{
  "id": "asclepius",
  "type": "entity",
  "name": "Asclepius",
  "summary": "Son of Apollo and \"healer of sicknesses\", born of Coronis daughter of Phlegyas; taught by Chiron, he raised the dead with the Gorgon's blood and was struck down by Zeus's thunderbolt for it. Apollodorus and Pausanias each record three birth stories; Epidaurus claimed him as its own.",
  "locale": "en",
  "tags": [
    "greek",
    "deities",
    "healing",
    "medicine",
    "heroes"
  ],
  "relations": [
    {
      "rel": "child_of",
      "target": "apollo"
    },
    {
      "rel": "killed_by",
      "target": "zeus"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "artemis"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "hermes"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "athena"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "cyclopes"
    },
    {
      "rel": "attested_in",
      "target": "homeric-hymns"
    },
    {
      "rel": "attested_in",
      "target": "bibliotheca"
    }
  ],
  "questions": [
    "Who is Asclepius?",
    "Who are the parents of Asclepius?",
    "Who was Coronis?",
    "Why did Zeus kill Asclepius?",
    "Did Asclepius raise the dead?",
    "Where was Asclepius born?",
    "What is the symbol of Asclepius?"
  ],
  "claims": [
    {
      "id": "c1",
      "text": "The Hymn: \"Asclepius, son of Apollo and healer of sicknesses. In the Dotian plain fair Coronis, daughter of King Phlegyas, bare him, a great joy to men, a soother of cruel pangs\" (HH16 1–4).",
      "sources": [
        "homeric-hymns"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.95
    },
    {
      "id": "c2",
      "text": "Apollodorus gives two mothers: Arsinoe, daughter of Leucippus, or — \"some affirm\" — Coronis, who \"preferred and cohabited with Ischys\"; Apollo turned the tale-bearing raven black, killed Coronis, snatched the baby from the pyre and gave him to Chiron, \"by whom he was brought up and taught the arts of healing and hunting\" (Apollod. 3.10.3).",
      "sources": [
        "apollodorus-library"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.93
    },
    {
      "id": "c3",
      "text": "He raised the dead with Athena's gift: \"he had received from Athena the blood that flowed from the veins of the Gorgon … he used the blood that flowed from the right side for salvation, and by that means he raised the dead\" — Capaneus, Lycurgus, Hippolytus, Tyndareus, Hymenaeus, Glaucus, each with the author who says so (Apollod. 3.10.3).",
      "sources": [
        "apollodorus-library"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.92
    },
    {
      "id": "c4",
      "text": "\"Zeus, fearing that men might acquire the healing art from him and so come to the rescue of each other, smote him with a thunderbolt\"; Apollo in anger killed the Cyclopes who made it, and was sentenced to a year as Admetus's herdsman (Apollod. 3.10.4).",
      "sources": [
        "apollodorus-library"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.93
    },
    {
      "id": "c5",
      "text": "Pausanias gives the Epidaurian story — Phlegyas's daughter bore him secretly in Epidaurian territory and exposed him on Mount Myrtium, where a goat suckled him, a dog guarded him and the herdsman Aresthanas \"saw lightning that flashed from the child\" — then a second version in which Artemis killed Coronis and Hermes snatched the child from the pyre, and rejects the Arsinoe version as \"a fiction invented by Hesiod, or by one of Hesiod's interpolators, just to please the Messenians\", citing a Delphic oracle (Paus. 2.26.3–7).",
      "sources": [
        "pausanias-description"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.92
    },
    {
      "id": "c6",
      "text": "His image at Sicyon is \"a beardless figure of gold and ivory made by Calamis. He holds a staff in one hand, and a cone of the cultivated pine in the other\"; the Sicyonians said the god came from Epidaurus \"in the likeness of a serpent\" (Paus. 2.10.3); at Argos \"Health\" stands beside his seated image (Paus. 2.23.4).",
      "sources": [
        "pausanias-description"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.9
    }
  ],
  "takeaways": [
    "Son of Apollo and Coronis in the Hymn; Apollodorus and Pausanias both know rival mothers and birthplaces (Dotian plain, Epidaurus, Messenia).",
    "The dead he raised are listed by Apollodorus with the poet who vouches for each (Apollod. 3.10.3).",
    "Killed by Zeus's thunderbolt for making men too hard to kill; the Cyclopes paid for it (Apollod. 3.10.4).",
    "The staff and the serpent are attested in Pausanias's description of the Sicyonian cult (Paus. 2.10.3)."
  ],
  "faqs": [
    {
      "q": "Who are the parents of Asclepius?",
      "claim": "c1"
    },
    {
      "q": "Who was Coronis?",
      "claim": "c2"
    },
    {
      "q": "Did Asclepius raise the dead?",
      "claim": "c3"
    },
    {
      "q": "Why did Zeus kill Asclepius?",
      "claim": "c4"
    },
    {
      "q": "Where was Asclepius born?",
      "claim": "c5"
    },
    {
      "q": "What is the symbol of Asclepius?",
      "claim": "c6"
    }
  ],
  "evidence_tier": "primary",
  "evidence": {
    "level": "theoretical",
    "source_types": [
      "paper"
    ]
  },
  "moat_flag": false,
  "winning_edge": "Lays out the three birth traditions Pausanias himself ranks, and binds the thunderbolt, the raised dead and the serpent to their passages.",
  "confidence": 0.92,
  "last_verified": "2026-09-03",
  "media": [],
  "x": {
    "myth": {
      "pantheon": "greek",
      "kind": "deity",
      "group": "other",
      "domains": [
        "healing",
        "medicine"
      ],
      "symbols": [
        "staff",
        "serpent",
        "pine cone"
      ],
      "wikidata": "Q83223"
    }
  },
  "canonical_url": "https://mythosdata.dev/k/asclepius",
  "api_url": "https://mythosdata.dev/api/k/asclepius.json",
  "jsonld": {
    "@context": "https://schema.org",
    "name": "Asclepius",
    "description": "Son of Apollo and \"healer of sicknesses\", born of Coronis daughter of Phlegyas; taught by Chiron, he raised the dead with the Gorgon's blood and was struck down by Zeus's thunderbolt for it. Apollodorus and Pausanias each record three birth stories; Epidaurus claimed him as its own.",
    "url": "https://mythosdata.dev/k/asclepius",
    "license": "https://spdx.org/licenses/CC-BY-4.0.html",
    "dateModified": "2026-09-03",
    "citation": [
      {
        "@type": "CreativeWork",
        "name": "The Homeric Hymns — tr. Hugh G. Evelyn-White (Loeb, 1914), Perseus TEI edition",
        "url": "https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-greekLit/blob/master/data/tlg0013/"
      },
      {
        "@type": "CreativeWork",
        "name": "Apollodorus, The Library (Bibliotheca) — tr. Sir James George Frazer (Loeb, 1921), Perseus TEI edition",
        "url": "https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-greekLit/blob/master/data/tlg0548/tlg001/tlg0548.tlg001.perseus-eng2.xml"
      },
      {
        "@type": "CreativeWork",
        "name": "Pausanias, Description of Greece — tr. W. H. S. Jones (Loeb, 1918–1935), Perseus TEI edition",
        "url": "https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-greekLit/blob/master/data/tlg0525/tlg001/tlg0525.tlg001.perseus-eng2.xml"
      }
    ],
    "@type": "Article",
    "headline": "Asclepius"
  }
}