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Sacred Bandages: The Fillet as Instrument of Epiphany in the Epidaurian Miracle Inscriptions

Fillets, woven bands, appeared in a variety of ritual contexts in Ancient Greece. They were dedicated as ex-votos, tied upon the sacrificial victim, wound about sacred architecture, as well as crowned athletic victors and Hellenistic kings (Oakley 2004; Steiner 2001; Lichtenberger et al. 2012). While the symbolism of these objects has been recognized (Smith 1988), fillets have been generally excluded from studies of cultic textiles. The fillet, however, is best understood as an embodied apparatus, which facilitated religious experiences. Analyzing two tales from the 4th century Epidaurian Miracle Inscriptions (IG IV2 I.121.48-54, 54-68 [SIG3 1168]), I argue that the fillet was the instrument through which Asklepios made contact with visitors to his sanctuary.

Along with other accounts of miraculous recovery, the tales under discussion were engraved upon the same stele, likely once erected in the abaton, where visitors desirous of healing would sleep, in the hopes of encountering Asklepios in their dreams (LiDonnici 1995). The first inscription records the vision of an otherwise unknown Pandaros. Pandaros dreams that Asklepios binds him with a fillet, tainia, that removes stigmata from his forehead. Pandaros then dedicates the imprinted fillet to commemorate the epiphany. The second inscription records that, when a certain Echedoros attempts to rob Pandaros, Asklepios binds the former’s head with the dedicated fillet, and, in this way, transfers Pandaros’ stigmata onto Echedoros’ forehead.

The nature of the stigmata transferred between the fillet and the two men is crucial to the meaning of these inscriptions. Stigmata are often designated “tattoos”, but they are also called grammata, “letters”, here (Jones 1987). Tattooing was not a customary practice, but enslaved persons could be tattooed with phrases indicating that they had made attempts to escape their bondage (Bremmer 2015). Building upon this evidence, I contend that Pandaros and Echedoros were enslaved men fleeing oppression, who sought to remove the marks binding them to their owners. I situate the Miracle Inscriptions within the broader context of the dedication of enslaved individuals to Asklepios. Pandaros, in offering the fillet imprinted with his tattoos, simultaneously dedicates himself to the god, and undergoes a form of sacred enfranchisement. Evidence for this kind of cult procedure, sacral fictive sale, exists from other Greek poleis, notably in the hundreds of inscribed manumission decrees dated to the Hellenistic period from Asklepios’ sanctuary at Butrint (Kamen 2014; Cabanes 1995).

These inscriptions raise questions regarding the commemoration of epiphanic experiences, especially since their display in the sanctuary informed the expectations of visitors longing for healing of their own. The agency of the fillet in the dreams is complex. By conducting the transfer of the grammata, the fillet enacts, as well as bears witness to, the divine encounters of Pandaros and Echedoros. In this regard, the accounts attribute to the fillet the capacities of contemporary sealing technologies. Thus, the Miracle Inscriptions record the tainia’s wondrous power and demonstrate how this formerly marginalized textile mediated communication with the gods.