Epidaurus

The theatre at Epidaurus stops visitors in their tracks. Not because it is huge, though it is — fourteen thousand seats in a perfect fan of limestone rising up a hillside — but because it is so intact. The Greeks built it in the 4th century BC, and it is still possible to sit where the audience sat, feet on the worn marble, and hear perfectly. School groups test it: a boy stands on the orchestra, the stone circle at the bottom, and drops a coin. The sound, from the very back row, is as crisp as if it had fallen in the ear. Then he speaks a sentence in a normal voice, and every word reaches the top of the cavea. A performer on the stage can be heard by all fourteen thousand seats with no amplification — the theatre's geometry focuses the sound so precisely that even a whisper travels. It is the most humbling demonstration of ancient engineering known. Above the theatre, the rest of the sanctuary stretches across the valley: the remains of the Temple of Asclepius, the god of healing, and the Tholos, a mysterious circular building whose purpose still divides archaeologists. This was the ancient world's great hospital — a place where the sick came to be healed by the god, by doctors, and by the theatre itself, because the Greeks believed that drama was medicine for the soul.

The sanctuary of Asclepius at Epidaurus was the most celebrated healing centre of the ancient Greek world, and its prestige lasted for nearly a thousand years. Asclepius, son of Apollo and a mortal princess, was the god of medicine, and his cult spread across the Mediterranean from this site. The sanctuary grew rich on the offerings of the cured, and in the 4th century BC it was rebuilt and enlarged into the complex whose ruins you see today. The healing ritual, known as incubation, required patients to sleep in the Abaton — the dormitory of the god — where Asclepius appeared to them in their dreams, either to cure them directly or to prescribe a treatment. The priests were also practical physicians: the sanctuary had its own gymnasium for exercise, its baths, its reading room (whose library was said to contain the medical texts of Hippocrates), and a full staff of doctors who combined the god's guidance with real medicine. The fame of the site made it a great Panhellenic festival centre — every four years, the Asclepieia games combined athletics and musical contests. The theatre, begun after the destruction of the Asklepieion temple in 347 BC and rebuilt in the third century BC, is traditionally attributed to Polykleitos the Younger, and seats about 14,000 people and is famous for its extraordinary acoustics — a mathematical harmony of angle, slope, and material that still works perfectly. The sanctuary declined after the Christianisation of the empire; the cult of Asclepius was suppressed in the 4th century AD. The theatre was overgrown and partly collapsed when it was cleared and excavated by the Archaeological Society under Panagiotis Kavvadias in 1884–86, and since 1954 it has hosted the Athens Epidaurus Festival, which brings modern drama back to the stage of the ancients. The site was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1988.

The name is recorded by Stephanus of Byzantium in the sixth century AD. His Ethnica is not a book of stories but a dictionary of Greek place-names, and for this one it says: "It was also called Meilissia and Aimera because the altar of Asklepios was constantly soaked with blood by the sacrifices". "Some say it is also called Limere, 'the one that has meadows'". (Ethnica, s.v. Ἐπίδαυρος).

That is the whole of what an ancient source has to say about how the place got its name. It is a shorter answer than the guidebooks give, and it is the only one with a source behind it.

Epidaurus sits in the Argolid, a region of orange groves and vineyards, and the local cuisine is Peloponnesian comfort food at its best. The port of Nea Epidavros, 15 minutes downhill, is where you should eat — its tavernas serve fish straight off the boats, grilled and dressed only with olive oil and lemon, alongside the inevitable Greek salad. Inland, the Argolid is famous for its orange trees (the valley is full of them), its olive oil, and its lamb — the local kleftiko, slow-cooked in clay, and kontosouvli, spit-roasted pork seasoned with rosemary and thyme, are the dishes to order. Try the local feta, the creamy galotyri, and a spoonful of spoon sweets made from quince and bitter orange. The small town of Lygourio, near the sanctuary, has excellent tavernas and a good local wine from the Agiorgitiko grape of neighbouring Nemea — the red that pairs with everything on this table.

Spring (April to June) and autumn (September to October) are the best times to visit Epidaurus: the theatre is set in a valley of pines and orange trees, and these seasons bring mild temperatures and green surroundings. Summer (July to August) is hot but this is when the Athens Epidaurus Festival is in full swing — if you can time your visit to catch a performance, you will experience the theatre as it was meant to be used, at night under the stars. The acoustics that make a coin audible also carry every note of an opera to the top row. Winter is quiet and the site is almost empty, but some of the festival facilities close.

The sanctuary and theatre stand on the Argolid peninsula about 30 km east of Nafplio, reached by the coastal road in roughly 35-40 minutes. There is no railway service: the nearest station on a working line is Corinth on Hellenic Train's Piraeus-Kiato suburban route, on the far side of the Corinth Canal. From Athens the drive takes the A8 motorway across the canal and then the A7 east, and KTEL Argolida runs buses from Nafplio to the site.

Test the acoustics — it is the whole point. Stand on the orchestra, drop a coin, and listen from the top row; or stay on stage and whisper while a companion climbs to the summit of the cavea. Visit the theatre late in the afternoon, when the light is low and the tour groups have left, and you may have it to yourself. Allow two to three hours for the full site, including the museum — the surgical instruments on display are a startling reminder of how advanced ancient medicine was. The site is about 30 km from Nafplio, the handsome Venetian town that is the best base for the Argolid; combine Epidaurus with Mycenae, 45 minutes away, on a long day. In summer, book festival tickets well in advance — the night performances under the moon sell out months ahead. And one more thing: the orchestra stone circle in the centre of the theatre — the Greeks called it the thymele, the altar. The theatre began as a sacred space, and the healing sanctuary used drama as therapy. When you sit in that perfect silence, you understand why.