44.4987
| 4987
41 in Orelli. [See Appendix, note 1, p. 539.] |
In like manner we might go
through the other narratives, and show that in these also, and in
expositions of these,
something far different from what the gods
should be is said and declared about them, as in this very
story
which I shall next relate, one or two
only being added to it,
that disgust may not be produced by excess.
4988
| 4988 In the ms. and both Roman edd. the section translated on p. 539 is
inserted here. Ursinus, however (pp. 210–211), followed by
Heraldus (312–313), enclosed it in brackets, and marked it with
asterisks. In all other edd. it is either given as an appendix,
or wholly rejected. |
After certain gods were
brought from among
nations dwelling beyond the
sea, you say, and after
temples were built to them, after their
altars were heaped with
sacrifices, the
plague-stricken people grew
strong and
recovered, and the
pestilence fled before the soundness of
health which
arose. What gods, say, I beseech? Æsculapius, you say,
the
god of
health, from Epidaurus, and
now settled in the
island
in the middle of the Tiber. If we were disposed to be very
scrupulous in dealing with your assertions, we might
prove by your own
authority that he was by no means
divine who had been conceived and
born from a
woman’s
womb, who had by yearly stages reached that
term of
life at which, as is related in your books, a thunderbolt drove
him at once from
life and
light. But we leave this
question: let the son of Coronis be, as you wish, one of the
immortals, and
possessed of the
everlasting blessedness4989
of
heaven. From Epidaurus, however, what was brought except an
enormous
serpent? If we
trust the annals, and ascribe to them
well-ascertained
truth, nothing else, as it has been
recorded.
What shall we say then? That Æsculapius, whom you extol, an
excellent, a venerable
god, the
giver of
health, the averter,
preventer, destroyer of sickness, is contained within the form and
outline of a serpent, crawling along the earth as worms are wont to do,
which spring from mud; he rubs the ground with his chin and breast,
dragging himself in sinuous coils; and that he may be able to go
forward, he draws on the last part of his body by the efforts of the
first.
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