Asclepius enjoyed a fair level of prominence in iconography, usually located in proximity to an existing Asclepieia in the Late Antique Mediterranean world. Images of Asclepius proliferated around the centers of healing in each town, the Asclepieia. The images corresponded and reflected the healing action that took place in the immediate location. Most often depicted in statuary form or carved upon stelai, Asclepius had a definitive appearance that was easily recognizable. Clad in a himation, exposing his chest, Asclepius is depicted holding a scepter or scroll in one hand and his staff entwined with a serpent in the other (Figure 4). Ovid speaks to this frequent manner of portrayal in his Metamorphoses, as the god addresses a Roman crowd, exhorting them to “Only be sure to note this snake that twines about my staff, and mark it well to fix it in your mind!”19 The snake and the staff are markers of Asclepius and are much more reliable indicators than hair or beard.
Asclepius in statuary form is consistently depicted standing or leaning on his serpent- entwined staff, bearded or beardless with curly hair and occasionally depicted with the smaller figure of Telesphoros.20 While many images of Asclepius were destroyed after the ascension of Christianity following Constantine in the fourth century, there are still numerous surviving images of Asclepius. Asclepius was captured in statuary form as an Apollonian youth in several instances, unbearded and leaning on his staff, shifting his weight to his front foot.21 In later examples from Epidauros and Athens, Asclepius appears as
19 Ovid, Metamorphoses 15.650ff (Melville).
20 Telesphoros was the hooded nocturnal god, accompanying Asclepius, reminding of the healing action taken place during sleep at night. His name literally means “The Finisher,” just as death is the finisher.
21 See LIMC, “Asklepios,” figs. 22-29.
Jupiter or Sarapis, fully bearded with flowing hair.22 Pausanias describes a statue of Asclepius in his book on Corinth, remarking that the statue of Asclepius was half as big as the Olympian Zeus, was made of ivory and gold, and depicting Asclepius with his staff and serpent.23 This trend in depicting Asclepius appears to be uniform in many representations throughout the Late Antique Mediterranean world. In statuary examples from North Africa, now Tunisia and Algeria, Asclepius appears no different than representations in Athens;
fully-bearded, draped in his himation and bearing his snake-entwined staff.24 In statuary, Asclepius is never depicted in the action of healing, and on two-dimensional stelai such depictions are exceedingly rare. In the unique instances that Asclepius is depicted healing, it occurs on stelai and always refers to the dream-like nature of his healing method. The patient is depicted sleeping while Asclepius is portrayed arriving in the patient’s dreams. In the image, Asclepius appears to touch the patient and administer some form of cure.25 Physical touch is also involved in these Asclepius images, however it is apparent that the encounter between god and patient occurs in a dream. From a relief at the Asclepieion at Piraeus, Asclepius is depicted approaching the slumbering patient, suggesting the healing action of the god is taking place through the power of dreams.26 This does not diminish the
encounter, although the images of Christ recall more of a direct encounter with his
22 See LIMC, “Asklepios,” fig. 321.
23 Pausanias, Description of Greece, 2.27.2. Pausanias calls the staff a bakteria, not a virga, see Chapter Seven.
24 See LIMC, “Asklepios,” figs. 276-277.
25 See the damaged relief at Athens, LIMC, fig. 56.
26 Dating from 400 BCE. (For the image, see the plate in C. Kerényi, Asklepios: Archetypal Images of the Physician’s Existence, New York: Pantheon, 1959, pl. 18).
supplicants rather than an indirect one. Asclepius is also not alone. In two-dimensional art, he is accompanied by the figure of Hygieia with a great degree of frequency.27
The cult desired to attract not just the sick and the needy to the temples but the healthy as well. The cult of Asclepius wanted to be seen as attentive to the sick and also as preservers of health. Hygieia, the personification of Health, was called upon to express this message.28 With the dual personifications of healing the sick and preserving the healthy, the cult of Asclepius could presumably draw larger crowds to the temples. The incorporation of Hygieia in the iconography of Asclepius expressed the desire to call the sick and the healthy to the local Asclepieion. While Asclepius required another figure to represent Health to gain
“patients,” Jesus was not portrayed with any such figure in the visual representations of his healing. The message conveyed by the Christians was that healing the sick and preserving the healthy was completely accomplished in one persona not two, and was thus greater than any idolatrous healing cult.
The manner of depicting Asclepius was rarely altered since the advent of the cult in Greece. A pagan or a Christian could witness the snake-entwined staff or the presence of Hygieia and identify the figure as Asclepius. The patristic references and emperor Julian’s appraisal of Asclepius suggest that the cult of Asclepius posed a challenge to early
Christianity. The iconography and visual appearance of Jesus possibly reflects such a threat.
Images of Jesus began to take on traits of Asclepius, making Jesus a type of Asclepius. By
27 Lexicon iconographicum mythologiae classicae: (LIMC). Comité de rédaction: John Boardman, et al.
(Zürich: Artemis Verlag, 1981-1997), 631ff. Out of almost 400 catalogued images, at least a fourth contained Hygieia, 55 of them appearing on stelai. Occasionally with Hygieia are the goddesses Akeso, Iaso, and Panakeia, as well as his sons Machaon and Podaleirios. The presence of Hygieia may appear to cast doubt on the derivation of the statue Eusebius described. However, it could be that the woman with the issue of blood was originally Hygieia (or Telesphoros) and was re-cast as the woman. It is impossible to know what Eusebius’
statue originally looked like.
28 Michael T. Compton, “The Association of Hygieia with Asklepios in Graeco-Roman Asklepieion Medicine,”
in Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, 57.3 (2002), 325. Especially see Asklepios, 252 in LIMC, 654 where Asclepius and Hygieia are depicted side by side, as co-deities in prominence, flanked by snakes.
incorporating manners of depicting Asclepius, early Christians could project a message of Christ as the one and only healing god, superior to any charlatan such as Asclepius.