Plate XXVII shows a full-length figure of the god, found at Epidauros,
accompanied as usual by the serpent. Artistic reliefs, hermæ, and
full-length figures of noted priests and physicians, and of individuals
eminent in art, philosophy, literature, or history; also ex-votos,
stelæ, and tablets recording the marvellous cures effected by the god,
coloured bas-reliefs, encaustic paintings, shrines, exedræ, decorative
vases and fountains, beautified and added interest to the precinct.
[Illustration: PLATE XXVIII—Shelter-seat]
Shelter-seats, arranged in semicircles, of beautiful white marble, were
so placed as to avoid sun or wind; they were convenient for converse, or
for listening to a reader or a musician.
Plates XXVIII and XXIX represent the remains of two of these seats at
the Hieron; close to the former is seen a large pedestal on which
probably an equestrian statue formerly stood.
[Illustration: PLATE XXIX—Shelter-seat]
Many shrines and chapels to subsidiary deities existed, as, for example,
to Hygieia, Themis, the Egyptian Apollo, Helios, Selene, Epione (the
wife of Asklepios), Zeus, Poseidon, Minerva, Hera, Demeter and other
Eleusinian deities, Dikaiosyne, Lato, Hypnos, Eileithyia, and others not
as yet identified. The diminutive figure of Telesphoros, in his capacity
of god of Convalescence, is not seen here so often along with Asklepios
on ex-votos and coins, as at Pergamos and some other Temples.
Plate XXX represents a number of small figures of Hygieia and of
Asklepios from the Hieron.
Every devout Greek who came as a suppliant to Asklepios would find here
also a shrine of his own favourite deity.
To those who had been initiated at Eleusis, and whose advanced age or
incurable sickness gave little prospect of life, the calm and dignified
forms of Demeter, Persephone, and Iakchos would suggest patience and the
hope of a pure spiritual after-life, free from all bodily infirmity,
“for the Greek or Roman heart ... was as full, in many cases fuller, of
the hope of immortality than our own.”[5]
[Illustration: PLATE XXX—Figures of Asklepios and Hygieia]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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