Final Draft - Preview Matter - Florida State University

creature of the earth, and even his frequent possession of the mallet may be indicative of this.
Charu(n)’s hammer, which may menace the dead or unbar the door to allow entry into the
underworld, 155 is likely parallel to the hammer held by Athrpa, the Etruscan Atropos, represented
on the Athrpa mirror (Fig. VI.2), i.e. it is meant to denote finality and the inescapable nature of
death. 156 There is no celestial Charu(n) as opposed to a figure such as Turms (Etruscan Hermes)
who sometimes appears as Turms Aitas, the Turms of Aita (Etruscan Hades); thus Charu(n) is
strictly chthonic but not necessarily malevolent.
There are other serpent deities who are wholly beneficial to man. Apollo’s son,
Aesculapius, savior of man and patron of healers, is one such benevolent serpent divinity. 157
While he is not consistently depicted as a serpent in art or literature, cultic traditions indicate that
his worshippers believed that the god could manifest himself in the sacred snakes associated with
his temples, particularly when new sanctuaries were founded. 158 This animal was so closely
associated with Aesculapius that poets could refer to the “Epidaurian snake,” and their audience
would immediately know that they meant the god of healing, for Aesculapius was brought to
Italy from his sanctuary at Epidauros. 159 The persistence of the association of god and serpent
can be seen in the emblem of the American Medical Association, Aesculapius’ staff. 160
A brief discussion of select myths associated with Aesculapius is in order to illuminate
the nature of this god. There are several different accounts of Aesculapius’ birth, yet none of
them directly associate him with serpents. On the other hand, the stories of his origins do accord
with a god directly associated with the boundary between life and death. Servius records one
version of Aesculapius’ birth and death in his commentary on the Aeneid.
155 Jannot 2005, 65.
156 Beazley (1949, 13) and Krauskopf (1987, 47) note this connotation of the hammer in relation to Athrpa. I would
argue for a similar interpretation of Charu’s hammer. For the varied uses of Charu(n)’s hammer, see De Grummond
2006a, 215.
157 Schouten (1967, 7) notes that Aesculapius’ name is spelled many ways including Haisklapios, Aisklapios,
Aischlabios, Aiskalapios, Aisclapius, Aisculapius, and Aescolapius as well as Asklepios or Asclepius. De
Grummond (2006a, 187) notes that this god’s name was Esplace in Etruria. For consistency, I shall use Aesculapius
unless quoting another scholar’s text or a primary source.
158 Edelstein and Edelstein (1945, n. 16) state that the practice of venerating the snake as a representation of
Aesculapius indicates the persistence of theriomorphic form throughout antiquity and that Aesculapius was not
unique in being worshipped in animal form. They go so far as to suggest that all the gods were worshipped in
animal form due to myths which record the shape-changing of gods into animals. While I agree that theriomorphic
gods were venerated throughout antiquity, I am less convinced that all of the gods were worshipped in this way.
159 Edelstein and Edelstein 1945, 231.
160 American Medical Association, 2006. Hermes also bore a rod entwined with a serpent, the caduceus.
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