Who provided the elaborate infrastructure that was necessary for all this? And how did a day in the life of a sanctuary look from the perspective of those who served the gods and looked after their worshipers? An inscription from Samos, which does not refer to a healing sanctuary, and which is quite exceptional in its content, spells out the wide range of activities that must have been going on within the precincts of many sanctuaries: around 245 BC the Samians ratified a proposal by the neOpoiai, a board of temple curators, which dealt with the terms of contract of the shopkeepers ( kapOloi) in the Heraeon (IG xii.6, 169; Lupu 2004: no. 18). Four shops were leased out in the sanctuary, and the lessees remained in residence for the entire year. No soldier, unemployed person, slave, or suppliant was allowed to sell anything or to be handed any of the four shops. The lessees were not allowed to buy items from these groups. Nor were they allowed to employ suppliant slaves. There is a special clause that prohibits sacred slaves (hieroi paides) from selling items.
Although the activities of soldiers, unemployed persons, slaves, and suppliants were to be kept to a minimum, it becomes clear that the presence of these groups was part of the daily life in the Heraeon. Allowing for a ‘‘business life’’ within the precinct was not only a matter of providing religious personnel and visitors with goods that were needed for the religious life of a cult; it was also a matter of providing long-term and stable income for the sanctuary. Cult finances feature most prominently in our sources (Dignas 2002). Over and over again, cult regulations spell out guarantees and warnings to do with revenues from sacred land, sacred loans, priestly perquisites, obligations and fines of worshipers, costs of sacrificial victims, the expenses incurred by the upkeep of religious buildings, and so forth. This economic dimension of sanctuaries generated a number of activities and could require a multitude of people to administer them. Pausanias claims that those living in the neighborhood of the sanctuary of Asclepius in Titane (Sicyon) were mostly servants of the god (2.11.5: perioikousi... to polu oiketai tou theou). How many ‘‘servants’’ would have been needed, and what were they engaged in doing? As the ‘‘perspective of visitors’’ has shown, one important duty of those employed in sanctuaries was to supervise the behavior of visitors to the precinct and to facilitate their interaction with the deity. It looks as if priests (hiereis) were overseers of the process. When, during the second century BC, the Pergamenes decided to assign the priesthood of Asclepius to a certain Asclepiades and his descendants on a hereditary basis, this came with ‘‘charge of the general good conduct within the sanctuary’’ (IvPergamon 251 = LSAM 13, lines 24-5) and ‘‘power over the sacred slaves’’ (line 26).
Given the large number of sacrifices that were offered on behalf of all those approaching the healing god, much effort would have been directed towards the provision of firewood, the slaughter and carving of sacrificial animals, and the preparation and cleansing of the altars, as well as looking after the typical sacred tables filled with cakes and fruits. If we trust Herodas’ scenario, each worshiper received immediate feedback on a thank-offering from the available religious official, in this case the temple warden, who engaged in a personal conversation with Cynno.
In contrast to what we learn from Herodas’ mime, Pausanias tells us that at Epidaurus and Titane all sacrifices, whether offered by locals or foreigners, had to be consumed within the sanctuary (2.27.1), a requirement that we find also in the context of non-healing sanctuaries. Cult attendants were needed to direct the visitors towards cooking facilities and suitable eating space, to maintain these facilities, and to clean them for new visitors. Although the required preliminary purification could often have taken place by way of a bath in the sea (as was the case with Aristophanes’ Wealth), cult officials must have assisted the worshipers and supervised their use of bathing facilities. A fragmentary inscription from imperial Pergamum specifies that worshipers, after purification, were to enter the sanctuary dressed in white and wearing a laurel wreath. Most likely the text included further specifics. Such instructions generated the need for a sale of the required garments and objects (see again the Samian diagraphe for the shopkeepers in the Heraeon and also the references to a ‘‘market’’ of such goods in the Andanian mystery inscription; LSCG 65 lines 99103). At Epidaurus, the priest of Asclepius had to provide those who failed to bring with them the necessary implements for the preliminary sacrifices with what they needed: grain, garlands, and firewood. Each had its exact price, and the priest received a total sum of three obols for his service and expense (LSCG 22).
