The Greek practice of incubation

The classical Greek practice of incubation and some Near Eastern predecessorsScholarly works on medicine or on sleep and dreaming in the ancient world will usually make reference to the practice of incubation, sometimes accompanied by a brief description of the practice. However, closer examination often reveals that different scholars use the word in subtly different ways, and to refer to different rituals. According to the strictest possible definition, the practice in Europe and Near Eastern Asia is often connected to Greece or areas of Greek influence, and does not emerge until the classical period. This paper aims to describe the practice and its function in its classical Greek, pagan form and to discuss some incidents from Near Eastern records that may have contributed to the later development of incubation in Greece.The term incubation is, as Patton has pointed out, often somewhat problematically used to describe any act of intentional sleeping to produce dreams. Scholarship on incubation has, therefore, come to include a wide range of examples of ancient dreams that bear little relation or resemblance to the classical practice. I believe that it is necessary to use a much more strict definition of what constitutes incubation, in order to make the precise nature of the phenomenon clearer. I have discussed the problem of defining incubation elsewhere, and produced the working definition that incubation is a practice in which a person performs a ritual act and then sleeps in a sacred place, with the deliberate intention of receiving a divine dream (the dream must be deliberately produced through ritual action).

The possibility of links between religion and mythology from the ancient Near East and that of ancient Greece has been explored before, notably by M. L. West in Early Greek Philosophy and the Orient and W. Burkert in The Orientalizing Revolution. It is true that, as J. Kirby has observed, parallels in mythology or religious practice cannot necessarily be assumed to indicate a common source, and Burkert himself has described the tentative and limited nature of attempts to establish causal links between the two, preferring to focus his recent work on what he terms cultural interaction. However, the possibility of a strong, causal connection remains and needs to be addressed, and scholarship on the subject has been thorough enough to enable J. Boardman to say that, as regards connections between Greece and the East, the case has by now been made. This paper will not definitively answer these questions concerning the possible influence of the ancient Near East on Greek religion, but it does provide some examples that may add to the debate. It certainly seems possible that the examples listed below may represent early stages in the development of the practice that would become incubation. It is to be hoped that future scholarship will find these examples useful in a wider context.

I have argued elsewhere that the practice of incubation did not exist before the development of the practice in healing shrines in classical Greece. However, although there is no evidence for incubation as I have defined it before this period, there are some examples of similar or related practices from the Ancient Near East which appear to fit the definition of incubation; a person makes an offering to a god, sleeps in a sacred place, and prays for a divine dream. For example, Tablet 4 of the Epic of Gilgamesh features Gilgamesh performing a ritual and asking the Mountain for a dream, and sleeping in a specially built hut near mountain (which could be interpreted as sacred space); this literary example may reflect real practice. Similarly, an Ugaritic poem records the actions of a man who makes offerings to the gods, sprinkles his cubicle and sleeps, praying for a son. However, it should be noted that he does not specifically pray for a dream, but only for the desired eventual outcome, a son; the dream is secondary to the main object of the ritual. Sasson has suggested that, according to the Mari letters, sleeping in Itur-Mers temple quickens the reception of dreams; the question of how far the dreams in the Mari letters can be said to be deliberately provoked has been the cause of some debate.

These isolated examples are usually carried out by kings, leaders or prophets. The ritual acts performed are not standardised, an act which could be repeated by anyone, but differ; they are personal acts of sacrifice by the leader. The evidence points only to leaders performing these acts. There is, of course, a problem of evidence here, as it is possible that evidence relating to incubation ritual performed by others has not survived. However, the absence of epigraphical evidence of thank-offerings, such as that from Epidauros, along with the absence of literary evidence for a repeated, set ritual each example is slightly different suggests that the evidence does not exist because this form of ritual was not practised by anyone other than a leader, and only sporadically by leaders.

The clearest example is that of Gudea (from an inscription on a cylinder, E3/1.1.7CylA). Having received an unsolicited dream from Ningirsu, Gudea, seeking further help, he crosses the river and prays, first to Ningirsu, then to Gatumdu. He offers bread and water to Gatumdu, then sets up a bed next to her statue and sleeps there, having prayed to Gatumdu for a sign, noting that he will tell his dream to his mother, an interpreter of dreams. Gudea is a patron of the temple, and the dreams relate to the building of the temple.

