Incubation in the sanctuary of Asclepius at Epidaurus
The incubation rite in the Asclepieion of Epidaurus: the abaton, the miracle stelae seen by Pausanias and the spread of the cult to Athens and Rome.
In the north-eastern Peloponnese, in a valley a few kilometres from the sea, stood the most famous sanctuary of Asclepius in the Greek world. Local tradition held Epidaurus to be the birthplace of the healing god, son of Apollo, and between the fifth and fourth centuries BC it became a pilgrimage destination for the sick from every part of Greece. The heart of the cult was a night-time experience: incubation, that is, sleeping inside the sacred precinct in the hope of a dream sent by the god.
The abaton, the place one does not enter
After purifications and offerings, pilgrims spent the night in a long portico called the abaton, the «inaccessible place», reserved precisely for those who slept to receive the vision. According to the beliefs of the time Asclepius might appear in a dream, touch the patient, speak to him or point to a remedy. The stories also often feature the sanctuary's sacred snakes and dogs, animals associated with the god.
Over time a great complex grew up around the abaton: the temple of Asclepius, the mysterious circular building known as the tholos, lodgings for visitors, baths, a stadium and the famous theatre, attributed by ancient sources to Polyclitus the Younger and still renowned for its acoustics. Epidaurus was at once a place of worship, of healing and of festivals.
The miracle stelae
Pausanias, who visited the sanctuary in the second century AD, reports that he saw several stelae inscribed with the names of men and women healed by the god, together with their illness and the manner of the cure. Several fragments of these inscriptions, known as iamata, were found in the excavations carried out at the end of the nineteenth century by the Greek archaeologist Panagiotis Kavvadias.
The texts tell extraordinary, at times almost fabulous, stories: blind people regaining their sight, a woman pregnant for five years, a man who wakes up healed after seeing the god operate on him. Scholars read them as documents of the sanctuary's propaganda and of the pilgrims' faith, not as medical records. For precisely this reason they are a precious source on Greek religion.
The spread of the cult
From Epidaurus the cult spread throughout the Mediterranean. Asclepius was welcomed in Athens in 420 BC, and tradition recalls that the poet Sophocles hosted his sacred images while the new sanctuary was being prepared. Aristophanes, in the comedy Wealth, ironically describes a night of incubation, with the faithful lying down and the priest gathering up the offerings.
According to Livy, the god reached Rome in 293 BC during a plague: a sacred snake brought from Epidaurus is said to have left the ship on the Tiber Island, where the temple of Aesculapius was founded. Other great Asclepieia, such as those of Pergamon and Cos, continued the practice until late antiquity.
Today the ruins of Epidaurus are a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and on summer evenings the theatre still hosts performances of ancient tragedies. Walking among the foundations of the abaton and the temple, visitors cross the places where, for almost a thousand years, men and women entrusted their most urgent hopes to dreams, in the conviction that the god could speak to them in the silence of the night.