5.2 Flashcards
Who was Asclepius
a mortal physician
What did the Greeks treat Asclepius as?
a god
Homer presented Asclepius as what?
In what?
A legendary healer
Illiad books 4 and 11
Where did Asclepius’ cult begin?
Epidauros
When did Asclepius’ cult begin?
c.500BC
In which period did Asclepius’ cult spread?
Classical
Name three notable Asclepian sanctuaries
Kos, Pergamon, Rome
What was a major cause for the spread of the Asclepian cult?
the plague of 420
Who describes the Athenian experience of the plague?
In what?
where did victims huddle?
what was built after the plage?
why?
Thucydides
Peloponnesian War 2.47-55
in temple sanctuaries
an Asclepion
to provide more effective protection in the future
How did those seeking healing at Asclepeia begin? (2)
By offering sacrifices
purifying themselves
What was incubation?
Where?
which was not open to?
where else would they incubate?
hoping for? (2)
sleeping overnight
in the abaton (unapproachable building)
the impure
the stoa (portico) - Kos
either a miraculous cure from Asclepius or a dream pointing to how to be cured
What were allowed to move about patients in Asclepeia?
why?
dacred snakes
thought to be agents in curing people
Which roman copy of a hellenistic original shows a god with a staff?
why is this significant?
The Ano Apostoli statue of Asclepius
one of the sacred snakes is represented intertwined around the staff
Tyche’s leg:
date?
material?
from where?
incription summary?
which leg?
drawbacks?
Scholar?
believed?
1st/2nd century AD
marble
shrine of Asclepius on Melos
Tyche dedicates it to Asclepius and Hygeia in thanks
left
don’t know what the healed ailment was and it is not clear how Tyches believed she was cured
Theodoraki (2020)
Tyche had six toes, one was amputates, damage to foot was intentional to represent this
What did former patients of Asclepeions often leave?
In the form of what?
called?
Give one example
Why were these publically displayed?
votive offerings
healing inscriptions
iamata
Cleo from Epidauros - claimed to be pregnant for 5 years and gave birth to fully developed 5 yr old / Tyche’s leg
to prove Asclepius’ power
Who believed Greeks distinguished clearly between miracle and medicine?
Von Wilamowitz-Moellendorf (1930s)
Who blieved miracles and medicine were complementary?
E. and L. Edelstein (1945)
what is evidence of the Edelstein’s view?
Kos - had an Asclepion and famous medical school - patients would visit one before getting treatment from another
who founded the famous medical school at Kos?
Hippocrates (c.405-370)
What else show the Edelstein’s view, aside from locations in Kos?
Give an example
Who else’s view does this back up?
iamata
Asclepius cured a man blind in one eye by using medicine in an iamata from epidauros
Graf (2015)
What is Graf (2015)’s view?
Asclepius was not presented as a god unconnected with human medicine but as a ‘super-doctor’
How were quests for healing personal?
By nature - the illness, decision to incubate, hoped fohealing were all of the sufferer alone
The belief one could be healed was also personal
State religion had nothing to do with the cure of individual’s ailemnts
This is shown through votive offerings
Available to all who were titually poor and could pay any fees and accessible to most greeks