It is Gudeas position as a ruler that is most significant in this example. As has been noted, stories of rulers, leaders or prophets receiving divine dreams, often with a specific message, are very common in the Ancient Near East, and have become known among scholars simply as message dreams. They usually appear at times of crisis, to a leader or royal figure (or, sometimes, to someone connected with the leader; for example, the vast majority of the dreams recorded in the Mari letters contain messages for the king, and could, therefore, be considered to be royal dreams, even though the dreamer was not royal). The Old Testament also contains numerous examples of message dreams sent to significant figures, sometimes to a prophet rather than a secular leader (though these are often one and the same person). Message dreams in the Ancient Near East are most commonly seen as a divine statement confirming the power of a king, ruler or prophet. As deJong Ellis has noted, various divinatory signs, including oracles, omens and dreams were often used to legitimate a king or ruler. Frequently, Ancient Near Eastern kings would legitimate their power by claiming that it was given to them by a god, and their evidence for this took the form of a dream in which the god spoke to them directly.

These isolated examples of what appears to be incubation, then, are connected with the idea that leaders have a privileged relationship with the gods. From the idea that gods sometimes speak to kings or prophets through their dreams, it is a short step for the leader to deliberately pray for a dream, and to reinforce his prayer with offerings and sleeping near to the god. However, there is no evidence for anyone who is not an important person doing so. The main connection between the dreamer and the god is still the dreamers privileged social position; the location where he sleeps, the offerings and prayers merely reinforce this connection that was already there. There is no evidence of the idea that anyone could receive a divine dream in this way that the ritual, location of sleep and prayer were sufficient for anyone to receive a dream from the god this remains the privilege of leaders. It seems likely that stories like this led to the development of the idea that, if this could work for kings, it might work for anybody, but there is no evidence that such an ideological leap had yet been made.

In Egypt, the funerary ritual of the Opening of the Mouth appears to include a sought dream; the sem-priest sleeps in a workshop and sees a vision of a completed statue. This is part of a long and complicated funerary ritual. The workshop could be construed as a sacred place, being connected with the funeral rites, and the dream could be interpreted as sought, as it seems to be part of a repeated ritual; there is no sacrifice beforehand, but the incident does appear as part of a much longer ritual. This, then, could loosely be described as incubation. However, the oracular purpose of the dream is limited it seems to be designed to help the priests to build the statue correctly. The rite is specifically a funeral rite, so this form of incubation would not be carried out as an everyday activity by people looking for answers to questions or a cure for disease; it is restricted to the correct preparation for a funeral. This practice conforms to the strict definition of incubation outlined above, but does not bear any real similarity to the usual practice of incubation. It is possible, however, that this rite contributed to the later development of the more common form of incubation in Egypt.

One piece of evidence suggests that some Hittites may have practised incubation; a prayer asking the gods to send a dream:

Either let me see it in a dream, or let it be discovered by

divination, or let a divinely inspired man [or, variant, priestess]

declare it, or let all the priests find out by incubation whatever

I demand of them.

It is possible that the Hittites further developed the oneiromantic practices that would eventually coalesce as incubation in nearby Greece. This prayer, the second plague prayer of Mursili II, features several requests for the gods to tell Mursili what to do in a dream; how far such requests are accompanied by a ritual is unclear. Whether the term incubation is entirely appropriate in this context is also uncertain; it will be useful for scholars of Hittite to investigate closely the usage of the Hittite vocabulary.These examples seem to be related to the Greek practice of incubation, and practices like those shown here may have formed part of the development of the practice of incubation in Greece. However, it was with the rise of the cult of Asclepius and the appearance of temples with special chambers for incubation that the practice reached its fully developed form; a practice which anyone who could afford the sacrificial animal could undertake and which people travelled long distances to a specific temple in order to participate in. As is clear from these examples, incubation in Ancient Greece and the ancient world is particularly strongly associated with healing, though there are exceptions, such as the oracle of Trophonius at Lebadeia. The most famous temple where incubation took place was, of course, Epidauros. Pausanias described the shrine at Epidauros in detail, and mentions the inscriptions set up there (Pausanias, 2.27.1-6). He describes the place where the suppliants sleep as being over or across the temple (Pausanias, 2.27.2). The Edelsteins have noted that the inscriptions suggest that the incubant saw the god either in his sleep or in a strange state between sleep and waking, though the majority are clearly asleep. Although it appears to have been at Epidauros that Asclepius was raised to the status of a god, other temples devoted to him were built in other locations in later years. A line in Aristophanes Wasps suggests that there was an incubatory temple of Asclepius on Aegina when the play was performed in 422 BC, as one character forces another to sleep in the temple (Aristophanes, Wasps, 122-123). Asclepius was by no means the only healing god in ancient Greece, and he was a relatively late addition to the pantheon. However, he is the god most commonly found in residence at sites where incubation took place.

