BALAGRAI REMNANTS

At the entrance to the city, in front of the great Islamic faculty Omar el-Moukhtar, you can see the few vestiges of the Greek city of Balagrai. It was founded by the Greeks between the Fifth and the fourth century BC, but only a few ruins, including a asclêpieion, temple dedicated to Asclépios-Aesculapius, and a small theatre associated with the temple. In Greek mythology, Asclépios is the son of Apollo and the nymph Coronis, and the father of Hygeia, goddess of Health, and of Cure, goddess of Healing. According to the myth, Asclépios learned the art of healing with the Centaure Centaur. He became so clever that he even managed to resurrect the dead, resulting in the wrath of Zeus. He was then greeted in the Pantheon by his father Apollo. The rod of Aesculapius, a snake wrapped around a stick, remains a common symbol in the world of medicine until today. Since the Fifth century, the Greeks had opened schools of medicine related to the temples of Asclépios. Harmless snakes, the snakes of Aesculapius, lived in these Greco-Roman hospitals where the sick came to sleep and cared for themselves.

The remains of the temple of Balagrai date back to a reconstruction of Hadrian's era in the second century after the rebellion of the Jews of Cyrenaica in 115 devastated the city. The floral patterns of the capitals will be noted: they are believed to represent the famous sylphium, a plant with many medicinal virtues (see box in «Cyrene»).