Classical Terms

Paths to Ritual Dreams

The Sanctuary of Asklepios at Pergamon -
The Design of the Cure Building¹

Ufuk Soyöz

Figure 2. The Sanctuary of Asklepios at Pergamon, panoramic view looking West

Introduction

The Cure Building is located in the Sanctuary of Asklepios at Pergamon (Figure 1-2).² Pergamon was one of the most important cities of the Roman province of Asia when the Cure Building was added to the sanctuary in second century CE. The design of the monument was inspired by the temple of Zeus-Asklepios, which was built in the same precinct slightly earlier than the Cure Building (Figure 4). The temple of Zeus-Asklepios was modeled after the Pantheon in Rome (Figure 3). Therefore the Cure Building also resembles the Pantheon even though its design was significantly modified to house rituals of Asklepios. The circular Cure Building consisted of two floors; the first floor, like the Pantheon in Rome, was covered by a hemispherical dome with an oculus. The basement is arranged around a circular core as concentric corridors and is connected to the center of the sanctuary with a 125 meters long underground passageway.³

By considering the experience of the building in the context of oracular sanctuaries of the Greco-Roman world, I argue that the Cure Building was designed to accommodate Asklepian rituals, namely the enkoimesis, the ritual of sleep in the sanctuary with the hope of being cured by Asklepios in a dream.⁴ Furthermore, the maze-like basement floor and the vaulted corridors connecting the building to the sanctuary were probably designed to resemble caves. Like the caves, the experience of the vaulted corridors of the Cure Building casts the worshipper consecutively disorienting darkness and the following light. This effect was probably intended to emotionally affect the worshipper and to prepare him/her for the enkoimesis, which provided a direct contact with the deity and thus required a change in the worshipper’s state of mind.

Methodology

The form of a building is not a simple physical facilitation of a function; rather it translates the buildings’ function into the language of visual expression. Drawing on Rudolf Arnheim’s “The Dynamics of Architectural Form” I will ‘read’ the formal features of the Cure Building to understand not only the rituals that it accommodated, but also the mental or psychological functions that it fulfilled during the performance of the rituals. The visual qualities of a building reveal the way of life and the cultural circumstances that the building molds into a symbolic expression. In other words, the individual parts of the Cure Building were not simply functional in the literal sense of the word; but they also served symbolic purposes. Based on an experiential reading of the Cure Building, I present how the monument might have accommodated physically and symbolically the ritual of enkoimesis.

The Roman Remodeling of the Asklepieion at Pergamon

The cure building is located in the sanctuary of Asklepios, which was the most popular place of worship in Pergamon around the middle of the second century CE.⁶ The well-preserved ruins are located two kilometers outside the ancient Pergamon and connected to the city with a colonnaded Sacred Way. The sanctuary existed from the fourth century BC, and continuously rebuilt in Hellenistic and early Imperial periods until the second century CE, after which it was remodeled during the Hadrian’s reign. The second century remodeling was not a simple extension of the area of the precinct to accommodate more visitors. Rather the sanctuary was extended over two hectares and redesigned around a peristyle courtyard to include urban building types, inspired by forms of metropolitan Italian architecture. The new monuments of the Asklepieion were commissioned by a group of local benefactors: the porticoes, for instance, were built by consul Octacilius Pollio⁷; the Propylon was donated by the consul Claudius Charax⁸; a theater for 3000 spectators was probably built by another local citizen; and the Temple of Zeus-Asklepios was donated by the consul L. Cuspius Pactumeius Rufinus⁹, who was also the priest of Asklepios. Two of the buildings around the courtyard, the library and the multi-lobed cure building, do not belong to the second century phase of planning; they were added later. The library building with a statue of deified Hadrian, was dedicated by a female patron, Flavia Metilene, in the Antonine Period but the sponsor of the treatment center is not known.

Before the remodeling of the sanctuary, the whole area had to be cleared when the Hellenistic and early imperial monuments were demolished with the exception of the essential components of the sanctuary. The sacred springs and the other drinking and bathing pools, Hellenistic incubation and cult buildings in the center of the Roman sanctuary, including the temple dedicated to Asklepios Soter were preserved and the new Propylon of the sanctuary was built on axis with the temple of Asklepios Soter. Therefore the Hellenistic buildings remained physically at the center of the sanctuary, even though the symbolic focus of the sanctuary was shifted significantly in favor of the new buildings, such as the fashionable temple of Zeus-Asklepios, which dominated the precinct with its monumental scale (Figure 4). It was a combination of a rotunda and a classical temple front, and is considered to be modeled after Pantheon in Rome.¹⁰ Moreover, the multi-lobed Cure Building was inspired by the design of the temple of Zeus-Asklepios, while it was further modified to accommodate Asklepian ritual enkoimesis.