Aelius Aristides preferred shrine was the Asclepieion at Pergamum, founded around 350 BC, but there were many more, including those at Cos, Oropos and Athens. The rituals seem to have been similar at the various sites. Pausanias, describing the spring of Amphiaraus at Oropos in the second century AD, notes that the shrine did not normally offer oracles, but that there were interpreters of dreams, the flight of birds and entrails there. He offers the opinion that the shrine originated as a dream-oracle, and describes the ritual for incubation there (Pausanias 1.34.4-5). This oracle is one of the two that Plutarch claims Mardonius tested (Plutarch, Aristides, 19; De Defectu Oraculorum, 5). Archaeological evidence suggests that the Amphiareion was functioning as an incubation site in the fourth century BC, and A. Petropoulou has suggested that it was founded between 420 and 414 BC. One inscription at the site refers to those who seek cure from the god and calls such a person , which Petropoulou translates as incubant. Another inscription at the site explains that whoever is in need of the god will incubate () and that men and women will sleep in separate places (though the text is broken at this point). Pausanias described the ritual at the shrine as including the sacrifice of a sheep, which the incubant would then sleep on; this is supported by a fourth century BC votive relief depicting the incubant sleeping on sheep fleece, though E. Lupu has argued that it was not essential that the victim be a ram, and that sleeping on its skin was not an essential part of the ritual. Another fourth century BC relief depicts both a pig and a sheep being led to sacrifice, while a third century relief depicts the incubant sleeping on what appears to be cloth. Lupu also notes that sacrifice may also have been carried out at other times than immediately preceding incubation, such as, for example, as thanksgiving for a cure, though there is no suggestion that this would take place instead of pre-incubation sacrifice. It is clear that sacrifice of an animal and sleeping in the shrine were both essential elements of the ritual.

The paradigmatic example of incubation is the practice as carried out at Epidauros in the classical period, in the fifth, fourth and third centuries BC. This inscription from Epidauros is typical of the many inscriptions preserved there.

Hagestratus with headaches When he came to the Abaton he

fell asleep and saw a dream. It seemed to him that the god cured

him of his headaches When day came he departed well...

The typical pattern is one of the patient coming to the temple with a long term medical problem (if it is an injury, it is usually an infected injury that doctors have been unable to heal) and sleeping there, seeing the god Asclepius in a dream, often performing some action which may be part of the cure, and waking up and walking out, healed. Some of the inscriptions may have been set up by the priests, possibility recording stories told orally around the sanctuary, and certainly they were set up with the approval of the priests. LiDonnici has concluded that they came from a wide variety of sources. Examples such as this one indicate one of the reasons the priests may have been keen to encourage patients to set up these inscriptions, or may have set some up themselves.

Hermon of Thasus. His blindness was cured by Asclepius. But,

since afterwards he did not bring the thank-offerings, the god

made him blind again. When he came back and slept again in the

temple, he made him well.

