Thecaduceus (☤;/kəˈdjuːʃəs,-siəs/; from Latin cādūceus, from Ancient Greek κηρύκειον (kērúkeion) 'herald's wand, staff')[b] is the staff carried byHermes inGreek mythology and consequently byHermes Trismegistus in Greco-Egyptian mythology. The same staff was borne by other heralds likeIris, the messenger ofHera. The short staff is entwined by twoserpents, sometimes surmounted by wings. In Roman iconography, it was depicted being carried in the left hand ofMercury, the messenger of the gods.
Some accounts assert that the oldest imagery of the caduceus is rooted in Mesopotamia with the Sumerian godNingishzida; his symbol, a staff with two snakes intertwined around it, dates back to 4000 BC to 3000 BC.[3] This iconography may have been a representation of two snakes copulating.[4]
As a symbol, it represents Hermes (or the Roman Mercury), and by extension trades, occupations, or undertakings associated with the god. In laterAntiquity, the caduceus provided the basis for theastronomical symbol forplanet Mercury. Thus, through its use inastrology,alchemy, andastronomy it has come to denote the planet Mercury and by extension the eponymousplanetary metal. It is said that the wand would wake the sleeping and send the awake to sleep. If applied to the dying, their death was gentle; if applied to the dead, they returned to life.[5]
By extension of its association with Mercury and Hermes, the caduceus is also a symbol of commerce and negotiation, two realms in which exchange balanced by reciprocity is recognized as an ideal.[6][7][8] This association is ancient, and consistent fromclassical antiquity to modernity.[9][10] The caduceus is also a symbol of printing, by extension of the attributes of Mercury associated with writing and eloquence.
Although theRod of Asclepius, which has only one snake and no wings, is the traditional and more widely used symbol of medicine, thecaduceus is sometimes used by healthcare organizations. Given that the caduceus is primarily a symbol of commerce and other non-medical symbology, many healthcare professionals disapprove of this use.[11]
TheHomeric Hymn to Hermes relates how his half brotherApollo was enchanted by Hermes's music from his lyre fashioned from a tortoise shell, which Hermes kindly gave to him. Apollo in return gave Hermes the caduceus as a gesture of friendship.[12] The association with the serpent thus connects Hermes toApollo, as later the serpent was associated withAsclepius, the "son of Apollo".[13]
The association of Apollo with the serpent is a continuation of the olderIndo-Europeandragon-slayer motif.Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher (1913) pointed out that the serpent as an attribute of both Hermes and Asclepius is a variant of the "pre-historic semi-chthonic serpent hero known at Delphi asPython", who in classical mythology is slain by Apollo.[14]
One Greekmyth of origin of the caduceus is part of the story ofTiresias,[15] who found two snakes copulating and killed the female with his staff. Tiresias was immediately turned into a woman, and so remained until he was able to repeat the act with the male snake seven years later. This staff later came into the possession of the god Hermes, along with its transformative powers.
Another myth suggests that Hermes (or Mercury) saw two serpents entwined in mortal combat. Separating them with his wand he brought about peace between them, and as a result the wand with two serpents came to be seen as a sign of peace.[16]
In Rome,Livy refers to thecaduceator who negotiated peace arrangements under the diplomatic protection of the caduceus he carried.[17]
In some vase paintings ancient depictions of the Greekkerukeion are somewhat different from the commonly seen modern representation. These representations feature the two snakes atop the staff (or rod), crossed to create a circle with the heads of the snakes resembling horns. This old graphic form, with an additional crossbar to the staff, seems to have provided the basis for the graphicalsign of Mercury (☿) used inGreek astrology from late antiquity.[18]
The termkerukeion denoted any herald's staff, not necessarily associated with Hermes in particular.[19]
In his study of the cult of Hermes,Lewis Richard Farnell (1909) assumed that the two snakes had simply developed out of ornaments of the shepherd's crook used by heralds as their staff.[20] This view has been rejected by later authors pointing to parallel iconography in the Ancient Near East. It has been argued that the staff or wand entwined by two snakes was itself representing a god in the pre-anthropomorphic era. Like theherm orpriapus, it would thus be a predecessor of the anthropomorphic Hermes of the classical era.[21]
William Hayes Ward (1910) discovered that symbols similar to the classical caduceus sometimes appeared onMesopotamian cylinder seals. He suggested the symbol originated some time between 3000 and 4000 BC, and that it might have been the source of the Greek caduceus.[22] A.L. Frothingham incorporated Ward's research into his own work, published in 1916, in which he suggested that the prototype of Hermes was an "Oriental deity of Babylonian extraction" represented in his earliest form as a snake god. From this perspective, the caduceus was originally representative of Hermes himself, in his early form as the Underworld godNingishzida, "messenger" of the "Earth Mother".[23]The caduceus is mentioned in passing byWalter Burkert[24] as "really the image of copulating snakes taken over from Ancient Near Eastern tradition".
In Egyptian iconography, theDjed pillar is depicted as containing a snake in a frieze of theDendera Temple complex.
