Asklepieion

Some ancient towns in Southern Italy, in Sicily and in Spain show us examples of the changes in the educational system from Greece to Rome. These changes apply to the architectural aspects, too.

Specifically, the building at Paestum, in which some scholars have identified the Asklepieion (Ancient Greek: Ἀσκληπιεῖον Asklepieion; Ἀσκλαπιεῖον in Doric dialect, Latin aesculapīum), must be actually considered as the civic gymnasium, because its architectural features are similar to the ones of several well-identified gymnasiums, such as those at Delphi and Delos. 

In ancient Greece and Rome, an asclepeion was a healing temple, sacred to the god Asclepius, the Greek god of medicine. These healing temples were a place where patients were visited to receive a cure or some sort of healing, be it spiritual or physical.

In the late third century B.C. or in the early second century B.C., the Poseidonian gymnasium changed its destination and its gymnastic functions passed to the Roman campus, created to satisfy the needs of the Roman youth (iuventus) that reached Paestum after 273 B.C., when the new Latin colony was founded.