Meta Description: Join the Ad Navseam Podcast in Episode 159 as the hosts explore the ancient healing sanctuary of Epidaurus. Discover the myth of Asclepius, sacred snake rituals, miraculous votive offerings, and resources to master the Latin language.
Introduction: Indian Summers and Percy Jackson
Welcome back, classical gourmands, to Episode 159 of the Ad Navseam Podcast! Broadcasting directly from the subterranean depths of the Vomitorium, the microphones are hot as another deep dive into Greco-Roman civilization gets underway.
The episode opens with an appreciation for the shifting midwestern weather. The oppressive heat of summer is finally giving way to the crisp, cool breezes of an “Indian summer,” bringing perfect sleeping temperatures at night and bright sunshine during the day. The fall semester has also officially commenced, bringing a fresh crop of enthusiastic “myth nerds” armed with their Percy Jackson novels into the university classroom.
An amusing anecdote is shared regarding a family member who secretly enrolled in one of the host’s World Religions courses. The identity of the student was playfully outed at a family gathering after they confidentially praised the professor’s teaching skills. Furthermore, the audience is granted a temporary reprieve from the podcast’s long-running classic rock musical pun segment, giving the recurring gag a much-needed breather.
The Sanctuary of Epidaurus
The primary academic focus of Episode 159 centers on Asclepius, the ancient Greek god of medicine, and his most famous healing sanctuary located at Epidaurus.
Situated in the northeastern corner of the Peloponnese peninsula, reaching the site from Athens requires a circuitous, winding journey past Cenchreae, through Corinth, and down the Thesean highway. While Athens boasts a massive, bustling population, the rural, mountainous landscape of the Peloponnese feels beautifully frozen in time.
The sanctuary of Epidaurus is currently the subject of Jeff’s exhaustive 3D modeling and digital reconstruction project. This architectural recreation is proving to be incredibly challenging due to the surprisingly thin, unhelpful descriptions left behind by the second-century AD travel writer Pausanias. Despite his dry prose, Pausanias remains an unsung hero of classical archaeology; without his surviving travelogues, modern scholars would know vastly less about the layout and function of these ancient sites.
Sacred Snakes and the Abaton
To explain the ancient healing process, Jeff reads a quote from R.A. Tomlinson’s 1983 archaeological book on Epidaurus.
According to Tomlinson, suppliants seeking medical intervention had to approach the god through a strict set of rituals. This process began with preliminary sacrifices and intense ritual purification through bathing. Once cleansed, the patient would spend the night sleeping inside the sanctuary in a specialized building known as the Abaton (also referred to as the Enkoimeterion, meaning a place to snuggle down and sleep).
While the suppliant slumbered, the god Asclepius would manifest to them in a dream or vision. Alternatively, and far more terrifyingly to modern sensibilities, the patient might be physically approached in the dark by a live, sacred snake.
The Abaton was a massive, two-story rectangular hall lined with beds where dozens of patients slept while these sacred snakes roamed freely across the floor. Because snakes shed their entire skin annually, the ancient Greeks viewed them as powerful chthonic symbols of eternal rebirth and physical rejuvenation.
The Mythological Origins of Asclepius
The mythological backstory of Asclepius is thoroughly examined, drawing from sources like Pindar’s Pythian Odes and a short, five-line Homeric Hymn.
Asclepius was the son of the Olympian god Apollo and Coronis, a mortal princess from the northern region of Thessaly. The tragedy begins when a raven witnesses Coronis acting unfaithfully to Apollo. In a fit of divine retribution, the pregnant Coronis is struck down by the arrows of Apollo (or his sister Artemis, depending on the tradition). However, Apollo rescues the unborn Asclepius from his dying mother’s womb and entrusts the infant to Chiron the centaur.
Unlike the rest of the libidinous, savage centaur race, Chiron was a wise, ancient mentor who instructed the young demigod in the profound arts of veterinary and human medicine.
Unfortunately, Asclepius’s miraculous medical prowess eventually leads to his doom. After committing the ultimate hubris of bringing the hero Hippolytus back from the dead, a furious Zeus strikes Asclepius down with a thunderbolt to maintain the cosmic balance of the fates. Although he is killed, his chthonic healing power lives on, radiating from the sites where his bones were allegedly buried.
Retrofitting the Myth for the Peloponnese
Because Asclepius clearly possessed northern Thessalian origins, the priests at the southern sanctuary of Epidaurus had to creatively justify why their specific location held his ultimate power.
