ÆSCULAPIUS, in the Heathen Mythology, the god of physic, was the son of Apollo and the nymph Coronis. He was educated by the centaur Chiron, who taught him physic; by which means Æsculapius cured the most desperate diseases. But Jupiter, enraged at his restoring to life Hippolytus, who had been torn in pieces by his own horses, killed him with a thunderbolt. According to Cicero, there were three deities of this name: the first, the son of Apollo, worshipped in Arcadia, who invented the probe, and bandages for wounds; the second, the brother of Mercury, killed by lightning; and the third, the son of Arisippus and Arisnoe, who first taught the art of tooth-drawing and purging. At Epidaurus, Æsculapius's statue was of gold and ivory, with a long beard, his head surrounded with rays, holding in one hand a knotty stick, and the other entwined with a serpent; he was seated on a throne of the same materials as his statue, and had a dog lying at his feet. The Romans crowned him with laurel, to represent his descent from Apollo; and the Phaliasins represented him as beardless. The cock, the raven, and the goat, were sacred to this deity. His chief temples were at Pergamus, Smyrna, Trica a city in Ionia, and the isle of Coos; in all which votive tablets were hung up, showing the diseases cured by his assistance. But his most famous shrine was at Epidaurus; where, every five years, games were instituted to him, nine days after the Isthmian games at Corinth.