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Hygieia is a goddess from Greek mythology (more commonly spelled Hygeia, sometimes Hygiea; ;Jones, Daniel; Roach, Peter, James Hartman and Jane Setter, eds. Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary. 17th edition. Cambridge UP, 2006. or Ὑγεία, or Hygīa). Hygieia is a goddess of health ( – hugieia ὑγίεια, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, on Perseus), cleanliness and hygiene. Her name is the source for the word "hygiene". Hygieia developed from a light personification to a full goddess within the cult of Asklepios. Together with her father, she appeared in dreams of patients who visited their temples. Patients performed the healing ritual temple sleep to get healed. Mark Beumer, 'A Woman’s Touch. Hygieia, Health and Incubation', in: Journal of History of Sciences and Technology/DVT - Dejiny ved a techniky, Volume LV – Number 1-2 (2022) 25-55.
Hygieia is related to the Greek god of medicine, Asclepius, who is the son of the Olympian god Apollo. Hygieia is most commonly referred to as a daughter of Asclepius and his wife Epione. Hygieia and her four sisters each performed a facet of Apollo's art: Hygieia (health, cleanliness, and sanitation); Panacea (universal remedy); Iaso (recuperation from illness); Aceso (the healing process); and Aegle (radiant good health).
Section of the translated oath from Greek to English:
In addition to statues which represent the two figures, the incorporation of Hygieia within the cult of Asclepius can also be seen in medical iconography on numerous ancient Graeco-Roman currency. The close association between Hygieia and Asclepius indicates the important place she held in the cult of Asclepius.
Hygieia was also associated with the Greek goddess Athena. In the 2nd century AD, Pausanias noted statues both of Hygieia and of Athena Hygieia near the entrance to the Acropolis of Athens.Pausanias, I.23.4; the statement in Pliny's Natural History (xxxiv.80) Pyrrhus fecit Hygiam et Minervam has been applied to these statues: see H. B. Walters, "Athena Hygieia", The Journal of Hellenic Studies 19 (1899:165–168) p. 167. "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 until the Delphic oracle recognized her, after the devastating Plague of Athens (430–427 BC), and in Rome after the 293 BC plague there.
The poet Ariphron, from the Greek city-state Sicyon, wrote a well-known hymn during the 4th century BC which celebrated Hygieia.Athenaeus, Deipnosophists, xv.702, on-line text. Statues of Hygieia were created by Scopas, Bryaxis and Timotheus, among others, but there is no clear description of what they looked like. In the surviving depictions, she is often shown as a young woman feeding a large snake that was wrapped around her body or drinking from a jar that she carried.Similar images, though of a goddess in a more warlike aspect, represent Athena and Erichthonius. These attributes were later adopted by the Gallo-Roman healing goddess, Sirona.
Hygieia was modified by the Romans into the goddess Valetudo, the goddess of personal health. There exists some debate about whether Hygieia can also be identified with the Roman goddess of social welfare, Salus; however, this has yet to be fully substantiated.
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