The Bowl of Hygeia: Snakes & medicine in Greek mythology

Pharmacy logo featuring the “Bowl of Hygeia”. Source: Wikipedia.

The image of a snake drinking from a vessel has circulated in the Mediterranean since the second millennium BCE, during the Bronze Age. The meanings associated with it have evolved throughout the centuries, giving us rich insights into changing connections between serpents and human life, death, spirituality and health.

The pairing of snakes and drinking vessels appears in both religious and funerary settings in Bronze Age Minoan and Mycenaean Greece, Cyprus and the Levant. In the 8th and 7th century BCE the motif persisted in Greece, but by that time it was found solely in funerary contexts. Jugs and cups from this era are decorated with coiling snakes approaching to drink as if sharing liquid offerings given in honour of the dead.

By the 5th century BCE Spartan artists were the first to depict the drinking snake integrated into scenes with human figures. Spartan society placed great emphasis on heroes and the drinking snake motif was included in artwork that honoured them. The motif appears on a long series of stone and terracotta reliefs depicting seated male figures offering a snake a drink from a wine cup. As I have discussed in previous publications, these artworks honoured local heroes—exceptional mythical or historical mortals venerated after death.

Its persistent use in commemorating important figures tells us that ancient Mediterranean peoples held the snake in considerable esteem. Its pairing with a cup or goblet continued to evolve well into Hellenistic and Roman times from 323 BCE onwards, reflecting the ongoing symbolic power afforded the reptile.

Laconian stone hero relief, 3rd century BCE. Sparta Museum 3360 (photo: author’s archive).

Between humanity & divinity

For Spartans, the drinking snake symbolised the hero’s close relationship with underworld powers, probably represented by the snake, who could influence both positively and negatively mortal lives. The hero, now part of the underworld and offering a drink to a snake, acted as a mediator between the human and divine realms. Depictions of the snake partaking in liquid offerings reassured people that the gods of the dark underworld were appeased.

The emotive and symbolic power of this Spartan iconographic motif meant it carried other rich meanings as well, as it spread rapidly across the Greek world, including southern Italy, via Taras (modern Taranto), a colony of Sparta. Now it is mythical women who share their bowls with snakes while engaging with two heroic men, Heracles and Jason, during their extraordinary quests.

Heracles & the Garden of the Hesperides

The Hesperides feeding Ladon. Campanian hydria, ca. 350-40 BCE. Zurich, Roš Collection. https://www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-6492119

In the 4th century BCE southern Italian vase painters adopted the drinking snake motif in their depictions of the ancient Greek myth of the Garden of the Hesperides nymphs—a place of eternal bliss, reminiscent of Eden. In this divine garden grew a tree of sacred golden apples, guarded by the nymphs and the sleepless serpent-like dragon Ladon.

The painters frequently depict the Hesperides feeding the formidable snake, entwined around a tree, from a bowl. Usually, this scene is understood as the nymphs distracting or drugging Ladon so that the hero Heracles could safely retrieve the apples, as part of his eleventh Labour, which ultimately granted him immortality.

But I believe it is more likely that the feeding of Ladon simply reflects the daily routines of the Hesperides, since they do so even in scenes where Heracles is absent—such as on a Campanian hydria in Zurich (right).

The nymphs dutifully offer nourishment to the guardian of the divine treasure, much like priestesses tended sacred snakes. Most notable among these is the priestess of Athena on the Acropolis, who fed the resident snake a monthly honey-cake as a ritual offering. So, as with the Spartan hero reliefs, offering a bowl to Ladon can be viewed from a cultic perspective: instead of drugs, the bowl contained ritual nourishment for the guardian dragon of the divine garden of eternal happiness.

Jason & Medea

The vision of mythical women feeding serpents also appears in another famous Greek myth. In contrast with the Hesperides nymphs who nurtured the serpent Ladon, Medea helps her beloved Jason by subduing one to achieve her personal desires alongside his. When Jason and the Argonauts arrived in the foreign land of Colchis to secure the Golden Fleece that would enable him to claim his throne, the goddess Aphrodite caused King Aeëtes’ daughter, Medea, to fall in love with him. Medea’s father set Jason a series of impossible tasks before he could win the fleece: yoking fire-breathing bulls and fighting giant warriors born from a dragon’s teeth.

