[32] Others report, that as King Phlegyas, her
father was carrying her with him into Peloponnesus, her pains surprised
her on the confines of Epidauria where, to conceal her shame, she
exposed the infant on a mountain. The _truth_, however is, that this
Aesculapius was a poor infant cast away, a dropt child, laid in a wood
near Epidaurus, by his unnatural parents, who were afterwards ashamed to
own him; he was shortly afterwards found by some huntsmen, who, seeing a
lighted flame or glory surrounding his head, looked upon it as a
prognostic of the child's future glory. The infant was delivered by them
to a nurse named Trigo, but the poets say he was suckled by a goat. He
studied physic under Chiron the centaur, by whose care he made such
progress in the medical art, as gained him so high a reputation that he
was even reported to have raised the dead. His first cures were wrought
upon Ascles, King of Epidaurus, and Aunes, King of Daunia, which last
was troubled with sore eyes. In short, his success was so great, that
Pluto, seeing the number of his ghosts daily decrease, complained to
Jupiter, who killed him with his thunderbolts.
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