The remodeled Asklepieion molded the rituals of Asklepios into an orderly framework. The new peristyle courtyard of the Asklepieion provided a theatrical background for the traditional rituals of Asklepios that took place in the sanctuary courtyard. Moreover, the innovative forms of the new buildings of Asklepieion increased the emotional appeal of the Asklepian rituals. The temple of Zeus-Asklepios played a key role in transformation of the Asklepian rituals. Its bold design, which was imported from Rome, was successfully adapted into the cultic and ritual context of second century Asklepieion. The relevancy of its design for the rituals of Asklepios was proved by the repetition of the same idea in the Cure Building, which was added to the precinct in the Antonine period. Specifically, these two buildings were designed to elicit emotional responses from the adherent of Asklepios during the performance of the rituals.

Figure 5. The Remains of the Cure Building, looking South

The Cure Building: Remains and Reconstructions

The remains of the Cure Building illustrates that it is an innovative building and does not fit to the existing canons of Greco-Roman architecture (Figure 5-8). It was built on a circular plan following the temple of Zeus-Asklepios and its predecessor, the Pantheon in Rome. It consisted of two floors and each floor was articulated very differently from one another. Its well-preserved basement was functioned probably as an incubation hall and as a podium to raise the first floor to the courtyard level. The first floor closely resembled the temple of Zeus-Asklepios; it was articulated with seven apses and was probably also covered with a hemispherical dome with an oculus. The scale of the building, which is slightly larger than the temple of Zeus-Asklepios, suggests that it could also be a temple. However, the lack of a monumental porch, an essential part of a temple, disproves this hypothesis. Moreover, none of the apses of the first floor was distinguished as a main apse that would hold a cult statue. Therefore, the archaeologists claim that cure building might have used as an incubation hall for the ritual of enkoimesis.

The partly preserved basement of the Cure Building supports the thesis that it might have used as a setting for enkoimesis (Figure 6). The whole basement consisted of vaulted corridors resembling caves, the primeval location of incubation rituals.¹¹ The similarity to a cave characterizes the entrances; entering the Cure Building from the sanctuary courtyard evokes the experience of entering to a cavern. The entrances to the Cure Building from the north-east are through long vaulted passageways built in the sanctuary courtyard. The first of these vaulted corridors connects the Propylon to the Cure Building. This corridor, which passes beneath the podium of the temple of Zeus-Asklepios, resembles a long cave, lighted by the side entrances of the passage. Similarly, a second vaulted corridor links the basement of the cure building to the Hellenistic temples and altars at the core of the sanctuary courtyard (Figure 9). Like the first passage, this underground corridor generates light effects through regularly placed skylights on its ceiling. The light effect resembles the light that might have coming down the oculus of the first floor’s dome, which was probably modeled after Pantheon. The Hellenistic core of the sanctuary was the location of the preliminary rituals such as sacrifice, purifications, singing and dancing. After these rituals the worshippers walked along the vaulted passage to the Cure Building to take part in the ritual of enkoimesis. The regularly placed skylights probably gave an order to this ritual walk that took place along the underground passage.

The cave impression created in the vaulted entrances repeated in the corridors of the basement. It was designed around a massive circular core as a concentric hall, and is divided into two vaulted corridors through a ring of alternating square and rectangular piers. The building is also visually divided along its main axis into two semicircular halves; a dark northwestern half that complements a lighted southwestern half. The southern wall was articulated with four big doors and 14 windows, which probably lead to a distinct contrast of light between the two halves of the building. The arrangement of piers also emphasizes the division between the northern and southern halves of the treatment center. The northern half consists of four square piers and three narrower trapezoid piers in between. On the southern half, however, two very narrow pair of piers was inserted in between four square piers. The pairing of the southern piers was probably linked with the installation of the drawing fountains in between the five of these piers. The fountains were not installed at once but added consequently.

The first floor of the Cure Building was accessed both by exterior and interior stairs placed at the southeastern entrance of the building (Figure 7). Even though the remains of the first floor does not provide a three dimensional image of the building; a significant amount of information is ascertained to suggest a likely reconstruction of the monument. The archaeologists Ziegenaus and De Luca produced a possible reconstruction of the first floor based on the remains and on the temple of Zeus-Asklepios, the historical precedent of the cure building. It is clear from the existing remains that the square piers of the basement floor continued to the first floor, even though they were slightly reduced in dimension and redesigned in a trapezoid shape to align with the round apses’ walls. The rounded pieces of wall remains that were attached to the external angles of the trapezoid columns were reconstructed as large round apses. These piers probably connected to each other by arches, which formed the main support system carrying the dome of the building. Based on the boldness of design and the drainage system of the first floor running down to the basement, the archaeologists reconstructed the round hall with a hemispherical dome and an oculus, similar to the dome of the temple of Zeus-Asklepios and the Pantheon.