The cult regulation from Oropus, Herodas’ mime, the miracle inscriptions from Epidaurus, and other testimonies all refer to a fee paid by worshipers before or after incubation. The texts also emphasize the perquisites of priests or assistants who administer the process of healing. When Aristophanes’ Carion observes the priests’ nightly ‘‘rounds’’ in the abaton, he ironically interprets this as the priest ‘‘nicking’’ the items on tables and altars. The priest was not stealing anything though - a cult regulation from Pergamum explicitly assigns ‘‘all the offerings which are dedicated on the sacred table’’ to the holder of Asclepius’ priesthood {IvPergamon 251 lines 14-15). Religious officials had an obvious interest in making sure that all visitors paid their fee and attributed the customary share to them, not least because ultimately they were held accountable by civic institutions for the way they handled the sacred revenues. Early in the third century BC the Athenians ordered a special type of inventory, an exetasmos, for the temple of Asclepius {Aleshire 1989: Inventory IV); this went beyond the regular priestly paradosis, the handing over of accounts from one priest to the next, and was probably prompted by a suspicion of maladministration. The listing of the contents of the temple and other dedications in precious metal give us a tour of the temple and allow an insight into the careful arrangement of votives. Apparently priests personally decided on this arrangement and often attempted to group the dedications of their priesthoods to specific areas {Aleshire 1989:102-12, 222, 1991:41-6).
Although the inventories of the Athenian Asclepieum reflect an Athenian practice that emphasized the meticulous recording of and accounting for the votive offerings in the sanctuary, priests and other religious officials everywhere must have been engaged in book-keeping of some sort and must have kept records of both inventories and special events during their term of office. The Delian inventories, which include the sanctuaries’ revenues from leases and loans, illustrate how complex and wide-ranging priestly supervision could be. On Thasos the priest of Asclepius had to make sure that a lessee of a ‘‘garden of Heracles’’ kept the a specific area clean and received ‘‘a sixth’’ daily from the lessee {IGxii.8, no. 265, fourth century BC). In the first century BC the priest of Asclepius at Calchedon was allowed to use the public land around the sanctuary {LSAM 5, lines 7-8) - the same priest was, incidentally, asked to ‘‘open the temple every day’’ {lines 23-4).
Sacrilegious and otherwise criminal behavior was a concern in many sanctuaries. At Oropus, the ‘‘job description’’ of the priest of Amphiaraus includes a section on jurisdiction {LSCG 69; Rhodes and Osborne 2003: no. 27, lines 9-17). Although it looks as if the priest’s jurisdiction was limited to misdemeanors, it included offences against both the sanctuary and private persons. The possible scenarios are many: the theft or damage of votives, cult equipment, or sacred buildings, the violation of cult regulations, the failure to pay fees, violence among worshipers and servants.
Apart from hiereis, neokoroi and therapeutai {‘‘attendants’’) or hieroi douloi {‘‘sacred slaves’’), there were other groups or individuals who contributed to the functioning of the daily life within Asclepius’ sanctuaries. Speaking for his own time and for Pergamum, Aelius Aristides refers to ‘‘those who had posts in the temple’’ { Oration 48.47: taxeis echontes) as a group distinct from the servants. He himself mentions a ‘‘doorkeeper’’ { Oration 47. 32: thyr(>ros). Members of a chorus {aoidoi) as well as ‘‘guards’’ {phrouroi) are attested at Epidaurus as recipients of parts of the sacrificial animals, and so is a group of hiaromnamones {‘‘recorders’’; LSCG 60 lines 29-34, ca. 400 BC). The latter appear again in a fragmentary cult regulation that may assign them judicial functions in the sanctuary {LSCG 24, second century BC, possibly a copy of an older text). A ‘‘bath attendant’’ (balaneus) existed in the sanctuary of Asclepius on Aegina (LG iv2 1 no. 126, AD 160), and Aelian (Nature of Animals 9.33) refers to zakoroi, who instructed the patients during incubation. The parallel in the incubation scene of Aristophanes’ Wealth is the propolos, possibly an official title. The pyrphoros (‘‘fire-bearer’’) in the Epidaurian miracle text presented above may also be descriptive rather than an official title. By analogy we would expect to have found individuals attending to the cult statue and other parts of the temple that were decorated, and, from time to time, groups of workmen engaged in the repair or embellishment of sacred buildings. From the point of view of all these individuals and groups a ‘‘sacred journal’’ would have been indispensable.
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