Archaeologists discovered inscriptions from a local poet named Isyllus, who essentially retrofitted the mythology to serve local interests. Isyllus constructed an elaborate genealogy claiming that King Phlegyas traveled south to spy on the Peloponnese, bringing his pregnant daughter Coronis with him. According to this hyper-localized version, Coronis naturally gave birth to Asclepius directly inside the Epidaurus sanctuary. This air of scholarly contrivance functioned much like medieval European cities fiercely competing for the relics of saints to boost their local religious prestige and economic tourism.
Sponsors: Fueling the Classical Renaissance
Before continuing the physical tour of the sanctuary, Jeff and Dave take a moment to thank the podcast’s generous sponsors.
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- Hackett Publishing: For over 53 years, Hackett has produced incredibly high-quality, perfectly affordable academic texts. Their expansive catalog includes everything from Stanley Lombardo’s vibrant translations of the Iliad (featuring the Normandy landing on the cover) to deep dives into Asian philosophy and utilitarianism. Go to hackettpublishing.com and use the code AN2024 for a 20% discount and free shipping.
Touring the Epidaurus Sanctuary
Returning to the site, Jeff gives a vivid mental walkthrough of the Epidaurus complex.
In antiquity, visitors approached from the north, passing through the Great Propylaia. This monumental entry gate featured six Ionic columns, a beautiful frieze of bull’s heads and rosettes, and an architectural ramp. Ramps are a strikingly common feature across the Epidaurus site, specifically designed to accommodate sick patients who had to be wheeled into the various shrines.
Moving south, visitors would encounter the Stoa of Cotys, an area heavily modified by the Romans to include extensive bath complexes for necessary ritual cleansing.
Miraculous Votive Offerings
The local museum houses a fascinating collection of votive offerings left behind by grateful, healed patients. These include small sculptures of cured body parts (like ears, noses, and elbows) and highly entertaining inscribed plaques.
One miraculous inscription tells the story of Cleo, a woman who was allegedly pregnant for five full years before sleeping in the Abaton. Upon waking, she immediately delivered a five-year-old boy who walked himself to the fountain to wash up.
Another plaque recounts a man with paralyzed fingers who openly mocked the sanctuary’s claims. While sleeping, he dreamt of playing a game of knuckle-bones when the god suddenly appeared, stretched out his fingers, and completely cured him. However, as a penalty for his skepticism, the god officially permanently nicknamed him “The Unbeliever”. Similarly, a woman named Ambrosia was cured of blindness in one eye but was forced by the god to dedicate a silver pig to the sanctuary as a permanent memorial to her previous ignorance.
The Tholos and the Theater
The heart of the sanctuary contains the Abaton dormitory, a fourth-century BC Temple of Asclepius, and the highly mysterious Tholos.
The Tholos is a stunning circular building characterized by its cylindrical architrave. It is widely believed to mark the actual grave site of Asclepius and features a bizarre, largely unexplained subterranean labyrinth built directly beneath its floor.
Because Epidaurus was a holistic destination for health, it also hosted the Asclepieian athletic games every four years. The site features a massive stadium built naturally into a valley, complete with surviving fourth-century stone starting gates. It also accommodated massive crowds with a sprawling 160-room hotel known as the Katagogion.
However, the crown jewel of the site is the ancient theater. Built seamlessly into the hillside and surrounded by aromatic pine forests, it is arguably the best-preserved Greek theater in the world. Capable of seating up to 14,000 people, the acoustic engineering is so mathematically flawless that a person whispering in the center of the orchestra pit can be clearly heard by spectators sitting in the very highest rows.
The Gustatory Parting Shot
Before wrapping up the episode, the hosts note that the pagan ruins eventually gave way to a fourth-century Christian basilica dedicated to St. John, constructed using stones scavenged from the abandoned temples. To study the Latin language from the absolute beginning (ab initio), listeners are encouraged to visit latinperdiem.com/llpsi, or mossmethod.com for expert instruction in ancient Greek.
To officially close out Episode 159, a highly amusing Gustatory Parting Shot is delivered, sourced from a strange 17th-century English manual titled The Interpretation of Dreams. Found hidden within a section dedicated to elaborate love charms and incantations, the text offers the following bizarre romantic advice:
“You may fascinate a woman by giving her a piece of cheese.”
A special thanks goes out to Mishka the sound engineer, and to Scott Van Zen and Ken Tamplin for the blistering guitar riffs. Beware the sacred snakes, pack an extra piece of cheese, and keep taking in the classics. Valete!
