Aesculapius was represented as an old man, with a long beard, crowned with a branch of bay tree; in his hands was a staff full of knots, about which a serpent had twisted itself: at his feet stood an owl or a dog--characteristics of the qualities of a good physician, who must be as cunning as a serpent, as vigilant as a dog, as cunning and experienced as an old bashaw, to handle a thing so difficult as physic. At Epidaurus his statue was of gold and ivory,[38] seated on a throne of the same materials, with a long beard, having a knotty stick in one hand, the other entwined with a serpent, and a dog lying at his feet. The Phliasians depicted him as beardless, and the Romans crowned him with a laurel, to denote his descent from Apollo. The knots in his staff signify the difficulties that occur in the study of medicine. He had by his wife Epione two sons, Machaon and Podalirius, both skilled in surgery, and who are mentioned by Homer as having been present at the siege of Troy, and who were very serviceable to the Greeks. He had also two daughters, called Hygiaea and Jaso. FOOTNOTES: [32] Ovid, who relates the story of Coronis in his fanciful way, tells us that Corvus, or the raven, who discovered her armour, had by Apollo, his feathers changed from _black_ to _white_. [33] From these tablets, or votive inscriptions, Hippocrates is said to have collected his aphorisms. [34] The Romans who sent for Aesculapius from Epidaurus, when their city was troubled with the plague, say, that the serpent that was worshipped there for him followed the ambassadors of its own accord to the ship that transported it to Rome, where it was placed in a temple built in the isle called Tiberina. In this temple the sick people were wont to lie, and when they found themselves no better, they reviled Aesculapius: so impatiently ungrateful and peevish were often the afflicted, that they made no scruple to reproach the very god who administered to their maladies. [35] From Hannobeach, which, in the Phoenician language, signifies the _barker_, or _warner_, Anubis. [36] This word signifies the dog. [37] From _Aeish_, man, and _caleph_, dog, comes _Aescaleph_, the man-dog, or Aesculapius. [38] This image was the work of Thrasymedes, the son of Arignotus, a native of Paros. CHAPTER VII. INFERIOR DEITIES ATTENDING MANKIND PROM THEIR BIRTH TO THEIR DECEASE. It would be almost an endless task to enter into a detail of all the inferior deities of the Greeks and Romans; our object being to refer to such only as preside over the health of the human race, every part and parcel of whom had their presiding genius.--During pregnancy, the tutelar powers were the god Pelumnus,[39] and the goddesses Intercedonia,[40] and Deverra.[41] The import of these words seems to point out the necessity of warmth and cleanliness to ladies in this condition.