Probably the diet of the poorer patients may have consisted largely of the barley-meal paste, the “maza” eaten with certain inexpensive vegetables. This would require little preparation. Among the well-to-do patients, however, who were numerous, the meals would be more formal and would need more care in preparation. In early times the “ariston” formed the breakfast, and was eaten at sunrise. In later times this meal was moved on to the middle of the day, and the “acratisma,” consisting merely of bread dipped in unmixed wine, was eaten at an early hour. The mid-day meal in later times consisted of various warm dishes needing the art of the cook, and the principal meal, the “deipnon,” which was still more elaborate, was just before sunset. Where the preparation and the consumption of these meals took place it is difficult to say. The lower story of the western abaton may have been a storehouse, or possibly a kitchen. It must be remembered that the main part of the flesh of the animals presented for sacrifice was used for food. In general only the thigh bones, the entrails and some of the fat, was consumed on the altar, the remainder was eaten by priests, votaries, or attendants. In the case of the bloodless offerings, the cakes, fruit, grain, milk, wine, honey, &c., a large part also was used as food. A rule existed at Epidauros that all should be consumed within the precinct. The so-called “Square building” marked _K_ in the plan, may have been the scene both of minor sacrifices and of the consumption of the unsacrificed remnants. I have suggested above that this building might be a hostel, and the large quantities of ash, of bones, and of fragments of bronze and earthenware vessels found there to some extent support this hypothesis, and the idea that it was employed for the sacrificial banquets. Among the hundreds of inscriptions found I have thus far only mentioned one class—namely, those referring to cures. There are, in addition, no fewer than thirteen other kinds of inscriptions; for example, the great poem of Isyllos, describing the genealogy and miracles of Asklepios, written by command of the oracle of Delphi. This has been edited and commented on in a most scholarly manner by Prof. von Wilamowitz-Möllendorff. Many of the inscriptions are in honour of individual priests, pyrophoroi, hieromnemones, or of distinguished Greeks unconnected with the sanctuaries; for example there was found, in association with a headless statue, the inscription shown below. Plate XXXII. The upper four lines of the inscription are in the Dorian dialect, the remainder in the Ionian. The former is the dedication of the statue by the Epidaurians to a historian previously unknown to the classical student, a certain Philippos of Pergamos. The lower Ionic fragment is probably a quotation (the only one known to exist) from his writings. [Illustration: PLATE XXXII—Dedication of Statue to Philippos (Cavvadias)]