Cave Metaphor

As described above the architecture of the Cure Building is characterized by the cave-like forms created through vaulted corridors. These vaulted corridors did not simply served as passageways or incubation halls but they might have also functioned architectural symbols alluding to the primeval caves where the incubations took place. The caves were used as cult places since the Minoan period. Ancient people were probably awed by the dark, mysterious appearance of the interior, the strangeness, the fantastic shapes of the stalagmites and stalactites, and the miraculous properties of pure water which collected in the hollows of the rock. The effect of this suggestive atmosphere was made potent by the almost complete darkness that prevailed caves, for only few of them were lit by daylight coming from the entrance. The impression created by the damp walls, dropping water, and the grotesque shapes of the stalactites and stalagmites, all in the flickering light of a lamp must have been impressive. Probably because of their expressive visual qualities the caves were also used as settings of oracular rituals, which brought about a direct confrontation with the divine.¹² The experience of caves, the sudden changes of light between the outside and inside, probably disorientated the worshipper. Such a disorientation might be desirable for the oracular rituals, which necessitated worshipper’s altered state of mind that would prepare him/her to communicate with the divine.

The symbolism of the cave also found frequent expression in the design of the Hellenistic temples of Apollo in Asia Minor, which were used for oracular rituals. Both temples of Apollo at Didyma and Klaros were adorned with cave-like vaulted passageways.¹³ The cella of the temple of Apollo at Didyma, where the oracular consultations took place, was accessed by two vaulted corridors placed symmetrically on the both sides of the pronaos (Figure 10). Similarly, the temple of Apollo at Klaros had a cavern-like underground oracular chamber. The temple of Apollo itself was a large hexastyle and unusually Doric structure with three gigantic cult statues: of Apollo, Artemis and Leto standing on a common pedestal in the cella. Under them was a vaulted cavern, reached by two symmetrical narrow stairways from the pronaos, which were designed as a labyrinth of seven turns. These tortuous passages lead their ways to two vaulted underground chambers. The final cavern-like chamber had a sacred spring and it was probably the place where the priestess of Apollo had been consulted.

Aside from being a symbol of a cave, the experience of the vaulted corridors of the Asklepieion at Pergamon probably prepared the worshippers psychologically for the enkoimesis by recalling the earliest settings of oracular rituals. Enkoimesis was a healing ritual, during which worshippers slept in the sanctuary believing that Asklepios would cure them in their dreams. Like the oracles, the ritual of enkoimesis was a direct means of communication with the god as Asklepios personally appeared in the most of the dreams. He either performed surgeries that would lead to immediate cure or prescribed regimens that would be followed up by the worshippers upon awakening. The success of the ritual was tied to Asklepios’ appearance in his believers’ dreams. Therefore, the worshippers prepared to meet with the god in dreams through performance of several rituals, including preliminary offerings, rites of purification which involved abstinence from sex and certain foods.¹⁴ Similarly, their journeys in the vaulted corridors of Asklepieion, exposed to the dramatic effects of light and darkness, probably prepared them for the spiritual experience that they would have in their dreams.

Water and Rituals of Asklepios

The existence of the fountains inside the basement of the Cure Building supports the thesis that the building might have been used for enkoimesis. The water resources inside caves played a significant role in oracular rituals. The oracular caves usually had springs gushing out of the earth, which were associated with magical and medical qualities. Likewise, the sacred springs and fountains existed in the Greco-Roman Asklepieia and they were usually connected to the incubation halls in Corinth, Epidauros and Athens.¹⁵ For instance in the Asklepieion at Athens, a ‘Tholos’, a circular fountain house was carved into the rock of the Acropolis (Figure 11).¹⁶ Connected with the incubation hall by means of a vaulted doorway resembling the entrance to a cavern, it still serves to collect water of a local spring. Similar fountains which were inspired by the form of caverns were also built in the Sanctuary of Asklepios at Kos. The lower terrace wall of the Asklepieion at Kos was reconstructed in the Roman period as a vaulted retaining wall and adorned with several pools, basins and other types of water installations. The largest of these structures was a fountain, which was set in a vaulted façade and consisted of a semi-circular basin. The rough texture of its wall, no doubt, was designed to resemble caves or grottos. The fountains in the basement of the Cure Building follow the similar design principles (Figure 12). The arched façade of these fountains resembled the vaulted door of the sacred spring in Asklepieion of Athens and of the fountain facade in Asklepieion of Kos, which were both probably intended to evoke the caves with sacred springs.

