Asclepiad (
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...
: Ἀσκληπιάδης, pl.: Ἀσκληπιάδαι) was a title borne by many
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek (, ; ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the classical antiquity, ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Greek ...
medical doctors, notably
Hippocrates of Kos. It is not clear whether the Asclepiads were originally a biological family, or simply a member of an order or guild of doctors.
The Asclepiads may have originally been members of a family claiming descent from the god of healing
Asclepius
Asclepius (; ''Asklēpiós'' ; ) is a hero and god of medicine in ancient Religion in ancient Greece, Greek religion and Greek mythology, mythology. He is the son of Apollo and Coronis (lover of Apollo), Coronis, or Arsinoe (Greek myth), Ars ...
, with the name only later being adopted by all doctors; or they may always have been an association of medical men venerating the god as their founder.
[Plinio Prioreschi, ''A History of Medicine: Greek Medicine'', Mellen History of Medicine, 1994, , p. 204]
Some hold that the Asclepiads were
priest
A priest is a religious leader authorized to perform the sacred rituals of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and one or more deity, deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in parti ...
s of
Asclepion
An Asclepieion ( ''Asklepieion''; Ἀσκλαπιεῖον in Doric Greek, Doric dialect; Latin ''aesculapīum''), plurally Asclepieia, was a healing temple in ancient Greece (and in the wider Hellenistic period, Hellenistic and Ancient Rome, Ro ...
.
The Asclepiadae could also have been a guild in honour of Asclepius, the Greek god of healing, separate from the healing temples and closely related to Hippocratic tradition.
Plato
Plato ( ; Greek language, Greek: , ; born BC, died 348/347 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher of the Classical Greece, Classical period who is considered a foundational thinker in Western philosophy and an innovator of the writte ...
gives Hippocrates this title in his ''Protagoras'', referring to him as “Hippocrates of Kos, the Asclepiad”.
It may also have been used to refer to a group of people who claimed to be descended from Asclepius.
Asclepiades was the name of several
Hellenistic
In classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Greek history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the death of Cleopatra VII in 30 BC, which was followed by the ascendancy of the R ...
physicians, some of whom probably assumed this appellation either as a sort of honorary title in allusion to the ancient family of the Asclepiadae, or in order to signify that they themselves belonged to it, or even just to indicate that they were proficient healers.
See also
*
Asclepiades of Bithynia
Asclepiades (; c. 129/124 BC – 40 BC), sometimes called Asclepiades of Bithynia or Asclepiades of Prusa, was a Greek physician born at Prusias-on-Sea in Bithynia in Anatolia and who flourished at Rome, where he practised and taught Greek medi ...
, (ca. 125–40 BC) philosopher and physician
*
Asclepiades Pharmacion
Asclepiades Pharmacion or Asclepiades Junior (; fl. 1st–2nd century) was a Greek physician. He is believed to have lived at the end of the 1st or the beginning of the 2nd century AD, as he quotes Andromachus, Dioscorides, and Scribonius Larg ...
, (1st-2nd century) Greek physician
*
Hippocrates
Hippocrates of Kos (; ; ), also known as Hippocrates II, was a Greek physician and philosopher of the Classical Greece, classical period who is considered one of the most outstanding figures in the history of medicine. He is traditionally referr ...
, who was raised as an Asclepiad.
References
Bibliography
* Jacques Jouanna, ''Greek Medicine from Hippocrates to Galen: Selected Papers'', Brill Studies in Ancient Medicine 40, 2012, , ''passim''
*.
*
*
Ancient Greek religious titles
Asclepius
Ancient Greek medicine
{{AncientGreece-bio-stub