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Greek city of Cherson in Thrace. Pseudo-autonomous issue.
Bronze 18mm (3.64 grams) Struck circa 212-222 A.D.
Reference: Anohkin 192; SNG Copenhagen -.
Asclepius standing left, leaning on serpent-staff.
Hygeia standing right, feeding from patera serpent held in arms.
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.JPG/200px-Statue_of_Asklepios_NAMA_263_(DerHexer).JPG)  Asclepius is the god of medicine and healing in ancient Greek religion. Asclepius represents the healing aspect of the medical arts; his daughters are Hygieia (“Health”), Iaso (“Medicine”), Aceso (“Healing”), and Panacea (“Universal Remedy”). The rod of Asclepius, a snake-entwined staff, remains a symbol of medicine today, although sometimes the caduceus, or staff with two snakes, is mistakenly used instead. He was associated with the Roman/Etruscan god Vediovis. He was one of Apollo’s servants.
The rod of Asclepius, also known as the asklepian, is an ancient symbol associated with astrology, the Greek god Asclepius and with medicine and healing. It consists of a serpent entwined around a staff. The name of the symbol derives from its early and widespread association with Asclepius, the son of Apollo, who was a practitioner of medicine in ancient Greek mythology. His attributes, the snake and the staff, sometimes depicted separately in antiquity, are combined in this symbol. The Rod of Asclepius also represents the constellation Ophiuchus (or Ophiuchus Serpentarius), the thirteenth sign of the sidereal zodiac. Hippocrates himself was a worshipper of Asclepius.
 In Greek and Roman mythology, Hygieia, or Hygeia, was a daughter of the god of medicine, Asclepius. She was the goddess of health, cleanliness and sanitation and afterwards, the moon. She also played an important part in her father’s cult. While her father was more directly associated with healing, she was associated with the prevention of sickness and the continuation of good health. Her name is the source of the word “hygiene”.
At Athens, Hygieia was the subject of a local cult since at least the 7th century BC. “Athena Hygieia” was one of the cult titles given to Athena, as Plutarch recounts of the building of the Parthenon (447-432 BC):
However, the cult of Hygieia as an independent goddess did not begin to spread out until the Delphic oracle recognized her, and after the devastating Plague of Athens (430-27 BC) and in Rome in 293 BC.
In the second century AD, Pausanias noted the statues both of Hygieia and of Athena Hygieia near the entrance to the Acropolis of Athens.
Hygieia’s primary temples were in Epidaurus, Corinth, Cos and Pergamon. Pausanias remarked that, at the Asclepieion of Titane in Sicyon (founded by Alexanor, Asclepius’ grandson), statues of Hygieia were covered by women’s hair and pieces of Babylonian clothes. According to inscriptions, the same sacrifices were offered at Paros.
Ariphron, a Sicyonian artist from the 4th century BC wrote a well-known hymn celebrating her. Statues of Hygieia were created by Scopas, Bryaxis and Timotheus, among others, but there is no clear description of what they looked like. She was often depicted as a young woman feeding a large snake that was wrapped around her body or drinking from a jar that she carried. These attributes were later adopted by the Gallo-Roman healing goddess, Sirona. Hygieia was accompanied by her brother, Telesphorus.
“Hygieia” was used as a greeting among the Pythagoreans.
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