Igea
Reference page: Repertory of Cults and Myths
For the Greeks, Hygieia was the personification of health. It was identified with the Roman Salus, considered daughter of Asclepius, the god of medicine, and her attribute, as well as for her father, was the snake.
Coin dedicated to Salus (web)
The cult of Hygieia was not very widespread either in Greece or in Sicily and is often remembered only for being the daughter of Asclepius.
However, his cult had to exist a SIRACUSA, where, not far from the temple of Apollo, in the place where a temple dedicated to Asclepius once stood, a female marble statue was found in 1901 with a coiled snake on one arm [Ciaceri Emanuele: Culti e Miti dell'Antica Sicily p. 230
]. The statue, attributed to the goddess in question, is perhaps the same one now preserved in the Regional Archaeological Museum of Syracuse.
A Messina probably a sanctuary dedicated to her and her father should have arisen near the place now occupied by the Cathedral, where a statue dedicated to her was discovered (now kept in the National Museum of Messina) and a base that bears a dedication to Asclepius and Hygieia.
Extract from the Book ” Cults of Ancient Sicily” by Ignazio Caloggero ISBN: 9788832060102 © 2022 Centro Studi Helios srl
