SERPENT, IN ANCIENT RELIGIONS. - The cult of the serpent is widespread in ancient religions and those of primitive peoples, where it sometimes represents the supreme being who holds the creative and destructive power over nature (Africa, Australia), especially insofar as it can grant or withhold rain; at other times, it conceals itself or transforms under serpentine guises (e.g., Zeus Ctesios and Philios in Greece; Isis and Osiris in Egypt), or it recedes into the background altogether, becoming an attribute of the god (e.g., Asclepius).
First and foremost, the serpent in myth holds cosmic significance, for the creator or shaper of the world must, at the dawn of time, do battle against a serpentine monster—always associated with waters—to bring cosmos out of chaos, which is either guarded by or even identified with that serpent. Such is the case with the Sumerian-Babylonian Tiamat, split by Marduk (*Enūma eliš*); the Egyptian serpent Apophis and the Hittite Illuyankas, slain by the storm god Inanras; the Vedic Vrtra (surnamed Ahi = the coiler), vanquished by Indra, who thereby freed the waters the serpent had concealed (*Rgveda* I, 32); and the world-serpent of the Nordic peoples (*Edda*, *Völuspá*, 197 ff.), symbolizing the ocean encircling the earth (Homer) and, together with the serpentine monster Typhon, overcome by Zeus. From these myths, a dual characteristic of the serpent emerges: as guardian of chaos, or, in a more archaic phase, as chaos itself; and from both concepts derive the other religious aspects of the serpent in these ancient religions.
Thus, in the first place, its eternity—or at least its immortality (a concept widely attested in ethnology, perhaps born of the observation of its annual shedding of skin), which it does not permit to belong to man: such is the meaning of the Sumerian myth of Gilgamesh, who, after long toil, finds the herb of immortality only to be robbed of it by a serpent (*Epic of Gilgamesh*, tablet 13, line 304). Moreover, the serpent is the repository of prophetic knowledge, serving as an oracular instrument: at Delphi, in the most ancient oracle of Gaia, guarded by the serpent Python, slain by Apollo; in the numerous healing oracles of Asclepius, and similarly in Rome with Aesculapius (cf. Pliny, *Natural History*, VIII, 153); at Lanuvium, in the temple of Juno, a serpent was used to determine the virginity of maidens (Propertius, V, 8, 3); in the *Edda*, the hero Sigurd comprehends the language of birds after eating the heart of the serpent Fafnir (*Fáfnismál*, 148 ff.). Even medical science is its hallmark: in Greece and Rome, the already mentioned healing oracles of Aesculapius, where the serpent was the symbol of the healing god (Inesse serpenti remedia multa creduntur et ideo Aesculapio dicatur); for Rome, one may recall Bona Dea, in whose temple serpents were kept, and the goddess Salus with the serpent as her attribute; in Egypt, certain diseases were treated with the ashes of serpents.
Finally, another important aspect of the serpent is that of *genius loci*: the serpent, in archaic times the guardian of chaos, retains this characteristic of attachment to a place, protecting and preserving it (Angues apud gentiles locorum erant pro geniis habiti semper: Isidore, *Origines*, 12, 4, 1). Thus it is frequently found guarding springs, altars, oracles, and even cities (e.g., the Acropolis of Athens was guarded by the serpent of Athena); but above all, linked with the underworld, it is the guardian of tombs in general and of the domestic hearth in particular, so much so that it symbolizes the souls of the dead (Lares) and is even venerated and kept in every home—not only among primitive peoples, but also in India, Greece, Rome, among the Slavs, and the Balts.