The temples and ritual of Asklepios at Epidauros and Athens : Two lectures delivered at the Royal Institution of Great Britain / by Richard Caton.

  • Caton, Richard
Date:
1900
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The temples and ritual of Asklepios at Epidauros and Athens : Two lectures delivered at the Royal Institution of Great Britain / by Richard Caton. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    decoration of the temples and precincts, together with feasts, took place. Most probably the priests would arrange for the performance of a few miracles. Other festivals were also held, as the Megala Apolloneia. On these occasions, if not at other times, doubtless every seat in the theatre, stadium, and hippodrome would be filled, mostly by sound and healthy visitors, coming, as I have sug- gested above, partly to enjoy a holiday, partly to witness athletic exercises, which interested them quite as much as important cricket, football, or rowing contests interest us, and partly to do honour to the god whose aid they might need when the days of sickness or old age should come. Lastly, there is a link which, though of no practical import, is still a genuine historic bond connecting the Hieron of Epi- dauros with the medicine of Western Europe. Three centuries B.c. Rome was visited by dire pestilence. The rulers of Rome, having in vain endeavoured to check it, sought the counsel of the Sybilline books, and were directed to bring Asklepios to Rome from Epidauros. A galley was sent to the Saronic Gulf, and a mission visited the Hieron, bringing back to the ship one of the sacred serpents. The galley returned, entered the Tiber, approached Rome, and as it touched the insula in the Tiber the sacred serpent at once left the ship and found a refuge on the island. From that moment the plague is said to have rapidly disappeared. In gratitude to the god, who was thus visibly among them in serpent form, the south end of the island—probably, indeed, the whole of the island—was modelled into the shape of a great galley of hewn stone. A temple of A®sculapius (as the Romans called him) was built at the southern end, with portico and abaton. A well existing there became sacred to A‘sculapius, and from that day to this the island in the Tiber has, through pagan and Christian times alike, been devoted to the cure and treatment of the sick. The stern of the stone galley still exists, with the effigy of the serpent and remains of the image of Esculapius. The Church of St. Bartholomew stands on the site of the temple, and on or near the spot where stood the ancient abaton now stands a hospital served by the Brotherhood of San Juan de Dios, the benevolent saint of Granada, where the sick folk of Rome are helped and tended; and there, unlike
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