Snakes and serpents in myth, legend and religion are thoroughly sinister and bad, with one curious exception. A journey across centuries of images.
Cipriani
From mythology, Mercury’s caduceus and the Aesculapian Staff, walking sticks as a device indicating age, and those carried by travellers.
God of medicine and the healing arts, he has several unusual myths and features, including a strange relationship with a snake when he was a child.
After three brief tales of strange happenings in early Rome, Ovid gives an account of the bringing of the god Aesculapius to the city, to end an epidemic.
An unusual classical god in very peculiar circumstances: what took the goddess of love to the doctor?
The Eclectic Light Company 