# 3.3 What does the sacred regulation say?

Given that literacy rates in classical Greece would have been extremely low by modern standards, not everyone would have had the literary skills to read what the sacred regulation said, but that does not mean that such people missed out on understanding the inscription’s importance. The habit of reading aloud in the ancient world (Thomas, 1992, p. 64) means that people could listen to others as they read the content of an inscription; a person might also reasonably gauge that they were looking at something official and important when they came across an inscription in a public setting and so ask another about what it said.

## Activity 6

Allow around 45 minutes for this activity

Imagine that it is the fourth century BCE and that you are planning a visit to the sanctuary of Amphiaraos for the first time. Your shoulder has been giving you trouble for months now and you’ve heard good things about Amphiaraos’ medical expertise. As this is your first visit to the sanctuary, you’re a bit nervous: you want to make sure you know the sanctuary’s rules, what to expect, and how to behave as piously as possible while you’re there. Fortunately, a friend of yours has been before and is able to fill you in on the dos and don’ts based on their knowledge of the sanctuary’s sacred regulations.

To help you plan for your visit to the sanctuary, answer the following questions below using the set passages taken from the sacred regulations of the Amphiareion to help you. Note that parts of the text marked ‘[---]’ indicate places where there are gaps in the inscription.

The sections of text you need to answer each question appear under each of the four questions below. Note that, to help you easily locate the information you need, some of the passages are repeated under more than one question

## Glossary for Activity 6

You should use the following short glossary to help you:

Drachma, drachmas: name of an ancient Greek coin, worth 6 obols. In fourth-century BCE Athens, an unskilled labourer could earn up to 1 and a half drachmas a day and a skilled labourer between 2 and 2 and a half drachmas (Rhodes and Osborne, 2003, p. xxiii).

Incubate: in an ancient Greek context, the act of sleeping in a temple or sacred space to communicate with the divine for oracular or healing purposes. (This word derives from the Latin cubare, ‘to lie down’ or ‘sleep’ + in, ‘in, inside’.)

Obol, obols: name of an ancient Greek coin, worth 1/6th of a drachma.

All translations are taken from Osborne and Rhodes (2003, pp. 129, 131).

1. What do you need to take with you on your visit to the Amphiareion?

   Whoever comes to be cured by the god is to pay a fee of not less than nine obols of good silver and deposit them in the treasury in the presence of the keeper of the temple. The priest is to make prayers over the offerings and place them on the altar if he is present; but whenever he is not present the person sacrificing (is to do so) and each is to make his own prayers for himself at the sacrifice, but the priest is to make the prayers at the public sacrifices (lines 20–28).

2. What religious actions do you expect to undertake?

   The skin of every animal sacrificed in the sanctuary is to be sacred. Any animal anyone wishes may be sacrificed, but there is to be no taking meat outside the boundary of the sanctuary (lines 29–32).

   Whoever needs to incubate in the sanctuary [---] obeying the laws. The keeper of the temple is to record the name of whoever incubates when he deposits the money, his personal name, and the name of his city, and display it in the sanctuary, writing it on a board for whoever wants to look. Men and women are to sleep separately in the dormitory, men in the part east of the altar and women in the part west [---] those incubating in the dormitory [---] (lines 36–44).

3. What types of actions should you avoid during your visit?

   If anyone commits an offence in the sanctuary, either a foreigner or a member of the community, let the priest have power to inflict punishment of up to five drachmas and let him take guarantees from the man who is punished, and if he pays the money let him deposit in the treasury when the priest is present. The priest is to give judgement if anyone, either a foreigner or a member of the community, is wronged privately in the sanctuary, up to a limit of three drachmas, but let the larger cases take place where it is stated in the laws for each (lines 9–16).

   The skin of every animal sacrificed in the sanctuary is to be sacred. Any animal anyone wishes may be sacrificed, but there is to be no taking meat outside the boundary of the sanctuary (lines 29–32).

4. How do you expect to communicate with Amphiaraos? Where within the sanctuary will this communication take place?

   Gods. The priest of Amphiaraos is to frequent the sanctuary from when the winter has ended until the season of ploughing, not being absent for more than three days, and to remain in the sanctuary for not less than ten days each month. He is to require the keeper of the temple in accordance with the law to look after both the sanctuary and those who come to the sanctuary (lines 1–8).

   Whoever comes to be cured by the god is to pay a fee of not less than nine obols of good silver and deposit them in the treasury in the presence of the keeper of the temple. The priest is to make prayers over the offerings and place them on the altar if he is present; but whenever he is not present the person sacrificing (is to do so) and each is to make his own prayers for himself at the sacrifice, but the priest is to make the prayers at the public sacrifices. (lines 20–28).

   Whoever needs to incubate in the sanctuary [---] obeying the laws. The keeper of the temple is to record the name of whoever incubates when he deposits the money, his personal name, and the name of his city, and display it in the sanctuary, writing it on a board for whoever wants to look (lines 36–41).

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### Discussion

Reading inscriptions can be tricky at first, so don’t worry if you found this activity a bit challenging. Hopefully you enjoyed engaging with the very rules of the ancient Greeks of the fourth century BCE and managed to come up with some ideas about the dos and don’ts for your first visit. Your answers may differ slightly from these, but here are some examples:

1. You would expect to take money with you on your visit to pay for your consultation with Amphiaraos (the regulations stipulate 9 obols, which, as you might have worked out from the glossary entry on ‘drachma’, could be as much as one day’s pay). You might even take something to sacrifice upon the altar while you are there, such as an animal.
2. The sacred regulations don’t go into great detail about specific actions you should undertake, but it does mention the possibility of offering sacrifice and the chance to be healed by the god via the process of incubation. There is no guidance for how you ought to prepare for either of these actions other than paying the fee and providing a record of your name.
3. From the inscription, it is clear that you shouldn’t take any of my sacrificial meat outside of the sanctuary and that the shoulder of the animal should be kept as sacred for the priest; the skin is also to remain sacred. The inscription also mentions not committing any offences to avoid paying a fine, but it doesn’t elaborate upon what those offences are. As a new visitor, you will have to be on my best behaviour.
4. While the inscription doesn’t explicitly mention communication with the god, it does mention the process of incubation, but unfortunately the details of this process no longer survive on the stone! What is clear, however, is that this process involves going to sleep at the sanctuary and that and this was achieved by sleeping in a dormitory (with men and women sleeping separately). You should therefore expect to communicate with Amphiaraos in a dream.
5. The priest doesn’t seem overly important to the visit. The inscription records that he has to be at the sanctuary for at least 10 days every month and not be absent for more than three days at a time. However, it also says that you are allowed to offer your own personal sacrifice upon the altar in the priest’s absence. The temple keeper seems to be more important as it is to them that you must pay my consultation fee and give your name for the sanctuary’s official records.

The sacred regulations of the Amphiareion, then, provide some guidance on religious action and provide an indication of what individuals might expect on their visit to the sanctuary. Visitors would need money to seek a cure, possibly an animal to sacrifice, and time and resources to be able to visit the sanctuary in the first place and sleep there overnight. But by not including specific guidance for all areas of one’s visit (such as how to prepare for certain religious actions), the inscription implies that there was room for manoeuvre when it came to some aspects of cult worship. Since the sacred regulations provide information about expectations rather than experience, it is useful to examine other material remains for the sanctuary to gain insight into the latter.

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