It seems fairly clear why a temple priest might want an inscription like this set up, though LiDonnici has noted that , thank-offering, can also mean doctors fee. Another describes how a woman who had doubted that one could be cured through a dream was told by the god in her dream that she must dedicate a silver pig to the temple in memorial of her ignorance, and she was cured. However, the inscriptions are still perhaps the most important evidence we have concerning incubation. They provide numerous examples of people, men, women and children, who came to the temple for a cure, and who apparently walked away happy. Their social class is not mentioned, but their sheer numbers suggest a wide mix of classes.Incubation also forms the backdrop to the notorious writings of Aelius Aristides, who spent many years at the Asclepius shrine at Pergamum, but his Sacred Tales are not simply a record of incubatory practice. Many of the dreams in the Sacred Tales bear more resemblance to message dreams (dreams in which a god or dead person comes to bring a message to the dreamer) or omens in the form of dreams. Aristides is often not specific on where he was when a dream took place, so it is often difficult to tell whether he is describing an incubation dream, experienced while sleeping in a temple, as we know he often did, or an omen-dream, experienced spontaneously while sleeping in a more normal manner. Some simply provide spiritual comfort rather than information (see for example Aristides, Sacred Tales, 1.17). One thing we can say about Aristides dreams is that they are often more successful in glorifying Aristides than the god he is supposedly so devoted to. At one point, he describes how he praised Asclepius, addressing him as the one, meaning the god, but Asclepius turned to him and said it is you, suggesting that Aristides himself had god-like qualities (Aristides, Sacred Tales, 4.50).

Overall, the Sacred Tales seem to represent a work of literature inspired by a lived experience, but which perhaps has more ties to literary concerns than to real life. The Sacred Tales often represent a combination of an aretalogy of the god Ascelpius and a record of Aristides literary career. The gods purpose in sending these dreams is also said to go beyond merely curing Aristides of his illness, or providing temporary relief from his symptoms. Aristides also claimed that Asclepius was encouraging him in his literary career, and so partly attributes his success to the god, while also suggesting to his readers that his career and its direction were divinely inspired and in accordance with the wishes of the god (see for example Aristides, Sacred Tales, 4.25). Aristides did also, according to the Sacred Tales, set up an inscription in a temple to Zeus Asclepius at Pergamum, referring to himself as not unknown and a glorious charioteer of everlasting words; it is clear what his intentions were in setting up this inscription (Aristides, Sacred Tales, 4.45).

Aristides has often been referred to as a hypochondriac, but, reading though the Sacred Tales, he comes across more as a canny orator who used his illness, and the cures and dreams sent to him as a result of this illness by the god, to further his literary career. Aristides comes across as a character who uses his tales of divine dreams to increase his own reputation. This does not necessarily mean that Aristides invented these dreams; rather, it may be that his inflated view of his own importance led him to experience dreams of this nature.From Greece, incubation spread and became increasingly popular. It took off particularly in Hellenistic Egypt, where it was often connected with the god Serapis. Ray has suggested that the appearance of incubation and related practices (such as invocations to the gods to send a dream outside of a temple) in later Egyptian texts represents a clear change in Egyptian thought. Ray connects this with an increasing concern with ones own fate and desire to control it through magic or other means. However, there is a simpler explanation; the dramatic increase in incubation and related practices was the result of invasion from Greece, where this practice reached its fullest developed form. It is clear that most of the evidence relating to incubation in Egypt is Ptolemaic or later. Egyptian ideas about dreams had prepared the ground for the practice of incubation; for example, Szpakowska has suggested that dreams were playing an increasingly important role in religious practice in the New Kingdom, while in literature, Alan Lloyd has noted that dreams become more and more important in Egyptian stories as time goes on. However, it was in the Hellenistic period, under Greek influence, that incubation took root and became popular.

One inscription from Memphis may or may not refer to incubation; the inscription advertises the services of someone who interprets dreams. Although it is not clear whether it is intended to refer to dream-book-style interpretation of everyday dreams, or whether the person interprets dreams experienced during incubation, the site of the inscription, near the Serapeum, suggests the latter. Ray has suggested that one of the texts from the archive of Hor represents incubation, as Hor makes supplications for two days before receiving a dream. However, this may not be incubation, as Hor does not mention sleeping in the temple, though it is clearly a related practice. An oracle of Bes from Roman Egypt appears to have grown up in a temple that, from being a temple of Osiris in more ancient times, hosted an incubation oracle of Serapis during the Hellenistic era. Borgeaud and Volokhine have argued that the cult of Serapis had its origins in dream divination, and it should also be noted that it was Serapis to whom Aristides first turned, before his devotion to Asclepius took hold. Incubation may also have taken place at Roman Dendera, in the small building identified as a sanatorium, but this was chiefly use for cippus healing (using a small stele or amulet). Literature from this period also refers to incubation; the Demotic, Roman period Tale of Setna, for example, features a woman hoping to have a child going to the temple in the hope of a cure in an action which may represent incubation, and a later scene in which a character prays for help and then sleeps in a temple, and receives help from a god through a dream. The last native Pharaoh, Nectanebus, is also depicted as practising incubation in later literature.

