<p>The Temple to Aesculapius (Epidauran Asclepius), built on the Tiber island in 293 B.C. after a serious plague occasioned the introduction of the cult to Rome (Livy 10.47.6-7). From this time on, the *Insula Tiberina acted as a place of refuge and of healing in the Republican city (Guarducci; Brucia 63 f.). Both literary (Varro, <i>Ling.</i> 7.57) and epigraphic (<i>CIL</i> VI 7) evidence suggests that the temple, along with the entire island, underwent a major reconstruction and monumentalization around the mid-1st c. B.C. (Degrassi 1987).</p> <p>The Temple of Aesculapius is believed to have stood on the SE end of the island, probably under the Church of S. Bartolomeo (Richardson; Degrassi, <i>LTUR</i> 21). Although the temple is archaeologically unknown, the mid-1st c. B.C. travertine and tufa revetment at the S tip of the island imitating a trireme prow and its reliefs (head of Aesculapius and a staff entwined with a serpent, see Claridge 227, fig. 105), as well as the terracotta votive offerings from the head of the *Pons Fabricius (Richardson), strongly support this location. It seems likely that a small-scale temple stood at the very S end, directly above the prow. A hexastyle temple within a precinct is often reconstructed, but this is completely hypothetical (Richardson fig. 37; Besnier 317 f. for Renaissance artists’ reconstructions). The Severan Marble Plan suggests that the small precinct was composed of a courtyard enclosed with a series of rooms (Rodríguez Almeida, <i>Forma</i> pl. 42, frag. 32).</p>