The enamoured princess Medea, niece of the famous sorceress/goddess Circe and herself a witch, decided to help Jason with her magic, betraying her father and homeland to secure her marriage. She assisted in all of Jason’s tasks, including overcoming the giant, never-sleeping dragon-serpent guarding the fleece in the grove of Ares. In the more popular version of the story, Medea’s magic potions and soothing voice helped put the dragon to sleep. Only with her intervention could Jason succeed.

Southern Italian vase painters of the 4th century BCE often highlight Medea’s importance and her crucial role, sometimes at the expense of Jason’s heroism. They extoll her magical skills, frequently depicting her offering a bowl of drugs to the dragon—an image that continued into Roman times as seen in this wall painting from the 2nd century CE where Jason and Medea are paired on either side of the frame.

Roman wall painting of Jason and Medea from Trier, 2nd century CE. Rheinisches Landesmuseum 1934,7 FNr. 52. Source: Wikipedia.

In their connection to the drinking snake, the Hesperides and Medea have contrasting roles. In the former, the demi-goddesses support Ladon in his guardian role by diligently providing proper sustenance. They embody the ideal maidens, representing the cultural norm for women. In the latter, Medea, once a virtuous maiden and priestess who also tended to her dragon, deviates from her routine when she adds sleep-inducing drugs to its usual nourishment to help Jason. A foreigner and a sorceress, she acts treacherously out of passionate love, considered destructive by the Greeks. In betraying her father and homeland, she is a “fallen” maiden but also a woman who asserts agency to achieve her own goals.

To heal & to harm

The substances held in the cups of Ladon and the Colchian dragon are either nurturing or soporific, sustaining or subduing. These dualities take us back to “pharmacy” and the double meaning of the original Greek word phármakon: a natural substance used for both healing and harmful purposes. Such connotations blur the line between medicine and poison.

These twin effects are manifest in Homer’s famous epic poem, The Odyssey, where the enchanting witch-goddess Circe is described as using phármaka to concoct a drug into a special potage. When consumed by Odysseus’ companions, it transforms them into swine.

Fortunately, wily Odysseus, protected by a special magical herb called moly, remains unharmed and demands that Circe reverse her spell. She obliges and anoints the companions with another drug that restores them to human form, even rejuvenating them. The dual meaning of phármakon, as both remedy and poison, illustrates the complex nature of pharmacy practice, which involves preparing and dispensing medicines for healing while ensuring prescribed dosages and combinations do not cause harm.

This connection is probably why the drinking snake motif also became associated with healing deities, especially Hygieia, the daughter of the medicine god Asclepius, and the personification of health. Hygieia is often represented with a bowl nourishing a snake, as seen in this late-5th-century BCE relief where she sits beside her father.

Stone relief of Asklepius and his daughter Hygieia nourishing a snake, late 5th century BCE. Istanbul Archaeological Museum 109 T Source: Wikimedia.

The image of a snake drinking from Hygieia’s cup symbolises the medicinal act. It might also suggest that, instead of drinking, the snake is releasing its poison to serve as medicine. Snake’s venom, lethal in excess but therapeutic in controlled doses, mirrors the complex nature of drugs and highlights the responsibility that every pharmacist carries.

In the pharmacy logo, the contrast between the snake’s sinuous, animated body and the cup’s rigid, crafted shape emphasises the balance between nature and culture, wild potency and human control.

Although this enduring motif is now stripped of its mythic depth, it reminds us that healing comes not from eliminating danger entirely but from managing it wisely. That’s why it’s so important to read and follow the prescription instructions carefully!

Associate Professor Gina Salapata will present the 2026 Trendall Lecture, Taming the Dragon: Medea & Mythmaking in South Italian Vase-Painting, on 2 February 2026 at the ASCS 47th Annual Meeting and Conference in Auckland, New Zealand.

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