Sanctuary of Asclepios (Aesculapium)
Agrigento’s Valley of the Temples
It was the Temple of Asclepios that all the sick would attend to receive treatments and advice.
It dates from 400- 390 B.C. It consisted of a cella in antis and of a pronaos with two columns. The building, says Polybius, was eight and a half stadiums away from the city, that is 1480 meters. Cicero asserts that in the temple there was a statue of Apollo, made by Miron, whose name was written with silver letters on one thigh of the masterpiece.
The Temple of Asclepios was a small building: 22,144 meters long and 11,118 wide, it occupied a surface of 246,196 square meters, and its decoration was by far inferior to that of classical Greek temples. The walls are m.0,55; the diameter of the columns is m.1,10.
Excerpts from the guidebook “Agrigento – The Valley of the Temple and the Regional Museum” by Giuseppe Di Giovanni, a companion to most of the visitors of the Valley of The Temples.