Not infrequently it would happen that persons with real or with incurable diseases came to Hieron and got worse, notwithstanding their sacrifices and petitions to the god. How the priests excused the impotency of their deity on these occasions we do not know; perhaps some lack of merit, purity, or sanctity in the individual may have been imputed. We know that in some cases the honour of Asklepios was saved by sending the unfortunate invalid to some distant shrine; but of course it happened that in some instances the patient died while at the Hieron. Now, according to the religion of the Greeks, two events were considered to desecrate in the most dreadful manner any hallowed precinct—namely, birth and death; neither of these must occur within any sacred enclosure. While the sick probably met with considerable kindliness, humanity, and real help at these shrines, and much actual benefit resulted, notwithstanding the superstition on which all was based, still, in this one respect Greek tradition and ceremonial were a cause of the most gross inhumanity. The unhappy visitant whose vital powers were finally declining was received and domiciled in the abaton, but when he failed to improve, and was seen by the priests and attendants to be obviously dying, instead of being tenderly nursed and soothed, he was removed from his couch, dragged across the precinct to the nearest gate, expelled, and left to die on the hillside unhelped and untended. Asklepios had rejected him, and no priest or minister of the god must defile himself by any dealings with death. One cannot but hope that the sympathy and humanity which exist naturally in the hearts of most men and of all women, found some means of helping these unhappy beings, and that when death seemed probable such sufferers were conveyed to a hostel outside the precinct, and allowed to die in peace there. A like superstition existed regarding birth. Many a poor woman who was anticipating maternity, and who had been hoping for relief from some ordinary ailment, was suddenly and mercilessly expelled from the precinct at the moment when she needed help and comfort most. Not until the time of the Antonines was any definite provision made for these two classes of sufferers. Either Antoninus Pius or Marcus Aurelius erected outside the precinct a home for the dying, and a sort of maternity hospital. Doubtless some of the ruins dating from the Roman period, which are at present unidentified, subserved these two purposes. As yet nothing has been said about the commissariat arrangements of the Hieron. It is probable that several hundred persons habitually resided there, if we include the sick, the convalescents, the priests, officials, and servants, while on the occasion of the great festivals the number rose to at least ten or twelve thousand. What arrangements were made for the dieting of all these? Where were the storehouses, the kitchen and the “deipneterion,” or dining-room, if any such existed?