| Abstract |
Cario’s report on Plutus’ miraculous healing by Asclepius is both an intriguing testimony of the incubatio ritual and a comic parody of a tragic messenger-speech. This paper offers a literary close reading of the text with special emphasis on the interruptions by Chremylus’ wife and Cario’s position as fly on the wall. It ends by drawing attention to the remarkable similarity of Cario’s narrative to other, visual or textual (iamata), depictions of incubatio, especially the double healing by both Asclepius (in a dream) and snakes.
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