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Updated: June 20, 2025
O great Asklepios, O bountiful and gracious Hygeia, ease his sufferings, which are indeed beyond endurance! Nor shall you lack an offering. I will dedicate a cock to you; and as the cock announces a new day, so perchance shall you grant to Caracalla the dawn of a new existence in better health. "Alas, gracious god! but thou art grave, as though the offering were too small.
After offering honey-cakes and baked meats on the altar, the suppliants arranged themselves on the pallets. Caton: Temples and Ritual of Asklepios, 2d ed., London, 1900. Soon the Temple servitor Put out the lights and bade us fall asleep, Nor stir, nor speak, whatever noise we heard. So down we lay in orderly repose.
O great Asklepios, O bountiful and gracious Hygeia, ease his sufferings, which are indeed beyond endurance! Nor shall you lack an offering. I will dedicate a cock to you; and as the cock announces a new day, so perchance shall you grant to Caracalla the dawn of a new existence in better health. "Alas, gracious god! but thou art grave, as though the offering were too small.
This story also of the men of old have I heard: how within his cavern of stone did deep-counselled Cheiron rear Jason, and next Asklepios, whom he taught to apportion healing drugs with gentle hand: after this it was that he saw the espousals of Nereus' daughter of the shining wrists, and fondling nursed her son, strongest of men, rearing his soul in a life of harmony; until by blowing of sea winds wafted to Troy he should await the war-cry of the Lykians and of the Phrygians and of the Dardanians, cried to the clashing of spears; and joining in battle with the lancer Ethiops hand to hand should fix this purpose in his soul, that their chieftain Memnon, Helenos' fiery cousin, should go back again to his home no more.
The thought that Galenus perhaps was right, and that of Caracalla's myriad subjects she might be the only one who would do so much for his sake, strengthened her resolve. The chief temple of Asklepios, whom the Egyptians called Imhotep, was at the Serapeum. Imhotep was the son of Ptah, who, at Alexandria, was merged in Serapis.
Philostratus, too, seemed to remember the meeting; for his shrewd face a pleasing mixture of grave and gay lighted up at once with a subtle smile as he said: "If I am not mistaken, I owe the same pleasure this evening to divine Caesar as to great Asklepios this morning?"
"Thou, Asklepios, dost look in amazement, and great Hygeia shakes her head. And it is hard to say what moves me, who love another, to pray for the blood-stained murderer for whom not another soul in his empire would say a word to you. Nay, and I know not what it is. Perhaps it is but pity; for he, who ought to be the happiest, is surely the most wretched man under the sun.
So said he, and the herald heard him and disregarded not, and went his way through the host of mail-clad Achaians to spy out the hero Machaon. Him he found standing, and about him the stalwart ranks of the shield-bearing host that followed him from Trike, pasture land of horses. So he came near and spake his winged words: "Arise, thou son of Asklepios.
In its struggle with Christianity, Paganism made its last stand in the temples of Asklepios. The miraculous healing of the saints superseded the cures of the heathen god, and it was wise to adopt the useful practice of his temple. Mary Hamilton: Incubation, or the Cure of Disease in Pagan Temples and Christian Churches, London, 1906.
And yesterday a happy omen, too I overheard by chance a young Greek girl, who believed herself unobserved, who of her own prompting fervently entreated Asklepios to heal you. Nay, she collected all the coins in her little purse, and had a goat and a cock sacrificed in your behalf." "And you expect me to believe that!" said Caracalla, with a scornful laugh.
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