For some days he remained at home, expecting
what actually happened—that as the news spread,
crowds of Paphlagonians would come running in.
When the city had become over-full of people, all
of them already bereft of their brains and sense,
and not in the least like bread-eating humans, but
different from beasts of the field only in their looks,
he seated himself on a couch in a certain chamber,
clothed in apparel well suited to a god, and took
into his bosom his Asclepius from Pella, who, as I
have said, was of uncommon size and beauty. There was special significance in this performance. “Anyhow, ‘God in the bosom’ is a countersign of the mysteries of Sabazius to the adepts. This is a snake, passed through the bosom of the initiates” Clement of Alexandria, Protrept, 1, 2, 16, _ Coiling him about his neck, and letting the tail, which
was long, stream over his lap and drag part of its
length on the floor, he concealed only the head by
holding it under his arm—the creature would submit to anything—and showed the linen head at one
side of his own beard, as if it certainly belonged to
the creature that was in view.