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A short walk along the Tiber and across the Ponte Fabricio footbridge lands you on Tiber Island, sacred to Aesculapius, the god of healing.

Pindar is my authority for Aesculapius, whose life he tells in full.

"He soon became a reformer and fixed his abode in the Temple of Aesculapius."

He nicknamed the “small, portly” lab worker who briefed him on the chemical effects Aesculapius, after the Greek god of medicine.

He was a member of the family of the Asclepiadae, and was believed to be either the nineteenth or seventeenth in direct descent from Aesculapius.