Here is the invocation of another sufferer coming to the Hieron: “O blessed Asklepios, god of healing, it is thanks to thy skill that Diophantes hopes to be relieved from his incurable and horrible gout, no longer to move like a crab, no longer to walk upon thorns, but to have a sound foot as thou hast decreed.” It would have been interesting to know how far Diophantes’ hopes were realized. If they met with disappointment, he may have regretted putting up the tablet at so early a stage.
There can be little doubt that many of the sick benefited greatly by the rest, the pure air, the simple diet, the sources of mental interest, the baths, exercise, massage, and friction, and in later days by the actual medical treatment adopted. Surgical treatment was also employed, for we find marble reliefs of surgical instruments.
Not infrequently it would happen that persons with real or with incurable diseases came to Hieron and got worse, notwithstanding their sacrifices and petitions to the god. How the priests excused the impotency of their deity on these occasions we do not know; perhaps some lack of merit, purity, or sanctity in the individual may have been imputed. We know that in some cases the honour of Asklepios was saved by sending the unfortunate invalid to some distant shrine; but of course it happened that in some instances the patient died while at the Hieron. Now, according to the religion of the Greeks, two events were considered to desecrate in the most dreadful manner any hallowed precinct—namely, birth and death; neither of these must occur within any sacred enclosure.
While the sick probably met with considerable kindliness, humanity, and real help at these shrines, and much actual benefit resulted, notwithstanding the superstition on which all was based, still, in this one respect Greek tradition and ceremonial were a cause of the most gross inhumanity. The unhappy visitant whose vital powers were finally declining was received and domiciled in the abaton, but when he failed to improve, and was seen by the priests and attendants to be obviously dying, instead of being tenderly nursed and soothed, he was removed from his couch, dragged across the precinct to the nearest gate, expelled, and left to die on the hillside unhelped and untended. Asklepios had rejected him, and no priest or minister of the god must defile himself by any dealings with death. One cannot but hope that the sympathy and humanity which exist naturally in the hearts of most men and of all women, found some means of helping these unhappy beings, and that when death seemed probable such sufferers were conveyed to a hostel outside the precinct, and allowed to die in peace there. A like superstition existed regarding birth. Many a poor woman who was anticipating maternity, and who had been hoping for relief from some ordinary ailment, was suddenly and mercilessly expelled from the precinct at the moment when she needed help and comfort most.
Not until the time of the Antonines was any definite provision made for these two classes of sufferers. Either Antoninus Pius or Marcus Aurelius erected outside the precinct a home for the dying, and a sort of maternity hospital. Doubtless some of the ruins dating from the Roman period, which are at present unidentified, subserved these two purposes.
As yet nothing has been said about the commissariat arrangements of the Hieron. It is probable that several hundred persons habitually resided there, if we include the sick, the convalescents, the priests, officials, and servants, while on the occasion of the great festivals the number rose to at least ten or twelve thousand. What arrangements were made for the dieting of all these? Where were the storehouses, the kitchen and the “deipneterion,” or dining-room, if any such existed?
Probably the diet of the poorer patients may have consisted largely of the barley-meal paste, the “maza” eaten with certain inexpensive vegetables. This would require little preparation. Among the well-to-do patients, however, who were numerous, the meals would be more formal and would need more care in preparation. In early times the “ariston” formed the breakfast, and was eaten at sunrise. In later times this meal was moved on to the middle of the day, and the “acratisma,” consisting merely of bread dipped in unmixed wine, was eaten at an early hour. The mid-day meal in later times consisted of various warm dishes needing the art of the cook, and the principal meal, the “deipnon,” which was still more elaborate, was just before sunset. Where the preparation and the consumption of these meals took place it is difficult to say.
The lower story of the western abaton may have been a storehouse, or possibly a kitchen. It must be remembered that the main part of the flesh of the animals presented for sacrifice was used for food. In general only the thigh bones, the entrails and some of the fat, was consumed on the altar, the remainder was eaten by priests, votaries, or attendants. In the case of the bloodless offerings, the cakes, fruit, grain, milk, wine, honey, &c., a large part also was used as food. A rule existed at Epidauros that all should be consumed within the precinct.
The so-called “Square building” marked K in the plan, may have been the scene both of minor sacrifices and of the consumption of the unsacrificed remnants. I have suggested above that this building might be a hostel, and the large quantities of ash, of bones, and of fragments of bronze and earthenware vessels found there to some extent support this hypothesis, and the idea that it was employed for the sacrificial banquets.
Among the hundreds of inscriptions found I have thus far only mentioned one class—namely, those referring to cures. There are, in addition, no fewer than thirteen other kinds of inscriptions; for example, the great poem of Isyllos, describing the genealogy and miracles of Asklepios, written by command of the oracle of Delphi. This has been edited and commented on in a most scholarly manner by Prof. von Wilamowitz-Möllendorff.