Materials II: The cult of Asclepius and the Theater of Dionysus

Abstract

Why should the Athenians, as a response to the waves of plague that struck their city during the first half of the 420s, have placed, six or seven years later, their new Asklepieion on the south slope of the Acropolis, as Figure 1 shows, below the Parthenon, the temple dedicated to Athena, and above the Theater, part of the sanctuary dedicated to Dionysus? Does Asclepius have some connection with drama, or was the shrine location purely coincidental? I have demonstrated that drama shows a persistent, though undeveloped, interest in disease imagery that becomes especially strong after the plague's onset, and this interest opens the door to the arrival of Asclepius near and in the Theater of Dionysus. The development of the cult of Asclepius in Athens and the range of myths involving him both associate him with Dionysus, the Greek god of, among other things, theater. Thus, on the levels of theme, ritual and performance Asclepius is important to Greek drama in the last quarter of the fifth century and beyond. Here I should make it clear, however, that I am not positing Asclepius as a god who appears as an overseer of the action in tragic plots, for he is far too benign and helpful a figure to play the same part as the more ambivalent gods Apollo and Dionysus.