Note 55 — Chapter III · CAVE DEITIES: SUBTERRANEAN TRANSLATION

The chthonic character of Asklepios is shown specially by the fact that not only are snakes sacred and dedicated to him but that he himself was actually thought of as a snake (cf. Welcker, Götterl. ii, 734). ὄφις, Γῆς παῖς (Hdt. i, 78); deities who dwell in the earth, and afterwards “Heroes” (in the later sense), appear in the form of snakes as χθόνιοι. Since such earth-spirits generally have oracular powers the snake is an oracular animal; but that is a secondary development. The offer of a cock, too (as by Sokrates before his departure to the underworld), points to the chthonic character of Ask., for it was a sacrifice also made to Heroes. Thus the ἡρῷα at Athens were frequented by the priests of Asklepios (CIA. ii, 453 b); cf. Köhler, Ath. Mitth. vol. ii, 245 f. (Sacrificial pit, βόθρος, for this chthonic worship in the Asklepieion at Athens? see Köhler, ib. 254.)