a serpent became a characteristic emblem of the god of medicine through the great work of the sculptor, Pyromachus, at the Asclepion of Pergamus, which I have already described. The appropriateness of it was widely recognized, but it was not always adopted, as is attested by the remains of ancient art. Apart from the serpent, the import of which will be fully treated of in the succeeding chapter, the staff as an attribute of Æsculapius merits study. Like many other apparently simple things in art, it may stand for a great deal more than one would suppose on first view. The object encircled by a serpent held in the hand of the Æsculapian statue by Pyromachus, at Pergamus, is evidently a walking-stick. The Epidaurian statue has a similar object in one of the hands, and the same is the case in many others. Hence, as the representations of the gods of the ancients had rarely or never anything but significant attributes attached to them, it is pertinent to ask an explanation of its presence. Was there an historical basis for it? In other words, was Æsculapius notoriously in the habit of carrying a staff? If so, it is possible that this was why Pyromachus, Thrasymedes, and other artists connected one with figures of him. But there is no special reason for believing that such was the case.[158] [Illustration: FIG. 3.—CLUB OR STAFF OF ÆSCULAPIUS. (_From Maffei._)] Then, did the artists place a staff in the hand of Æsculapius of their own accord to indicate the perambulatory character of the physician’s calling? Such an attribute was doubtless deemed appropriate by them; but, before one could believe that they gave it on the score of apparent appropriateness, it would have to be shown that it was in the power of artists to design gods at pleasure,—something which could not be done. They evolved it, I may venture to say, from something allied in form. There is little or no ground for believing that the staff of Æsculapius was a wonder-working object. I am not aware that such a thing was placed intentionally in his hand by any artist. Hence, the references often made to the mystic wand of the god spring from misapprehension, a walking-staff being something very different.