Greek Myths XS: Asklepios-Asclepius vs Hades-Mars

After Apollo had unalived the mother of his child in a jealous rage, he performed the first cesarean in history to deliver their baby. He entrusted the boy, Asklepios, to the famous centaur Cheiron, to be educated in medicine. Not for the gods, because the “ichor” in their veins made them immortal. But humans could do with some medical science, instead of the unreliable magic of the toe of general Pyrrhus (to cure battlewounds) or a swim in the river Anigros (to cure leprosy). In Asklepios’ temples or “asklepieioi”, sick people spent the night on the floor with non venomous snakes crawling around them, and woke up cured. It didn’t take long though before Hades, king of the underworld, complained to Zeus about Asklepios saving too much lives, with a diminishing influx of dead souls as a result. Now, Zeus wasn’t prepared to share the power over life and death. He unalived Asklepios with a thunderbolt and put him in the sky as the “serpent bearer” or Ophiuchus. That’s one way to deal with the competition.

Ophiuchus, John Flamsteed’s Atlas Coelestis

Patients sleeping in the temple of Aesculapius, Ernest Board, Wellcome Collection