how he should return home (Odys., xiv, 327; xix, 296). At Dodona Zeus appears as in the earlier stage of his development, half barbarian; whereas at Olympia he was the center of the beauty, fancy, and greater activities of the Greek life of the late centuries.272 His statue there was the highest expression of Greek art, was eagerly visited by persons from every part of Greece, and was wonderingly admired by all (Pausanias, V, xi, 1). Zeus was regarded as the helper of weak and unfortunate humanity, and he was given many epithets, among them being Paian at Rhodes (Hesychios, s.v. Пaιav Zevs) and apotropaios ('averter of ill') at Erythrai, both expressive of the same idea of the deity,278 but as a healer he generally delegated his powers to others for application, although the sick consulted his oracle at Dodona.274 He was the divine physician at Rhodes; while votive tablets, models of limbs, dedicated to him in gratitude for healing, have been found at Athens in the Pnyx (CIA iii, 150-156) and also in Melos.275 The allotment of a part of the altar at the Amphiareion at Oropos establishes his association with healing there (Pausanias, I, xxxiv, 3). Pausanias (V, v, 5) intimates that Zeus Leukaios healed leprosy at Lepreos, though this inference is disputed," and he was also known as a god who aided child-birth and healed by the laying-on of hands, being assisted in this phase of his character by Epaphos, being called Zeus Epaphos, and receiving the epithet Hyperdexios.277 272 Gardner, op. cit., p. 407. 273 Farnell, op. cit., i, 67. 274 Ib., i, 40. 275 Panofka, in ABAW, 1843, p. 258. 276 Thrämer, in ERE vi, 545, note. 277 Weinreich, op. cit., p. 41; also Gruppe, op. cit., p. 860. 276 ACHILLES, a celebrated hero of the Trojan War and a pupil of Cheiron, was not merely skilled in healing, but also taught others the art (Il., xi, 832). In Elis he was worshipped as a hero possessing mantic powers (Pau 278 Note. The association of these heroes and heroines, and many others, with healing was slight and occasional, except for the descendants of Asklepios, Panakeia, and the sons of Machaon, but their work and that of later Asklepiads is sufficiently indicated in the text. sanias, VI, xxiii, 3), and he had a dream shrine at Leuke (Arrianos, Periplus, xxiii), though this was concerned with sea-traffic rather than with healing. The Sosias bowl represents him bandaging Patroklos;27 appearing in a vision, he healed Leonymos, the boxer (Tertullian, de Anima, xlvi); and only the rust from his spear, which had inflicted the wound, could heal Telephos (cf. Pausanias, III, iii, 8). He is also mentioned in connection with the therapeutic heroines Medeia (Ibykos, Frag., xxxvii; Simonides, Frag., ccxiii; Lykophron, 174), Helena (Philostratos, Heroica, xix, 15-16), and Iphigeneia Orsilocheia (Eustathios, on Il., iv, 306). AGAMEDE AGAMEDE, the daughter of Augeas, a prince of Elis, was a sorceress and one "who well understood as many drugs as the wide earth nourishes" (Il., xi, 739). AMPHILOCHOS AMPHILOCHOS, the son of Amphiaraos and one of the heroes of the Theban War, inherited the mantic faculties of his father, with whom he was worshipped at the sanctuary of Oropos as a healing hero, his oracles, like those of his sire, being imparted by dreams (Tertullian, op. cit., xlvi; Dion Kassios, lxxii, 7). He joined with Mopsos, one of his companions in the Theban War, to found the city of Mallos in Cilicia, where they set up a healing shrine (Strabo, XIV, v, 16 p. 675 C); and Pausanias says (I, xxxiv, 3) that this oracle was considered the most infallible of that day. = AMYNOS (ALKON) AMYNOS ('Averter') was a healing hero, or a demigod, who was worshipped at Athens before the arrival of 279 Müller-Wieseler, Denkmäler der alten Kunst; Plate 45, no. 210. Asklepios, and whose cult appears to have been associated (or confused) with that of a legendary therapeutic hero, Alkon, of whom little is known except that he was reared, together with Asklepios, by Cheiron (Vita Sophoclis, 11), and who is supposed to have occupied a temenos at Athens.280 The origin of Amynos and his cult is unknown, and it is said that he is not mentioned in Greek literature, or by any of the Christian fathers except Eusebios. He had been forgotten until excavations by the German Archeological Institute in 1895 disclosed a precinct on the western slope of the Akropolis, between the Areiopagos and the Pnyx, with inscriptions to a healing divinity named Amynos. The precinct was an irregular quadrangle, about sixty-two feet long by forty-two wide. It contained a well and the foundations of an old chapel, the style of masonry suggesting that it was of the date of Peisistratos (seventh century B.C.), and that it was constructed on the site of a previous temple, dating back possibly to 1000 B.C. Remains of the older, as well as the later, style of pottery were discovered, with anatomical votive offerings in marble and bas-reliefs, the latter being of the usual character, proving that the serpent was the symbol of the hero, while one of them represents a goddess, probably Hygieia, standing by a wreathed altar receiving homage from a train of suppliants with a child. These relics indicate that Amynos was held in high esteem, but they do not give any intimation of his methods of healing, or whether or not incubation was used, except that one tablet shows a man and a woman approaching the god with hands raised in the attitude of supplication (Frazer, op. cit., v, 499-500).281 Amynos had failed to avert an existing pestilence and it was determined to bring Asklepios, who had gained an 280 Walton, op. cit., pp. 29-30. 281 Körte, in MAIA, 1893, xviii, 231-256; 1896, xxi, 287-332. enormous prestige in the Peloponnesos, to Athens, and it is believed that he was first made a guest at the temenos of Amynos, and that later he absorbed the cult.282 Inscriptions of about the fourth century B.C., found in the temenos, indicate that Asklepios was also worshipped there, though as a secondary deity, and that there was also a third divinity, called Dexion (q.v.), who had a separate chapel. It is assumed that as the fame of Asklepios increased in Athens, Amynos faded until he was forgotten. The hero Alkon had a shrine at Sparta.282 ANTIKYREOS ANTIKYREOS was a Greek healing hero who was reputed to have discovered hellebore in Phokis, and with it to have cured Herakles of madness.283 APIS APIS, king of Argos, founder of the city of Apia in Argolis, and an iatromantis who had freed his state of monsters, was a son of Apollo who came from Naupaktos to Argolis, where he settled and cured its people, whence it was called the Apian land (Aischylos, Supplices, 250260). He seems to have been, in reality, a hypostasis of Asklepios, his name being abbreviated from Apiodoros ("Giving Mild Gifts').284 ARISTOMACHOS ARISTOMACHOS, a heros-iatros of ancient Greece and recognized as such at the Dionyseion at Marathon, had a healing shrine at that place and was worshipped at his grave. 285 282 Harrison, Prologomena, pp. 345-346. 283 Panofka, in ABAW, 1843, 257 ff. |