Dream Cults in the Roman Ruins

I recently had the opportunity to visit Rome and see several sites and artifacts associated with the Greco-Roman and Egyptian dream incubation cults of Asclepius and Isis. 

Originating in Ancient Greece, the cult of Asclepius focused around the practice of sleeping in temples and incubating dreams in which the god of healing either suggested cures or directly performed surgeries. Due to the close borrowing between Grecian and Egyptian cultures, the worship of Isis spread through Greece and had a similar practice of temple dream incubation that rivaled that of Asclepius. The Romans continued and further spread these practices, both due to visits of emperors like Hadrian to the main Asclepian temples at Pergamon and Cos, as well as the adoption of Asclepius’s powers of healing and protection by the Roman military. Isis meanwhile was given a place in the Roman pantheon in association with Diana. The dream practices at these temples were so popular that they were some of the last pagan practices to be forbidden during the Christianization of Rome. 

Traces of these dream incubation healing cults still exist in modern Rome today, with its preservation of ancient ruins, or at least the records of their former existence. One famous example is the Isola Tiberina, a small island in the Tiber River, which housed a temple to Asclepius. According to legend, during the great plague of 293 BC, the Sybil suggested that the Senate build an Asclepion, so they sent a ship to retrieve a statue of the god along with a snake as an embodiment of the deity. Nearing the Isola on their return, the snake slipped off the boat onto the island, and there the temple was built. While the Asclepion no longer exists, the Isola remains a place of healing, housing a hospital since 1584.

 

A recreation of this Temple of Aesculapius was built in the late 1700s in the sprawling gardens of the Villa Borghese, where it stands in the middle of a lake for Sunday picnickers to rent boats and paddle around with the picturesque Asclepion in the background. 

The Temple of Isis and Serapis on Capitoline Hill was a double temple to the two main Greco-Egyptian dream incubation deities dating from around 15 BC, which withstood repeated attempts by the Roman Senate to repress Egyptian cults before falling into complete ruin in the following centuries. 

The incubation cults of Asclepius and Isis were not just patronized within the city of Rome but across the empire. Temples to both of these gods were discovered in the ruins of Pompeii, preserved under ash from the eruption of Vesuvius. In a small temple precinct near the amphitheater, statues of Asclepius and his daughter Hygeia, who would also appear in incubated healing dreams, were uncovered, along with a healing kit. The Tempio di Asclepio has an inner chamber or cella that could have served for temple sleep practices, although for a limited number of incubants each night. 

Directly around the corner from the temple of Asclepius is the larger Tempio d’Iside, or Temple of Isis, one of the earliest sites excavated at Pompeii and preserved in excellent condition. A mystery cult popular with the lower classes of Pompeii, the Temple of Isis inspired Mozart’s first performance of The Magic Flute. One imagines people in need of dream healing frequenting the temples at this intersection to evoke the deity of their beliefs. 

Other remnants of these dream cults exist in statuary found in various Roman museums, such as a statue of Hygeia in the Capitoline Museum, or this one of Isis in the Vatican Museum. 

The Egyptian collection at the Vatican also contains artifacts that would have been used for other Egyptian oneiric practices. For instance are a couple small figurines of the dwarf god Bes, a household protection deity whose ugliness could scare away demons and nightmares. There are several apotropaic spells to ward off nightmares in the Papyri Grecae Magicae that evoke Bes, and in Ancient Egypt, figurines of Bes like these would be hidden under the floorboards for protection from bad dreams. 

The preservation of these artifacts and ruins is a testament to the power and importance of the Greco-Egyptian dream incubation cults in Ancient Rome.