Abstract–A Sanctuary Model for Representing Incubation in Classical Athens


Aristophanes’ comic narrative of a miracle cure of Asklepios in Wealth 627-759 reflects a model for representing this experience that would later manifest itself in the healing stories set up in the god’s sanctuary at Epidauros. In this early instantiation, the model already displays the influence of the sanctuary in the ways it seeks to gives proof that the miracle took place; as an example of this influence, my paper focuses on the motif of the waking witness, which will serve to bring out not only the function of the model but also the religious beliefs it conveys related to the philanthropic character of the god Asklepios.