Encyclopedia of Society and Culture in the Ancient World

Other Panhellenic sites dealt with purely personal con-

cerns that were beyond the scope of civic religion, such as

healing and salvation. Epidaurus in the Peloponnesus was the

home of the main temple of Asklepios. As a son of Apollo by

a mortal woman, Asklepios was technically only a semidivine

“hero,” but Greeks soon began to worship him as a god. His

priests provided the healing of illness, a subject obviously re-

moved from the collective religion of the city. Patients came

to the shrine and slept in the courtyard of the temple over-

night. Th e next morning the priests interpreted any dream

a patient might have had and devised a treatment for him or

her accordingly. Like many temples, this one had a sacred tree

nearby from which off erings were hung—in this case fi gu-

rines of the patients’ body parts that the god had healed. Th e

temple of the grain goddess Demeter at Eleusis (outside Ath-

ens) off ered initiation into mysteries that would secure for the

participants a kind of personal salvation that would let them

partake of the same kind of blessed existence as heroes aft er

death, rather than the near nonexistence Greek believed to be

the common end of humankind.

ROME

BY KATIE PARLA

Defi ning sacred space in ancient Rome was the responsibility

of high authorities—fi rst of kings and then later of priests.

Both used ritual interpretations of occurrences in the natural

world when creating sacred sites. Th e myth of the founding of

Rome itself by the twins Romulus and Remus describes such

an event. Romulus, by interpreting the fl ight of birds more

masterfully than his brother, was able to defi ne the ritual

boundary that divided the sacred space of the city from the

world beyond. Supposedly he passed this skill and this privi-

lege on to the kings who followed him. Over time, however,

the right of establishing sacred areas became the province of

priests called augurs (augures).

Th e augurs were one of the main priestly colleges in the

augurs Roman state religion. Originally these authorities di-

vined the will of the gods just as Romulus had done, by inter-

preting the fl ight of birds. Later in Rome’s history they also

interpreted a variety of other natural phenomena: thunder,

lightning, and diff erent kinds of animal behavior. By reading

these signs—or “taking auspices,” as it was known—the au-

gurs could determine the boundaries of sacred space. Occa-

sionally the signs came unsolicited—for example, the sudden

appearance of an eagle over the Capitoline Hill—but more

oft en they were the result of deliberate ritualistic attempts to

communicate with the divine world.

In Rome—and later in the territories Rome controlled—

the augurs could defi ne several types of sacred sites. One type

was the templum, a consecrated space or site where the au-

gurs would take auspices. For the Romans a templum could

be a building, but it could also be plot of ground or even a

fi xed place in the heavens where signs from the gods might

View of Mount Olympus, in Attica (Alison Frantz Photographic Collection, American School of Classical Studies at Athens)

sacred sites: Rome 905

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