It should be noted that the practice of incubation did not die out with the fading of antiquity, but also made its way into Judeo-Christian practice. In Athens, the Asclepieion and its stoa for incubation were converted into a Christian church with a special aisle for incubation and cells where people slept and waited for the saints to come to them in a dream. A possible example of incubatory practice in nearby Italy, and much more recently, was observed at a festival of the Madonna at the beginning of the twentieth century. The practice continues today in Orthodox Christianity. It remains particularly popular in Greece and areas that experience Greek influence.The function of incubation for healing, on the simplest level, is to affect a cure for an illness or injury (oracles such as the oracle of Trophonius have a similar function to that of Delphi, of answering questions, though they perhaps offer an even more memorable experience). Whether the hoped-for miraculous cure was assisted by actual medical practice is hard to say. Certainly, as LiDonnici has pointed out, although some cures may have been the result of the psychological effects of the incubation, many of them cannot be explained in this way. Herzog has argued that, at Cos, the rational physicians worked in the temple alongside the priests; however, Sherwin-White asserts that there is little evidence to support this theory. Some instruments found at Epidauros have sometimes been identified as surgical tools; however, this is perhaps unlikely (pers. comm. Dr. R. Jackson). Hart and Forrest have argued in favour of a relatively close alliance between priest and physician, noting that a coin from Epidauros, minted in the fourth or third century BC, shows an incense burner on an altar, flanked by two cupping vessels, while a bas-relief from Oropos shows a man (Asclepius or a physician?) treating a patients shoulder, and in the background, shows the patient asleep and a serpent licking his shoulder. Kernyi interpreted the human action as the dream, and the snake as the reality; however, the reverse seems more likely to be the case. Not many people, even very sick, devout followers of Asclepius, are likely to lie calmly while a snake licks them, and the image of the patient lying down can be safely assumed to refer to the point at which he is asleep and dreaming. Some inscriptions suggest the possibility that physicians carried out some form of practical medical procedure while the incubants were asleep (and possibly drugged), such as this one.

A man with an abscess in his abdomen. When asleep in the temple,

he saw a dream. It seemed to him that the god ordered the servants who

accompanied him to grip him and hold him tightly so that he could cut

open his abdomen Thereupon Asclepius cut his belly open, removed

the abscess, and, after having stitched him up again, released him

Whereupon he walked out sound, but the floor of the Abaton was covered

with blood.

It is tempting to assume from inscriptions like this one that medical procedures were carried out in the temple. However, it is important to note that not all the inscriptions refer to cures that can be explained by human action, and some explicitly refer to cases where this is impossible. For example, some inscriptions refer to people undertaking an incubation on behalf of someone else. One mother slept in the temple for her daughters sake, and dreamed that her daughter head was cut off by the god, fluid drained from her body, and then her head put back on. The daughter, sleeping at home, saw the same dream, and was cured. Thanks to inscriptions like this, we can say for certain that practical medicine was not necessarily part of the treatment. Patton has further suggested that patients turned to the god and to incubation when all other courses had been tried and failed, citing an example from Epidauros which refers to the patient having despaired of the skills of mortals. This seems a logical supposition; patients who went to the trouble of a pilgrimage to an Asclepius shrine, with all the accompanying sacrifices and gift-offerings, may have been relatively desperate, though Holowchak argues that some of the illnesses and injuries recorded seem to have been less severe, and the patient (perhaps especially if they lived nearby) may have chosen incubation out of preference.

