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HYGIEIA

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Originally appearing in Volume V14, Page 175 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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HYGIEIA , in See also:

Greek See also:mythology, the goddess of See also:health. It seems probable that she was originally an See also:abstraction, subsequently personified, rather than an See also:independent divinity of very See also:ancient date. The question of the See also:original See also:home of her See also:worship has been much discussed. The See also:oldest traces of it, so far as is known at See also:present, are to be found at Titane in the territory of See also:Sicyon, where she was worshipped together with Asclepius, to whom she appears completely assimilated, not an independent See also:personality. Her cult was not introduced at See also:Epidaurus till a See also:late date, and therefore, when in 420 B.C. the worship of Asclepius was introduced at See also:Athens coupled with that of Hygieia, it is not to be inferred that she accompanied him from Epidaurus, or that she is a Peloponnesian importation at all. It is most probable that she was invented at the See also:time of the introduction of Asclepius, after the sufferings caused by the See also:plague had directed See also:special See also:attention to sanitary matters. The already existing worship of See also:Athena Hygieia had nothing to do with Hygieia the goddess of health, but merely denoted the recognition of the See also:power of healing as one of the attributes of Athena, which gradually became crystallized into a See also:concrete personality. At first no special relationship existed between Asclepius and Hygieia, but gradually she came to be regarded as his daughter, the See also:place of his wife being already secured by Epione. Later Orphic See also:hymns, however, and See also:Herodas iv. 1-9, make her the wife of Asclepius. The cult of Hygieia then spread concurrently with that of Asclepius, and was introduced at See also:Rome from Epidaurus in 293, by which time she may have been admitted (which was not the See also:case before) into the Epidaurian See also:family of the See also:god. Her proper name as a Romanized Greek importation was Valetudo, but she was gradually identified with See also:Salus, an older genuine See also:Italian divinity, to whom a See also:temple had already been erected in 302.

While in classical times Asclepius and Hygieia are simply the god and goddess of health, in the declining years of paganism they are protecting divinities generally, who preserve mankind not only from sickness but from all dangers on See also:

land and See also:sea. In See also:works of See also:art Hygieia is represented, together with Asclepius, as a See also:maiden of benevolent See also:appearance, wearing the See also:chiton and giving See also:food or drink to a See also:serpent out of a dish. See the See also:article by H. Lechat in Daremberg and Saglio's Dictionnaire See also:des antiquites, with full references to authorities; and E. Thramer in See also:Roscher's Lexikon der Mythologie, with a special See also:section on the See also:modern theories of Hygieia.

End of Article: HYGIEIA

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