The caduceus also appears as a symbol of thepunch-marked coins of theMaurya Empire in India, in the third or second century BC. Numismatic research suggest that this symbol was the symbol of the Buddhist kingAshoka, his personal "Mudra".[25] This symbol was not used on the pre-Mauryan punch-marked coins, but only on coins of the Maurya period, together with thethree arched-hill symbol, the "peacock on the hill", thetriskelis and theTaxila mark.[26]It also appears carved in basalt rock in few temples of western ghats.
During theearly modern period, the caduceus was used as a symbol ofrhetoric (associated with Mercury's eloquence).[27]
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The caduceus has sometimes been associated with printing.
Many early printers such asErhard Ratdolt,Johann Froben and Johannes Tacuinus used it as theirprinter's mark.[28][29] This was often in association with other symbols, such as acornucopia or aPegasus.[30] It was also used on theColumbian press, a type of printing press widely used in the 19th century and known for its elaborate scheme of symbolic ornamentation.
The caduceus was used as a publisher's mark byJohn Churchill, who began publishing medical texts in London in the 1830s. This may have contributed to the symbol's association with medicine.[31]
A simplified caduceus is found in dictionaries, as a "commercial term" entirely in keeping with the association of Hermes with commerce. In this form, the staff is often depicted with two winglets and the snakes omitted or reduced to a small ring in the middle.[6]
The customs service of the formerGerman Democratic Republic demonstrated the caduceus' association with thresholds, translators, and commerce in the service medals issued to their staff. The caduceus is also the symbol of the customs agency ofBulgaria and of the financial administration of theSlovakia[32] (Tax and Customs administration). The emblems ofBelarus Customs[33][34] andChina Customs[35] are a caduceus crossing with a golden key. The emblem of theFederal Customs Service of Russia has a caduceus crossing with a torch on the shield.
The coat of arms ofKyiv National University of Trade and Economics ofUkraine has two crossed torches surmounted by a caduceus on the shield.
It is relatively common, especially in the United States, to find the caduceus, with its two snakes and wings, (mis)used as a symbol of medicine instead of theRod of Asclepius, with only a single snake. This usage was popularized by the adoption of the caduceus as its insignia by theU.S. Army Medical Corps in 1902 at the insistence of a single officer (though there are conflicting claims as to whether this was Capt. Frederick P. Reynolds or Col. John R. van Hoff).[36][11]
The Rod of Asclepius is the dominant symbol for professional healthcare associations in the United States. One survey found that 62% of professional healthcare associations used the rod of Asclepius as their symbol.[37] The same survey found that 76% of commercial healthcare organizations use the caduceus. The author of the study suggests that professional associations are more likely to have a historical understanding of the two symbols, whereas commercial organizations are more likely to be concerned with the visual impact a symbol will have on its sales.[37]
The long-standing historical association of the caduceus with commerce has engendered significant criticism of its use in medicine. Medical professionals argue that the Rod of Asclepius better represents the field of medicine.[38] Writing in the journalScientific Monthly, Stuart L. Tyson said of the Staff of Hermes (the caduceus):
As god of the high-road and the market-place Hermes was perhaps above all else the patron of commerce and the fat purse: as a corollary, he was the special protector of the traveling salesman. As spokesman for the gods, he not only brought peace on earth (occasionally even the peace of death), but his silver-tongued eloquence could always make the worse appear the better cause.[39] From this latter point of view, would not his symbol be suitable for certain Congressmen, all medical quacks, book agents and purveyors of vacuum cleaners, rather than for the straight-thinking, straight-speaking therapeutist? As conductor of the dead to their subterranean abode, his emblem would seem more appropriate on a hearse than on a physician's car.
— Stuart L. Tyson, "The Caduceus", in theScientific Monthly, 1932[40]
| ☤ | |
|---|---|
Caduceus | |
| In Unicode | U+2624 ☤CADUCEUS |
| Different from | |
| Different from | U+2695 ⚕STAFF OF AESCULAPIUS U+269A ⚚STAFF OF HERMES |
| Related | |
| See also | U+263F ☿MERCURY U+1F750 🝐ALCHEMICAL SYMBOL FOR CADUCEUS U+2BDA ⯚HYGIEA |
For use in documents prepared on computer, the symbol hascode point inUnicode, atU+2624 ☤CADUCEUS. There is a similar glyph encoded atU+269A ⚚STAFF OF HERMES, analchemical symbol atU+1F750 🝐ALCHEMICAL SYMBOL FOR CADUCEUS, and an astrological one atU+2BDA ⯚HYGIEA. [For information on how to enter the symbol, seeUnicode input (or copy/paste it directly).] These symbols arenot provided in all fonts, especially older ones.
The symbol is depicted on multiplecoats of arms andflags.
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U+269A ⚚STAFF OF HERMES signifies a commercial term or commerce
In modern times the caduceus figures as a symbol of commerce, sinceMercury is the god of commerce
The name of the god Mercury cannot be disassociated from the wordmerx, which means merchandise. Such was the sentiment of the ancients.
Mercury was the Roman name for the Greek god Hermes. His Latin name was apparently derived from merx or mercator, a merchant.
Homer tell us that Hermes' caduceus, the golden wand, was acquired by Hermes from Apollo in exchange for the tortoise-lyre; later the caduceus changed hands again from Hermes to Apollo's son, Asclepius.
"The Staff of Aesculapius has represented medicine since 800 BCE and most authorities support its use as the symbol of medicine
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