The function of the incubation, then, could be as a supplementary treatment to a practical treatment by a physician, or it could be intended to produce a cure entirely by itself. Although we are not certain how often the former scenario took place, we do know that the latter, in which the incubation is the only treatment undertaken at the shrine, did take place (because it was undertaken on behalf of absent others). Incubation is essentially an act of prayer, asking for a cure; something that could, in theory be carried out anywhere. Kernyi observed that the significance of having a specific god of healing is that all cures, wherever and however they happen, are ultimately attributable to the god of healing, even if they are aided by a human physician. Why, then, make the effort to go to the temple and sleep there? It seems that the idea is based on a belief that the god is more likely to hear and listen to ones prayers if one goes to his home and tries to get as close as possible to the god. It is also completely essential, as we have seen, to make the proper sacrifices and gift offerings to the god, which presumably can only be done in the temple. Sleeping in the temple then becomes a way in which the prayer to the god to cure the affliction is accompanied by an effort to get especially close to the god and to provide a conduit by the which the god can communicate directly with the patient (the dream). The ideas that had slowly developed in Egypt and the ancient Near East, seen in Gudeas dream, the Opening of the Mouth ritual, the Epic of Gilgamesh and so on, eventually coalesced into a ritual practice that could be performed by anybody who could afford the sacrificial offering. I will discuss further the liminal nature of dreams, as a place where mortal and immortal meet, in my forthcoming thesis on dreams and dreaming in the Greco-Roman world.Beckman, G., 2003. Plague Prayers of Mursili II, in W. W. Hallo and K. L. Younger, The Context of Scripture Volume 1: Canonical Compositions from the Biblical World. Leiden and Boston, 156-160.

Behr, C. A., 1968. Aelius Aristides and the Sacred Tales. Amsterdam.

Bernand, E., 1969. Inscriptions Mtriques de lgypte Grco-Romaine: Recherches sur la Posie pigrammatique des Grecs en gypte. Paris.

Boardman, J., Review of Walter Burkert, Babylon, Memphis, Persepolis: Eastern Contexts of Greek Culture, in Common Knowledge, Vol. 12, No. 3, 523.Bourgeaud, P. and Y. Volokhine, 2000. La formation de la lgende de Sarapis: une approche transculturelle, in Archiv fr Religionsgeschichte, 2.1, 37-76.

Burkert, W. (trans. J. Raffan), 1985. Greek Religion: Archaic and Classical. Oxford and Harvard.

Burkert, W. (trans. M. E. Pindar and W. Burkert), 1992. The Orientalizing Revolution: Near Eastern Influence on Greek Culture in the Early Archaic Age. Cambridge and Harvard.

Burkert, W., 2004. Babylon, Memphis, Persepolis: Eastern Contexts of Greek Culture. Harvard.

Butler, S., 1998. Mesopotamian Conceptions of Dreams and Dream Rituals. Mnster.

deJong Ellis, M., 1989. Observations on Mesopotamian Oracles and Prophetic Texts: Literary and Historiographic Considerations, in Journal of Cuneiform Studies, Vol. 41, No. 2, 127-186.

Durand, J-M., 1988. Archives pistolaires de Mari I/1. Paris.

Edelstein, E. J. and L. Edelstein, 1998. Asclepius: Collection and Interpretation of the Testimonies. Baltimore and London.

Edzard, D. O., 1997. Gudea and his Dynasty. Toronto.

Ehrlich, E. L., 1953. Der Traum im Alten Testament (Zeitschrift fr die Alttestament, Wissenschaft Beihefte 73). Berlin.

Finkel, I. L., 1983. The Dream of Kurigalzu and the Tablet of Sins, in Anatolian Studies, Vol. 33 Special Number in honour of the 75th birthday of Dr. R. Barnett, 75-80.

Frankfurter, D., 2005. Voices, Books and Dreams: The Diversification of Divination Media in Late Antique Egypt, in S. I. Johnston and P. T. Struck (eds.), Mantik: Studies in Ancient Divination, Leiden and Boston, 233-254.

Gnuse, R., 1993. The Temple Experience of Jaddus in the Antiquities of Josephus: A Report of Jewish Dream Incubation, in The Jewish Quarterly Review, N.S., Vol. 83, No. 3/4, 349-368.

Graf, F., 2008. Incubation, in H. Cancik and H. Schneider (eds.), Brill's New Pauly, Brill Online, url: http://www.brillonline.nl/subscriber/entry?entry=bnp_e524700 accessed 31/10/08.Gregory, T. E., 1986. The Survival of Paganism in Christian Greece: A Critical Essay, in The American Journal of Philology, Vol. 107, No. 2, 229-242.

Gurney, O. R., 1981. The Babylonians and Hittites, in M. Loewe and C. Blacker (eds.), Divination and Oracles, London, 142-173.

Harrison, M. C., 1908. A Survival of Incubation?, in Folklore, Vol. 19, No. 3, 313-315.

