Search Results: Asclepius

A cyclops (meaning 'circle-eyed') is a one-eyed giant first appearing in the mythology of ancient Greece. The Greeks believed that there was an entire race of cyclopes who lived in a faraway land without law and order. Homer, in his Iliad...

Plutus (aka Wealth) is a play written by the great Greek comedy playwright Aristophanes in 388 BCE. It was the last of his plays to be performed during his lifetime. Like his earlier play Ecclesiazusae (The Assemblywomen), Wealth was written...

Achilles The hero of the Trojan War, leader of the Myrmidons, slayer of Hector and Greece's greatest warrior, who sadly came unstuck when Paris sent a flying arrow guided by Apollo, which caught him in his only weak spot, his heel...

In Europe, in the 19th century CE, an interesting device began appearing in graveyards and cemeteries: the mortsafe. This was an iron cage erected over a grave to keep the body of the deceased safe from 'resurrectionists' - better known as...

Modern medicine has its origin in the ancient world. The oldest civilizations used magic and herbs to cure their sick people, but they also used religion to free them from harm and to protect their health. The medical care of today has its...

In the ancient world the gods were often held responsible for one's good health and making offerings to them, reading out spells or wearing amulets was a common way to make sure illness stayed far away but there soon developed a whole body...

The 4th century BCE statue of Asclepius from the god of medicine's sanctuary at Empuries (Emporiae), Spain. The statue was carved using Parian and Pentelic marble.

Statue of the deified Antinous represented as Asclepius, found in the outer court of the sanctuary of Demeter and Kore at Eleusis (Greece) which it apparently adorned, 2nd century CE. (Archaeological Museum of Eleusis)

Statue of Asclepius, the Greek God of medicine, holding the symbolic Rod of Asclepius with its coiled serpent. The Glypotek, Copenhagen.

A reconstruction of the Temple of Asclepius in Epidaurus. Illustration by Julia Lillo.