Asclepius: The Mortal Man so Powerful Zeus Killed Him out of Fear

Hey everyone, welcome to Mythology Explained. The topic of this video is Asclepius, the greatest healer in all of Greek mythology. He became so adept at healing that his powers became transcendent: able to bring the dead back to life, restoring soul to inanimate body, no longer limited by the fragility and perishability of flesh.

He was the son of Apollo, the god of healing among other things. He was trained in the healing arts by the immortal centaur Chiron, and though he brought much good into the world with his restorative power, he would eventually be killed by Zeus, who believed that the powers Asclepius had cultivated were too potent to be wielded by mortal hands. It was Zeus’ belief that, unless Asclepius’ life was put to an end, the crystalline divide that separated the realm of mortality from the realm of divinity would be compromised, upsetting the natural order. Ultimately, Zeus’ execution of Asclepius precipitated a cascading sequence of events that resulted in the death of the cyclopes who forged Zeus’ thunderbolts, which then resulted in Apollo becoming the slave of a mortal man for one year as punishment.

Though Asclepius was ripped from the world too soon, robbed of life as he had worked to save it – the vain and wrathful whim of a god worried his own light would be dimmed – his legacy stands the test of time, made enduring through posthumous ascension and prominent symbolism: at Apollo’s behest, he was set in the sky as a constellation; despite not achieving godhood in life, he was later deified as a god of healing and medicine; and even today, the Rod of Asclepius (a serpent-entwined staff) serves as a symbol emblematic of medicine, one incorporated into the logo of the World Health Organization, and many other institutions. Incidentally, this is not to be confused with the Staff of Hermes, also known as the Caduceus, which is a staff entwined by twin serpents, its length punctuated at the top by a pair of wings.

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