In due time “the salutary serpent,[22] the god, reached the Island of the Tiber and assumed again his form divine”:— “And now no more the drooping city mourns; Joy is again restor’d and health returns.” There is little or no reason to doubt that there was really a formal bringing of Æsculapius to Rome, a cosmopolitan city which, indeed, as Gibbon states without much exaggeration, bestowed its freedom “on all the gods of mankind.”[23] Livy, the historian, speaks of the matter as follows:— “The many prosperous events of the year (459) were scarcely sufficient to afford consolation for one calamity, a pestilence, which afflicted both the city and country and caused a prodigious mortality. To discover what end or what remedy was appointed by the gods for that calamity, the Books were consulted, and there it was found that Æsculapius must be brought to Rome from Epidaurus. However, as the Consuls had full employment in the wars, no farther steps were taken in that business during this year, except the performing of a supplication to Æsculapius of one day’s continence.”[24] Elsewhere[25] he says that the god was brought the following year,—that is, A.U.C. 460, or 292 B.C. The Island of the Tiber (_Insula Tiberina_, now _Isola Tiberina_), the “_inter duos pontes_” of the early centuries of our era, where Æsculapius was worshipped, and which was sometimes called by his name (_Insula Æsculapii_), is within the limits of the city of Rome. According to tradition, it originated from alluvial accumulations within the period of Roman history.[26] It is rather remarkable that, excepting the one at the mouth (_Insula Sacra_, now _Isola Sacra_), there is no other along the whole course of the famous river. It is ship-shaped, and quite small in size, being only about a quarter of a mile in length,[27] and has been called “San Bartolomeo,” from the church which has long occupied the site of the ancient Temple of Health.[28] Mr. Davies speaks of it at length in his interesting book. After an account of the origin of the worship of Æsculapius on it, he says:— “It was in commemoration of this event that the island was fashioned in the form of a ship. Huge blocks of travertine and peperino still remain about the prow (pointing down the stream), imitating on a grand scale the forms of the planks, upon which are chiseled the figure of a serpent twined around a rod, and, farther down, the head of an ox. A temple was raised to Æsculapius, in which his statue was placed, which probably stood in the fore part of the simulated vessel, hospitals for the sick occupying the sides, a tall column or obelisk rising in the midst to represent a mast. Temples were also dedicated to Jupiter and Faunus.[29] To these were added a prison in the days of Tiberius.”[30]