Theater of the Asklepieion

Epidaurus, Greece
Every modem visitor to the fourth-century-b.c. Theater of the Asklepieion at Epidaurus marvels at its remarkable acoustics. The tearing of a slip of paper, a whisper, or the sound made by a struck match in the orchestra can be heard with perfect clarity everywhere in the theater, even at the very top, 250 feet (80 meters) distant. The theater epitomizes the skill of the ancient Greeks in the creation of a building type. That fact was already recognized in antiquity, when the traveler Pausanias praised its symmetry and beauty. The building is generally attributed to Polykleitos the Younger, and features of the design suggest an original date of around 300 b.c. For about eight centuries the Asklepieion was the preeminent healing center of the classical world. The cult of the god Asklepieos was active in the region as early as the sixth century b.c., and such was its success that the original sanctuary of Apollo Maleatas became too small for public worship. The fame of the place led to financial prosperity. In the fourth and third centuries b.c. an ambitious program to create monumental religious buildings was implemented: first the temple and altar of Asklepieos, the tholos, and the abaton, and a little later the Hestiatoreion, the baths, the palaestra, and the theater. The theater, whose overall diameter was 387 feet (118 meters), was built in two stages: the orchestra, the lower section of seating, and the stage building (skene, from which our word scenery