Page 276 - ירושלים: גיליון רפואי

Healing Symbols and
Gods of Medicine

at Jerusalem-Aelia Capitolina and
Their Affinity to Therapeutic Sites

Est¯ee Dvorjetski

Symbols of medicine and gods of healing were frequently used in the Graeco-Roman world.
For generations, the snake was the symbol of the healing gods, and man’s attitude to the snake
was always ambivalent. The snake aroused hatred and fear as well as profound admiration, and
was thought to be a creature with hidden powers. The snake was also attributed with immortal
qualities, and because it sheds its skin it was thought to symbolize renewal. It represents rebirth,
casting off the old in favor of something new and better. Due to its elongated phallic shape,
the snake was also considered a symbol of fertility and agriculture; because it emerges from
the ground, it also came to be accepted as symbolizing the dead.

Apollo, god of the sun, medicine, and the arts, is known as the ‘Pythian god,’ named after the
Python serpent he killed. Apollo ruled over diseases, and was believed to be able to stave them
off by incantation, singing, and purification. His son, Aesculapius, was the god of medicine;
Aesculapius’ attribute was the snake, which also came to be adopted as the symbol of medicine
(signum Aesculapii). Evidence of the cult of Aesculapius in Jerusalem is found in a third-century CE
carnelian gemstone discovered in the southeast of the Ophel. The figure of the god is depicted on
the gemstone, grasping a snake-entwined rod. Hygieia, the goddess of health, cleanliness, and
sanitation, is Aesculapius’daughter; she is usually depicted holding a snake wrapped around the
middle finger of her right hand, and feeding it from a bowl in her left hand. She is also presented
on the city-coins from the days of the Roman Emperors Herennius Etruscus and Hostilian (251 CE)
seated on a rock and placing her right hand over a snake, who is rearing up to feed from a phiale
in her left. The Hippocratic Oath, the physicians’ oath, opens with a reference to three gods: “I
swear by the name of Apollo the healer, by the name of Aesculapius, Hygieia and Panacea.”

Syncretistic deities associated with Aesculapius and Hygieia were popular in Egypt. Serapis
and Isis were gods of this kind. The cult of Serapis, the god of Alexandria and the Ptolemaic
Kingdom in Egypt, spread throughout the Hellenistic-Roman world. Serapis was renowned
for his healing powers and, as lord of the underworld, he ruled over fate and granted eternal
life. His cult was one of the most important in the Roman period, especially in places where

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