Hart, G. D. and Forrest, M. S. J., 2000. Asclepius: The God of Medicine. London.

Holowchak, M. A., 2002. Ancient Science and Dreams: Oneirology in Greco-Roman Antiquity. Oxford (University Press of America).

Jeffers, A., 1996. Magic and Divination in Ancient Palestine and Syria. Leiden, New York and Kln.

Kirby, J. T., 1995. Review of Charles Penglase, Greek Myths and Mesopotamia: Parallels and Influence in the Homeric Hymns and Hesiod, in Bryn Mawr Classical Review, url http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/bmcr/1995/95.11.14.html, accessed 15.00, 31/10/08.Kenik, H., 1983. Design for Kingship: The Deuteronomistic Narrative Technique in 1 Kings 3: 4-15. Chico, California.

Kernyi, C. (trans. R. Manheim), 1959. Asklepios: Archetypal Image of the Physicians Existence. London.

Kilborne, B., 1987. Dreams, in M. Eliade (ed.-in-chief), The Encyclopedia of Religion, Vol. 4, New York and London, 482-492.

LiDonnici, L. R., 1995. The Epidaurian Miracle Inscriptions: Text, Translation and Commentary. Atlanta.

Lindblom, J., 1961. Theophanies in Holy Places in Hebrew Religion, in Hebrew College Union Annual, Vol. 32, 91-106.

Lloyd, A. B., 2006. Heka, Dreams and Prophecy in Ancient Egyptian Stories, in K. Szpakowska (ed.), Through a Glass Darkly: Magic, Dreams and Prophecy in Ancient Egypt, Swansea, 71-94.

Lupu, E., 2003. Sacrifice at the Amphiareion and a Fragmentary Sacred Law from Oropos, in Hesperia, Vol. 72, No. 3, 321-340.

Margalit, B., 1989. The Ugaritic Poem of AQHT. Berlin and New York.

Nutton, V., 2004. Ancient Medicine. London and New York.

Obermann, J., 1946. How Daniel was Blessed with a Son: An Incubation Scene in Ugaritic, in Journal of the American Oriental Society Supplement 6. Baltimore, 1-30.

Oppenheim, A. L., 1956. The Interpretation of Dreams in the Ancient Near East. With a Translation of an Assyrian Dream-Book, in Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, NS, Vol. 46, No. 3, 179-373.

Patton, K., 2004. A Great and Strange Correction: Intentionality, Locality, and Epiphany in the Category of Dream Incubation, in History of Religions, Vol. 43, No. 3, 194-223.

Perry, B. E., 1966. The Egyptian Legend of Nectanebus, in Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association, Vol. 97, 327-333.

Petropoulou, A., 1981. The Eparche Document and the Early Oracle at Oropus, in Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, Vol. 22, No. 1, 39-63.

Phillips, E. D., 1952. A Hypochondriac and his God, in Greece and Rome, Vol. 21, No. 61, 23-36.

Ray, J. D. (trans.), 1976. The Archive of Hor. London.

Ritner, R. K. (trans.), 2003. The Adventures of Setna and Si-Osire (Setna II), in W. K. Simpson (ed.), Literature of Ancient Egypt: An Anthology of Stories, Instructions, Stelae, Autobiographies and Poetry, Yale, 470-489.

Sasson, J. M., 1983. Mari Dreams, in Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 103, No. 1, 283-293.

Sauneron, S., 1959. Les Songes et leur Interprtation dans lgypte Ancienne, in A.-M. Esnoul, P. Garelli, Y. Hervouet, M. Leibovici, S. Sauneron and J. Yoyotte, Les Songes et leur Interprtation, Sources Orientales II, 19-61.

Seow, C. L., 1984. The Syro-Palestinian Context of Solomons Dream, in The Harvard Theological Review, Vol. 77, No. 2, 141-152.

Shaw, I. and P. Nicholson, 1995. British Museum Dictionary of Ancient Egypt. London.

Sherwin-White, S. M., 1978. Ancient Cos: An Historical Study from the Dorian Settlement to the Imperial Period. Gttingen.

Smith, G. (trans.), 1871. History of Assurbanipal, translated from the Cuneiform Inscriptions. London.

Szpakowska, K., 2003. Behind Closed Eyes: Dreams and Nightmares in Ancient Egypt. Swansea.

