Greece and the Ægean Islands

by Philip Sanford Marden

Little remains of it, save for the foundations. Three enormous terraces, faced with flights of steps of easy grade, led up to the main sanctuary of the god, comparatively little of which remains to be seen. Various smaller buildings, shrines for allied divinities, porticoes for the sick, apartments for the priests, treasuries and the like, are readily distinguishable, and serve to reveal what an extensive establishment the health temple was in its time. Restorations of it, on paper, reveal it as having been probably most impressive, both architecturally and by reason of its commanding position, which was not only admirable by nature but accentuated by the long approach over the three successive terraces to the many-columned main building above.

Of the numerous smaller structures lying about the precinct, the most curious and interesting were the subterranean treasuries—if that is the proper name for them—which have been discovered at the foot of the slope. They apparently consist of vaults in the earth, each covered over with a massive stone slab. The slab is removable, but only at great pains. A circular hole pierces it through the centre, suitable for dropping money or other valuables into the receptacle beneath and for inserting the tackle with which to lift the rock when the treasury was to be opened. The vast weight of the stone and the time required for raising it would have been ample guarantee against unauthorized visits to the treasury. Other theories accounting for these underground chambers and their curious coverings have been advanced—the most fantastic one being the supposition that these were the chambers devoted to housing the sacred serpents of the god, the holes serving for their emergence and for the insertion of food! But while the cult of Asklepios certainly does appear to have made use of the sacred snakes as a part of its mummery, it seems hardly likely that these subterranean cavities were used for any such purpose.

As for the practice of medicine in Cos, it is widely believed to have been of a sensible and even of an “ethical” sort, largely devoid of mere reliance on idle superstition or religious formalism for its curative effects, though unquestionably employing these, as was not only the case in ancient times, but as even persists to-day in some localities of the archipelago. The religious ceremonies, which generally took the form of sleeping in the sacred precincts in the hope of being divinely healed, appear to have been supplemented at Cos by the employment of means of healing that were rudely scientific. Hippocrates, the most celebrated of the Coan physicians, has left abundant proof that he was no mere charlatan, but a common-sense doctor, whose contributions to medical science have not by any means entirely passed out of esteem. Reference has been made hitherto to the custom of depositing in the temple anatomical specimens representing the parts healed, as votive offerings from grateful patients—a custom which persists in the modern Greek church, as everybody who examines the altar-screen of any such church will speedily discover.

The extreme veneration of Asklepios at Cos is doubtless to be explained by the fact that Cos was an Epidaurian colony; for the Epidaurians claimed that the healing god was born in the hills overlooking their valley in the Peloponnesus. At any rate the health temple at Cos and the great sanitarium at Epidaurus shared the highest celebrity in ancient times as resorts for the sick; and in each case there are traces to show that they were sites devoted not only to the worship of a deity, but to the ministration unto the ailing by physical means, as far as such means were then understood.

Cos, however, was far from basing her sole claim to ancient celebrity on her physicians and hospitals. Her embroideries rivaled the more famous Rhodian work, and she was an early home of culture and resort of noted students, not only of medicine, but of rhetoric, grammar, poetry, philosophy, and science. Ptolemy II, otherwise known as Ptolemy Philadelphus, is known to have studied here, and it is not at all improbable that the Sicilian poet, Theocritus, was a fellow student with him. For it is known that Theocritus was a student at Cos at some time, and he was later summoned to Ptolemy’s Egyptian court, where he wrote the epithalamium for the unholy marriage between Philadelphus and his sister. Not a little of the present knowledge of ancient Cos is due to the writings that Theocritus left as the result of his student days in the island.

The curator of antiquities in charge of the excavations at the Asklepeion took us in charge on our return walk and led us through the city to his own home, where, although we were on Turkish soil, we had a taste of real Greek hospitality. Our party was numerous enough to appall any unsuspecting hostess, but we were ushered into the great upper room of the house, with no trace of dismay on the part of the wife and daughter. It was a huge room, scrupulously neat and clean, and the forty or so included in our number found chairs ranged in line about the apartment, where we sat at ease examining the fragments that the curator had to show from the mass of inscriptions recovered from the temple. Meantime, after the national custom, the eldest daughter served refreshment to each in turn, consisting of preserved quince, glasses of mastika, and huge tumblers of water. It was a stately ceremony, each helping himself gravely to the quince from the same dish, and sipping the cordial, while the mother bustled about supplying fresh spoons. And with a general exchange of cards and such good wishes as were to be expressed in limited traveler’s Greek, we departed to the landing and again embarked.

We designed to push on to Cnidos at once, and to climb the heights of that ancient promontory of Asia Minor in the late afternoon. But inasmuch as Halicarnassus, the native city of Herodotus, lay directly on the way, we sailed into its capacious harbor and out again without stopping, for the sake of such glance at the site as might be had from the water. The bay on which the city lies—it is now called Boudrun—is wonderfully beautiful, running well into the mainland, while the city itself, with its great white castle of the Knights of St. John as the central feature, lies at the inmost end. Of the castle we were able to get a very good view, going close enough to arouse the violent excitement of a gesticulating Turkish official who came out in a tiny boat, bravely decked with the crescent flag, to show us where to anchor if we so desired. The site of the famous Mausoleum was pointed out from the deck, and most of us were confident that we saw it, although it was not easy to find. The remains of this incomparably magnificent tomb, designed for King Mausolus, are, as everybody knows, to be seen in the British Museum to-day.

It was but a few miles farther to the promontory of Cnidos, and we dropped anchor there in mid-afternoon, in one of the double bays for which the ancient naval station was famous. The bays are still separated by a narrow isthmus—the same which the ancients tried in vain to sever. The story goes that the drilling of the rocks caused such a flying of fragments as to endanger the eyes of the workmen, and the oracle when questioned dissuaded them from continuing the work, saying “Zeus could have made the land an island if he had intended so to do.” Hence the two little harbors remain, one on either side of the neck of land that juts into the sea. They were used as anchorage for triremes and merchant ships respectively, when Cnidos was a power in the world. To-day the spot is absolutely deserted, and we found both the diminutive bays devoid of all trace of life, until at evening a passing fisherman came in and made all snug for the night.

CNIDOS, SHOWING THE TWO HARBORS