The fountains or sacred springs were significant for the rituals of Asklepios for various reasons: Firstly, they completed the impression of the caves by recalling the sacred springs that usually existed in them. Secondly, the water was a significant part of rituals as it was used for, lustrations, purifications and baths before and after the ritual of enkoimesis. Finally, the sound of water, like the special lighting effects, contributed to the experience of the space during the performance of rituals. The water running down the stairs of the vaulted corridor, which connects the sanctuary courtyard to the Cure Building, creates a unique sound effect. This is still impressive due to the echo that it makes in the underground passageway. Similar sound effects might have been created by the fountains in the basement floor, which would psychologically influence the worshippers and prepare them to confront the divine in the ritual dream.

Illustrations

Figure 9. The Corridor connecting the center of the sanctuary with the Cure Building

Figure 10. The vaulted corridors of the Temple of Apollo at Didyma

Figure 11. The entrance to the “Tholos” of the Athenian Asklepieion

Figure 12. The Fountain of the Cure Building

Endnotes

¹ This paper is presented at the Annual Conference of the College Art Association at Dallas in February 2008.

² For the building history of the Asklepieion of Pergamon in the Hellenistic and Roman periods, see: Hoffman, Adolf. “The Roman Remodeling of the Asklepieion” in Pergamon.Citadel of Gods. Archaeological Record, Literary Description, and Religious Development (Harrisburg and Pennsylvania: Trinity Press International, 1998) 41-59. Ziegenaus, Oskar and Gioia De Luca, Das Asklepieion, Vol 1: Der südöstliche Temenosbezirk in hellenisticher und frührömischer Zeit (AvP 11.1 Berlin: De Gruyter, 1968); Vol 2: Der nördliche Temenosbezirk und angrenzende Anlagen in hellenisticher und frührömischer Zeit (AvP 11.2 Berlin: De Gruyter, 1975) Vol 3: Die Kultbauten aus römischer Zeit an der Östseite der Heiligen Bezirks (AvP 11.3 Berlin: De Gruyter, 1981).

³ For the description of the Cure Building, see: Ziegenaus and De Luca, 1981, 76-100.

⁴ For the documentation of the rituals of Asklepios, see: Edelstein E. & Edelstein L., Asclepius. Collection and Interpretation of the Testimonies, vols 1 &2 (Baltimore and London: John Hopkins University Press, 1998[1945]), vol 2: 181-213.

⁵ Arnheim, Rudolf, “Symbols through Dynamics” in The Dynamics of Architectural Form (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1977): 205-247.

⁶ Martial used the term Pergameus deus synonymously with Asklepios; 9.16.2.

⁷ Habicht, Christian. Die Inschriften des Asklepieions (AvP 8.3; Berlin: de Gruyter, 1969) 3. 10, 103-6.

⁸ Habicht, 1969, 9-10. 142.

⁹ Habicht, 3.9-11, 121.

¹⁰ Hoffmann, A. “Zum Bauplan des Zeus-Asklepios-Tempels im Asklepieion von Pergamon” in Deutsches Archäologischen Institut, Bauplanung und Bautheorie der Antike (Diskussionen zur Archäologischen Bauforschung 4; Berlin: Deutsches Archäologischen Institut, 1984).

¹¹ Rutkowski, Bogdan, The Cult Places in the Aegean World, trans. by Krystyna Kozlowska (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986): 121-151.

¹² Caves were also common settings of the mystery rituals. Clinton, K. Myth and Cult. The Iconography of Eleusinian Mysteries (Stockholm: Svenska Institute at Athens): 13-27.

¹³ Soyoz, U. “The Labyrinth as a Metaphor for the Ritual of Oracle in Temples of Apollo in Asia Minor” in Visualizing Rituals. Critical Analysis of Art and Ritual Practice, ed. Julia Kim Werts (Cambridge Scholars Press, 2006): 10-21.

¹⁴ For publications of Lex Sacra of Pergamon, which stated the preliminary rituals before enkoimesis, see: Wörrle, M. 1969, ‘Die Lex Sacra von der Hallenstrasse (Inv. 1965, 20)’ in Habicht, 1969, 167-90. Petsalis-Diomidis, Alexia, “Visual Dynamics in Healing Pilgrimage” in Pilgrimage in Graeco-Roman & Early Christian Antiquity, eds. J. Elsner and I. Rutherford, (Oxford University Press, 2005): 183-218.

¹⁵ Aelius Aristides, a famous orator and a patient of the Asklepieion at Pergamon, frequently refers to the hot and cold baths that are prescribed to him by Asklepios in the dreams. Behr, Charles. Aelius Aristides and the Sacred Tales (Amsterdam, 1968).

¹⁶ Riethmüller, J. “Bothros and Tetrastyle: the Heroon of Asclepius at Athens,” in: R. Hägg, Ancient Greek Hero Cult, Proceedings of the Fifth International Seminar on Ancient Greek Cult (Göteborg, 1999): 123-150.

Text and Images Copyright ©2007 Ufuk Soyöz