SALUTARI, DÈI (Salutares di). — These are the gods who protect physical health. They belong directly or Apollo (v.) the solar god who, with his rays, brings illness and epidemics but also healing and health, whence his epithets ἀλεξίωστος “averter of evils”; ἀποτρόπαιος “repeller”; πατέρων “liberator.”
His son, who is a hypostasis of his healing power, is Ἀσκληπτός, god of medicine, particularly connected with the underworld, as is demonstrated by his constant attribute, the chthonic animal serpent, and by the rite of incubation practised in his sanctuaries. Belonging to his sphere are Ἀληξάνος “the saviour,” Ἀράτος “the desired one”; Ἐλπίνος, his paredra, “she who heals”; Εὐχάριον “the one who foretells a good day”; Ἀκήριος “the ever-helpful”; Ἔγλιος “health”; Ἐλβόφορος “who brings to a successful conclusion,” the last of whom enjoyed particular prominence in the Asclepieion of Pergamum and from there, during the first centuries of the Empire, spread towards the West, to Epidaurus in Argolis, Athens, Naupactus, and Sicyon. Telesphorus is represented as a boy (protector of youthful health), completely enclosed in a mantle furnished with a hood (bardocantillus, penula).
In Greece, heroes too have the function of salutary gods, insofar as they are prophets and protectors not only of the city that honours them but also of the good health of those who have recourse to them. The two physicians Machaon (with tomb and sanctuary at Gerenia in Laconia) and Podalirius (with sanctuary in Apulia near the Gargano), Iatro (in Athens near the Theseion), and Aristomachus (at Marathon) are all heroes who explicitly exercised the power of salutary gods.