(20) Whoever wants to be cured by the god shall pay a fee of no less than nine
obols of accepted silver and deposit it in the treasury in the presence of the temple
warden...
(25) The priest shall say prayers for the offerings and shall place them on the altar, if he
is present; when he is not present, the person offering the sacrifice does it, and
at the sacrifice everyone shall say prayers for himself, but the priest shall do it at the
public sacrifices.... (LSCG 69 ¼Rhodes and Osborne 2003: no. 27 (between 386 and
374 BC))It is remarkable that the appointed priest serves only during the summer, which we
may interpret as ‘‘high season.’’ A temple warden, like a custodian, looks after visitors
during other times. Worshipers were entitled to offer sacrifice and say prayers without
the assistance of the priest. Just like the sanctuary of Asclepius at Epidaurus, the
Amphiareum was a healing sanctuary where incubation took place: the ‘‘patients’’
spent the night within the sacred enclosure and hoped for dreams or a visitation by
the god – they would leave the shrine with instructions for a cure or find themselves
already healed the next morning. Unfortunately, we can only guess at the volume of
visitors during a typical day in high or low season, but scholars are inclined to surmise
a low level of involvement on the part of religious personnel and hence imagine that
the sanctuary was typically quiet. With regard to sanctuaries where ritual healing did
not take place, the inclination to imagine a quiet sanctuary is even stronger. When, for
example, a cult regulation from Teos asks the ephebes, the priest, and the sacred slaves
‘‘to sing hymns on every day of the patron god Dionysus upon the opening of the
temple’’ and the imperial priest to ‘‘pour a libation upon the opening and closure of
the god’s temple,’’ these regulations are generally interpreted as special ceremonies
performed on the birthday of the god, not as everyday activities (LSAM27 lines
7–13, reign of Tiberius, AD 14–37; contrast Lupu 2004:74).
The impact of these considerations on our image of the daily life of Greek sanctu-
aries, and also on our assessment of a ‘‘religious sphere’’ in ancient Greece, is not
negligible. This chapter focuses on healing sanctuaries, which were indeed excep-
tional with regard to specific daily (or rather ‘‘nightly’’) activities, but which never-
theless allow us to question the accepted view that Greek sanctuaries in general
showed a lack of emphasis on daily procedures. A publicly recorded opening cere-
mony is not a prerequisite for a vibrant ‘‘daily life’’ of a sanctuary. The activities that
evolved around festival days and the considerable number of days dedicated to their
preparation and celebration were not only special features but also part of ‘‘ordinary’’
life – not least because the sanctuary had to provide an all-year-round infrastructure
to sustain and host the festivities. The subsequent chapters in this volume, which
analyze the rites performed during festivals – the sequence of procession, hymns,
prayers, sacrifice, competitions, and communal banquet – show how this ‘‘infrastruc-
ture’’ worked when called upon.
Even more important than this structural backdrop to special days is the fact that
the worship of the gods went beyond the festival calendar, and that sanctuaries could
be frequented by a number of individuals or groups at all times, above all for the
purpose of dedicating votives and offering sacrifice, of sharing in the beauty and
‘‘awe’’ of the sacred place, but also in order to record public and private documents,
to engage in self-representation, individual and communal, and to celebrate occasions
164 Beate Dignas