CHAPTER V. The Significance of the Serpent in the Statues and Votive

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE SERPENT IN THE STATUES AND VOTIVE OFFERINGS EXPOSED TO VIEW IN THE AESCULAPIAN TEMPLES

Almost every important gallery of sculpture in Europe possesses at least one marble statue of Aesculapius, and in the majority of these the god is represented as a middle-aged or elderly man of powerful frame, having a full head of hair and full beard, and clothed only with the pallium or mantle, which is so placed as to leave the right shoulder and a large part of the chest uncovered. He holds in his right hand a knotted staff around which, in many of the statues, is coiled a serpent whose head approaches very closely to the hand. The expression of the god’s countenance is strikingly peaceful and serene, yet without any evidence of weakness. In not a few instances other animals are represented alongside the statue, usually at the god’s feet--as, for example, the cock, the owl, the eagle, the hawk or the ram--and occasionally his daughter Hygieia is shown at his side feeding the serpent. The cock is the symbol of watchfulness--a physician should be vigilant; the owl symbolizes his need of clear-sightedness and of readiness to care for his patients in the night as well as during the day; the eagle has a penetrating eye and it is the emblem of long life--a benefit which the healing art is capable of procuring; the hawk was the bird consecrated to Isis, Queen of Egypt, who was believed by the Egyptians to have been highly skilled in medicine; and the ram is the symbol of dreams and divination. Pliny says that the patients who were brought to the temple of Aesculapius were made to lie down at night wrapped in the skin of a ram, in order that they might have divine dreams. The presence of the serpent in nearly all of the statues of Aesculapius is explained in a variety of ways. Some say that this reptile, which sheds his skin once a year, is emblematic of the sick person’s need to acquire a new body, or at least cast off his old skin in the same manner as does the snake. Others consider the serpent as merely the symbol of wisdom, as it is admittedly the shrewdest and most cunning of all animals. In a few instances it is represented as drinking from a receptacle held in the hand of Hygieia. Perhaps the sculptor’s intention here was to show that the serpent, although the wisest of all animals, believed that he might add to his stock of wisdom by drinking from the fountain under the control of Aesculapius, thus conveying the impression that the wisdom of the latter was greater than his own. But all these interpretations are too subtle for the uneducated mind to appreciate at a glance. They fail also to satisfy our preconceived ideas of what such a statue should be--viz., a memorial of the godlike character of Aesculapius and of the priceless benefits which he conferred upon his fellow men, and, at the same time, an object which, when first contemplated by one who is ill, would at once evoke in that person feelings of perfect confidence in the ability and the willingness of the god represented by the statue to effect a cure. Some, perhaps even a majority, of the statues thus far recovered from the ruins of the different Aesculapian temples certainly fail to arouse any such sentiments in the minds of ordinary observers; but there are others which do in some measure accomplish this, and among the number the statue which may be seen in the Berlin Museum and of which a photographic copy (Fig. 4) is here reproduced, should certainly be included. The head of the god is less imposing and the expression less kindly than are these features in some of the other statues (see, for example, Fig. 5), but, to offset this, the serpent represented in the latter is of the non-poisonous variety. The addition of such a harmless creature to the figure representing the god contributes nothing to the power of the statue as a whole to impress the people--i.e., the uneducated masses, as, for example, the peasants, etc. On the other hand, the significance of the poisonous snake in a statue of this character will be readily appreciated if one considers the fact that in ancient times, as it is even to-day in India, the loss of life caused by the bites of poisonous snakes was enormous. In the presence of such a fact, therefore, it would be difficult for a sculptor who was desirous of emphasizing the extraordinary healing powers of his hero to accomplish this more effectively than by embodying in his statue, along with other impressive features, such characters as would show him to have gained the mastery over that terribly fatal malady--the bite of the viper and of the still more deadly serpents of India and parts of Africa. Although we possess no facts which would warrant the statement that Aesculapius had been particularly successful in the treatment of this form of poisoning, these temple statues furnish indirect proof of a strong character that his healing power in this direction had been very great,--so great, indeed, as to have been largely instrumental in winning for him the appellation of a god. Such a striking object, especially when its more important features were commented upon by the priest who accompanied the patient on his or her first tour of inspection of temple wonders, could scarcely have failed to produce a very deep impression upon the imagination.

(From Holländer’s Plastik und Medizin, with the author’s permission.)]

HEAD OF THE MARBLE STATUE OF THE GOD AESCULAPIUS IN THE NAPLES MUSEUM.]

In the illustration which has here been reproduced (Fig. 4), a viper, as clearly shown by the shape of his head and neck and by the unusual length of the jaw, has twined himself about the staff and is close to the god’s hand, so close that in an instant’s time the fatal bite might readily be inflicted. But Aesculapius shows by his countenance, by the unconcerned manner in which he allows his right hand to remain near the serpent’s head, and by the easy pose of his whole body, that he is not at all concerned about the danger which appears to threaten his life. In the estimation of the ancient Greeks this fearlessness was undoubtedly attributed to the supernatural power which they believed Aesculapius to possess over dangerous serpents as well as over diseases of all kinds.

So far as now appears, all the statues of the god that have been dug up in Greece or its nearest colonies represent the serpent as of the size commonly observed in that part of the world. Hollaender, however, furnishes (on page 118 of his work) an illustration which represents--as he believes--the god Aesculapius in the presence of an enormous snake, evidently a python. (Fig. 6.) As this variety of serpent is not to be found in Greece, or indeed at any point further north than the Mediterranean coast of Africa, it is fair to assume that the bas-relief which depicts this scene must have been made for exhibition in an Asclepieion located at Cyrene or at the relatively near city of Alexandria, where patients, who were more or less familiar with this serpent and realized its power of crushing people to death, would have occasion to witness this suggestive work of art. And, furthermore, as if it were for the express purpose of emphasizing the great protective power of the god, the sculptor has introduced, on one side of the scene, the figures of three women, two young children and a lamb. The women nearest to the monster have folded their arms and do not manifest the least sign of fear. The children also appear to be unaware of the presence of a deadly danger. In short, the proximity of the god Aesculapius has instilled into the minds of these human beings the most complete sense of fearlessness; he himself, as in the case of the statue of Aesculapius shown in Fig. 4, exhibiting a complete absence of fear in the presence of the dangerous monster. Neither death by poisoning nor death by constriction has any terrors for him to whom the patient is about to appeal for relief from disease.

That pythons were a terror in former times to the people who inhabited the coast regions near Cyrene is evident from a statement which Aristotle makes in his History of Animals (Book VIII., Chapter xxviii.). It reads as follows:--

In Libya (Africa) the serpents, as has been already remarked, are very large. For some persons say that, as they sailed along the coast, they saw the bones of many oxen, and that it was evident to them that they had been devoured by the serpents. And, as the ships passed on, the serpents attacked the triremes, and some of them threw themselves upon one of the triremes and overturned it.