Ritual spaces and performances in the Asklepieia of Roman Greece

Abstract

This paper attempts to investigate the existence of performative rituals - such as processions, songs, dances, dramatic enactments of divine myths and genealogies - in sanctuaries of Asklepios during the Roman Imperial period in Greece. Because of their long life and their well-documented ritual practice, the sanctuaries of Athens, Epidauros, and Messene have been selected as case studies. Archaeological, literary, and epigraphical sources are used to identify the nature of the ritual performed, and to assign to them a topographical space within the sacred precinct. The period under consideration mostly coincides with the reign of the Antonine emperors, when the relatively peaceful environment allowed for an artistic revival, and cultural phenomena such as the Second Sophistic promoted the reappropriation of ancient Greek tradition and a renewed continuity with it, despite the historical discontinuity. Wealthy patrons belonging to the educated elite and holding the highest offices within the imperial bureaucracy were often responsible for the refoundation of sacred buildings, and of long-forgotten religious festivals. In this context, the promotion of performative spaces and rituals in the sanctuaries of Asklepios is interpreted as a product of the cultural and social environment of the second and early third centuries in Greece.