The biography of Asclepius is indeed fictitious. Of course, we are not in a position to know the boundaries between myth and reality.
Whether, for example, a resurrection was some kind of epiphany or not So we could study the texts and nothing more.
So let us read what these texts say about Asclepius:
Asclepius (Latin: Aesculapius) is known to be both a hero and a god of medicine. He is the son of Apollo, but the myths surrounding his birth vary widely. Mostly—here we are specifically concerned with the version accepted by Pindar—it is said that Apollo fell in love with Coronis, the daughter of the Thessalian king Phlegyas, and left her pregnant; but when Coronis was expecting a child, she gave herself to the love of a mortal, Ischis, the son of Elatos.
Apollo learned of this transgression through a crow (or else through his gift of divination) and killed the unfaithful; at the moment when Coronis' body was placed on the funeral pyre and would soon burn, Apollo pulled the still-living child from her entrails. This is how Asclepius was born.
According to another version, to explain why Asclepius was the great god of Epidaurus in the Peloponnese, Phlegyas, a great robber, came to the land to explore its riches and study how he could become its master. He was accompanied by his daughter. During the journey, she was seduced by Apollo and gave birth to a son in the land of Epidaurus, at the foot of Mount Myrtios.
Then she abandoned her son. But a goat came to suckle the child and a dog to guard it. The shepherd Arestanas, who owned the goat and the dog, found the child and was dazzled by the light around it. He understood that there was a secret and did not dare to take the child, so it followed its divine destiny.
According to another version, the mother of Asclepius was Arsinoe, the daughter of Leucippus. This was the tradition of Messinia, which they tried to reconcile with the other ones, claiming that the child was the son of Arsinoe but raised by Koronis.
The number of people he brought up was significant
It is said that Asclepius' father entrusted him to the centaur Chiron, who taught him medicine. In a short time, Asclepius acquired great skills in this art. He even discovered a way to bring the dead back to life. Namely, he had taken from Athena the blood that had flowed from the veins of the Gorgon; while the veins of the left side spread a strong poison, the blood of the right side was healing, and Asclepius knew how to use it to bring the dead back to life.
The number of people he revived was considerable. They include Kapaneus, Lycurgus (probably in the war against Thebes, where two heroes of this name appear among the victims), Glaucus, the son of Minos, and the most frequently mentioned, Hippolytus, the son of Theseus. Zeus, seeing these revivals, feared that Asclepius would disturb the order of the world and struck him with lightning. To avenge Zeus, Apollo killed the Cyclops. After his death, Asclepius transformed into the constellation Ophiuchus.
Is Asclepius outside the mythical circle?
Some later accounts indicate that Asclepius participated in the Calydonian boar hunt and the Argonaut expedition. In general, however, Asclepius stands outside mythical circles.
Two children are attributed to him, the two physicians Podalirios and Mahaonas, who are already mentioned in the Iliad.
Later forms of the myth attribute to him a wife, Ipion, and daughters, Akeso, Iaso, Panakeia, Aigli, and Hygieia. The worship of Asclepius, attested at Trike in Thessaly, where it probably originated, established itself mainly at Epidaurus in the Peloponnese, where it developed into a veritable school of medicine, the applications of which, though based mainly on magic, nevertheless prepared the advent of a more scientific medicine. This art was practiced by the Asclepiads, or the descendants of Asclepius. The most famous of these is Hippocrates, whose family was associated with the god.
Common symbols of Asclepius were snakes coiled around a staff, as well as pine cones, laurel wreaths, and sometimes a goat or a dog!