Talbot, A.-M., 2002. Pilgrimage to Healing Shrines: The Evidence of Miracle Accounts, in Dumbarton Oaks Papers, Vol. 56, 153-173.

Tylor, E. B., 1871. Primitive Culture: Researches into the Development of Mythology, Philosophy, Religion, Language, Art and Custom. London.Wacht, M., 1997. Inkubation, in Reallexicon fr Antike und Christentum, E. Dassmann (ed.), Vol. 138, 179-266.

West, M. L., 1971. Early Greek Philosophy and the Orient. Oxford. Patton 2004: 197.

See my forthcoming paper in the proceedings of a conference on Medicine in the Ancient Mediterranean World held at the University of Cyprus, 27-29 September 2008. This definition is similar to that given in German by M. Wacht, but Wacht does not emphasise the importance of the ritual element: Inkubation ist religionswissenschaftlich das Sichlagern an heiliger Sttte, um (meist im Traum) ein Orakel oder eine Offenbarung zu empfangern (Wacht 1997: 180).

Kirby 1995; Burkert 2004: 5.

Boardman 2006: 523.

Butler 1998: 224-227.

See Obermann 1946: 3-7.

Sasson 1983: 285. On the debate concerning the provocation of dreams at Mari, see deJong Ellis 1989: 136.

Edzard 1997: 69-70.

See Butler 1998: 17; Durand 1988: 455-482; Oppenheim 1956: 185.

I have discussed the few Old Testament dreams that are often identified as incubation in my forthcoming paper (see n.2 above). I do not believe any of these dreams to have a connection with incubation. See also Wacht 1997: 228-229.

deJong Ellis 1989: 178, 179.

See Szpakowska 2003: 147-151.

Quoted in Gurney 1981: 143, from the Second Plague Prayer of Mursili II, with a variant from the Prayer of Kantuzzili. See also Beckman 2003: 159, which refers to the priests sleeping long and purely (in an incubation oracle).

Edelstein and Edelstein 1998: 150.

See Edelstein and Edelstein 1998: 238.

See further Nutton 2004: 107.

Behr 1968: 27. On the expansion of the cult of Asclepius from Epidauros, see Edelstein and Edlestein 1998: 242-255.

Petropoulou 1981: 39.

Petropoulou 1981: 40-41.

Petropoulou 1981: 49-50.

Lupu 2003: 324. For further details on the precise rituals accompanying incubation, see Burkert 1985: 267-268 and Graf 2008.

Lupu 2003: 324-325.

Lupu 2003: 332.

Edelstein and Edelstein 1998: 235. See also LiDonnicis thematic and linguistic schemata of the miracle inscriptions; LiDonnici 1995: 20-23.

See further LiDonnici 1995: 40.

LiDonnici 1995: 40-49.

Edelstein and Edelstein 1998: 233-234.

LiDonnici 1995: 101.

Edelstein and Edelstein 1998: 230.

See further Pearcy 1988: especially 377-381 and 390-391.

I have followed Behrs translation here; Behr 1968: 264.

For the description of Aristides as a hypochondriac, see in particular Phillips 1952.

Ray 1976: 130.

Szpakowska 2003: 147; 151; Lloyd 2006: 88.

See Bernand 1969: 436.

Ray 1976: 56, 131.

Frankfurter 2005: 238.

Borgeaud and Volokhine 2000: 74; Behr 1968: 21.

See Shaw/Nicholson 1995: 85, 133.

See Sauneron 1959: 41-42; Ritner 2003: 472, 482-483.

See Sauneron 1959: 44-45; Perry 1966: 331.

See Gregory 1986: 238-239.

See Harrison 1908: 314.

See Patton 2004: 196.

LiDonnici 1995: 2.

See Sherwin-White 1978: 275.

Patton refers to these unproblematically as surgical instruments; Patton 2004: 198.

Hart and Forrest 2000: 136.

Kernyi 1959: 36.

Edelstein and Edelstein 1998: 235.

Edelstien and Edlestien 1998: 233. LiDonnici notes that both long-distance cures and incubation on anothers behalf are recurring motifs on this stele, though they do not appear on the other stele with a substantial number of miracle inscriptions; LiDonnici 1995: 101.

Patton 2004: 198.

Holowchak 2002: 156.

Kernyi 1959: 26.