At Greek Healing Sanctuaries, the Goddess of Memory Was on the Guest List
Before supplicants could undergo the signature incubation ritual at Asklepios's sanctuaries—spending the night in a dormitory-like building where the god would, in theory, appear in a dream and offer a miracle cure—they were asked to sacrifice to a wide range of other gods.
Mnemosyne, the goddess of memory and mother of the nine Muses, is a particularly baffling presence at some Greek healing sanctuaries: the sources say she was important there, but they do not explain why.
Ahearne-Kroll wrote in a 2014 paper that the question has to be approached indirectly, by working out what it actually meant to remember an encounter with a divinity.
AI-generated discussion · Different perspectives
The tempting move is to make Mnemosyne the goddess of not forgetting a divine encounter, but Ahearne-Kroll's approach is more interesting: first work out what remembering such an encounter meant, then ask why memory had a place at these sanctuaries.
That can sound like a gap dressed as a method. The evidence establishes that Mnemosyne mattered at some healing sanctuaries and that she is the memory goddess; it does not give a reason, so any tidy story about why memory belonged there is speculation.