Hypnos/Somnus and Oneiros As Evidence for Incubation at Asklepieia: a Reassessment
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Appendix XI Hypnos/Somnus and Oneiros as Evidence for Incubation at Asklepieia: A Reassessment It was common in Greek religion for multiple divinities to be worshiped jointly at a cult site, sometimes as equals and sometimes with one divinity (or a pair) predominant, and this phenomenon is clearly evident in the cult of Asklepios. While he was primarily associated with Hygieia, his daughter and frequent companion, he was also worshiped with other divinities, some of them mem- bers of his family and others unrelated. Of particular interest is the repeated association of Asklepios with two minor, personified divinities whose areas of jurisdiction were crucial to incubation, but who nonetheless may have had no role in actual cult practices at Asklepieia: Sleep and Dream. Both the Greek Hypnos (“Sleep”) and his Roman equivalent Somnus as well as the Greek Oneiros (“Dream”) have repeatedly but vaguely been linked to incubation by scholars, and even used to argue explicitly or implicitly that incubation was practiced at a particular sanctuary because the presence of one or both was recorded in literature or revealed by the discovery of a sculpture or inscrip- tion. A role for one or both gods in incubation is certainly plausible, and indeed understandably tempting to assume, but the limited and questionable nature of the evidence must be recognized, and merits careful examination. In par- ticular, there is no evidence pointing to a role, active or passive, for Hypnos/ Somnus in the rituals required for incubation at any site, while Oneiros is not known ever to have even been the focus of worship anywhere and therefore is quite unlikely to have received prayers or offerings as part of incubatory rituals or been credited with bringing dreams.1 With or without worshipers, Oneiros was a minor figure, and less popular among poets and artists than Hypnos/ Somnus, but the bulk of the evidence for both divinities is artistic and liter- ary, with Pausanias the only author providing historical information, while what little physical evidence originated in a cultic context is not especially 1 Only a single source suggests an active role for both gods in dream-divination, but it is hardly a reliable one: in Lucian’s Twice Accused there is a brief reference to Hypnos and Oneiros spending the night benefitting humanity, with Oneiros acting as Hypnos’s “interpreter” or “pronouncer” (ὑποφητεύοντα αὐτῷ) (Lucian, Bis. Acc. 1). © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���7 | doi ��.��63/9789004330�38_0�� 678 Appendix XI informative.2 If one or both played even a limited role in incubation rituals anywhere—perhaps being among the gods receiving cakes (as at Pergamon), or described as accompanying a healing god in a therapeutic dream (as Panakeia and Iaso do in Aristophanes’s Plutus), or shown in a relief featuring an incuba- tion scene (as occurs in certain Attic reliefs), or listed with other gods on an altar (like the one at Oropos naming more than a dozen gods and heroes associ- ated with Amphiaraos there)—evidence for it does not survive.3 The only sort 2 Until Stafford’s important article more than a decade ago there had not been a study of Hypnos/Somnus looking at his cult instead of merely his representation in art and role in myth (Stafford 2003). Other studies of note are: Shapiro 1993, 132–158 (with 246–254, Nos. 65–105) and the two pertinent Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae articles (Lochin 1990 and Bažant 1997), for Hypnos/Somnus in art; Gschaid 1994, 430–433, for representations of Somnus in Gaul; and Wöhrle 1995, for Hypnos in literature; see also Jolles 1914, 325–326. For Oneiros, see Erika Simon’s brief LIMC entry (Simon (E.) 1994), which demonstrates how truly limited the sources are, and Piettre 1997, with a focus on Oneiros in Homer; cf. Türk 1897–1902, 900–902. Oneiros’s minimal presence in art is reflected in the fact that this LIMC entry features no object representing him as a god, and includes only a single artifact: a vessel dating c. 540–535 BCE that features two winged figures thought to be dreams, as opposed to the god of dreams (Copenhagen, N.M. 13521 (= LIMC VII, “Oneiros, Oneiroi,” No. 4 + photo)). More recently, Juliette Harrisson has also discussed Oneiros briefly, noting that he was a liter- ary fiction with no cult (Harrisson 2013, 35). In contrast to Oneiros, Hypnos can be found in a number of works of art dating from the Archaic through Roman periods. Hypnos in earlier Greek art was usually shown as a winged demon bringing sleep to someone, but by Roman times had come to be a passive figure who was himself asleep, and also as a winged infant— whose wings would be folded on his back when asleep—artistically assimilated with Eros (see Bažant, ibid.; cf. Stafford, ibid., 88–89). In the Latin West, Hypnos went by the Latin name Somnus and did not have a cult in Rome, but became popular in Gaul and could be found elsewhere as well; Oneiros, however, had no Roman equivalent (i.e., no “Somnius”). In certain circles Hypnos also appears to have become assimilated with the Egyptian god Tutu (Tithoēs to the Greeks), a multifaceted divin- ity who in Egypt could have an oracular function, but also was among those who would func- tion as a guardian of sleep (see Quaegebeur 1977b and Kaper 2003, 64–65, 151–152; see p. 590). This is demonstrated by an unusual second-century CE dedicatory relief from Amphipolis that represents a monstrous figure with the heads of a sphinx, cow and crocodile and was dedicated to “Totoēs the god-daimon Sleep” (ἱερητεύοντος | Ζωΐλου τοῦ | Κασσάνδρου || Τοτοήτι θεοδαίμονι | Ὕπνωι Πόπλιος Κλώδιος | Σέλευκος τὴν εὐχήν) (Budapest, Fine Arts Inv. No. 50.958 (= LIMC VIII, “Tithoes,” No. 5 + photo = Kaper 2003, 311–313, No. S-16, cf. Kaper 2012, 84); inscription Demitsas, Makedonia 861+871 (= RICIS 113/0910); see also O.E. Kaper, in Ägypten Griechenland Rom, 612–613, No. 190 + color photo). (For Hypnos’s familial association with the Egyptian god Horus, see p. 356n.47.) 3 Pergamon cakes: I.Pergamon 3, 161 (see pp. 193–195). Aristophanes: Ar., Plut. 701–703 (see pp. 223–224). Incubation reliefs: see Appendix VIII. Oropos altar: Paus. 1.34.3 (see p. 281n.22)..