Caduceus is a continuation of the older Indo-European dragon-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 as Python", who in classical mythology is slain by Apollo. One Greek myth of origin of the caduceus is part of the story of Tiresias, 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.
Lion with a Snake Lion with a Snake Lion with a Snake (French: "Lion au serpent") is an 1832 sculpture by Antoine-Louis Barye. It measures . The original plaster was exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1833 and is in the Museum of Fine Arts of Lyon. It was cast in bronze using the lost-wax process in 1835 by . The original cast was acquired by Louis Philippe I and - after being exhibited in the Tuileries Gardens from 1836 to 1911 - is now in the Louvre. A stone version is sited in the Tuileries. Another bronze cast was made in 1891 by