Bauphasen des kaiserzeitlichen Asklepieions von Pergamon

Mit einem Beitrag von Michael Wörrle

Abstract

In his edition of the inscriptions from the Asclepeion (AvP 8, 3 [1969]) Ch. Habicht put forward – on seemingly good grounds – the thesis that the Imperial-era structures of the Sanctuary of Asclepius which had until then been regarded as Antonine (the theatre, the stoas, the so-called Library, the propylon including the colonnaded street, the Upper and Lower Rotunda) were part of a grandiose master plan that derived from the initiative of Emperor Hadrian. He thus dates all the buildings to the period from 123 to 138. This has become the communis opinio, confirmed only recently by A. Hoffmann (in AvP 11, 5 [2011]). However, close inspection of certain inscriptions, the relative construction sequences and above all the differing ornamentation of these buildings produces different findings: the structures, erected by various Pergamene benefactors, were built in succession, starting with the late Flavian-early Trajanic theatre and ending with the Lower Rotunda, built ca. 150–160, which proves to have been, not a »large building for curing the sick«, but a festival hall for ritual feasts.