Image Details

Followers of the god Asklepios (seated) and his daughter, Hygeia, prepare to sacrifice a bull in this 3-foot-wide, fourth-century B.C. stone relief. Sanctuaries dedicated to Asklepios, called Asklepions, dotted the ancient world from Spain to Iran; people with terminal or chronic diseases would sometimes travel for days to an Asklepion to be healed by the god. After a bath, patients would retire to a room to sleep, in the hope that Asklepios would appear in a dream and heal them. Visitors to the sanctuaries would often make offerings of sacrificed animals or statues of body parts.