The name Epidaurus reaches back to mythology and history simultaneously. The city was reputedly founded by or named for Epidauros, a hero said to be the son of Apollo — the same divine genealogy that would make Asclepius, son of Apollo, the perfect deity for this place. Strabo recorded that the settlement had earlier names reflecting successive conquests: Epíkaros under the Carians, Epítauros when the Ionians took it, and finally Epídauros after the Dorians arrived.

Epidaurus was independent of neighboring Argos through most of its ancient history, governing a small surrounding territory called Epidauria. It was never a major military power or a great trading city in the conventional sense. Its importance derived entirely from the sanctuary situated about eight kilometers from the town itself — a sanctuary so celebrated that it drew visitors, revenue, and influence that the city could not have generated on its own.

The cult of Asclepius at Epidaurus is attested as early as the sixth century BC, when the older hilltop sanctuary of Apollo Maleatas had grown too crowded to accommodate the demand. The healing cult relocated downhill, and in time Epidaurus became synonymous with it.

The practice at Epidaurus combined religion, ritual, and something that looks, in retrospect, remarkably like medicine. Patients who arrived at the sanctuary underwent purification — bathing, dietary restrictions, sacrifices — before entering the enkoimeteria to sleep. In their dreams, Asclepius was said to appear and prescribe treatment: herbs, bathing in the mineral springs nearby, exercise. Whether the cures worked through divine intervention, the placebo effect of deeply held belief, or the practical benefits of rest, clean water, and Mediterranean climate, the sanctuary's reputation was formidable.

The sanctuary complex that supported this practice was extensive. There was a guest house, the katagogion, with 160 rooms for patients and their families. There were mineral springs. There was an abaton — a covered stoa where supplicants slept awaiting the god's visitation. And there was the theatre, built from the prosperity that the sanctuary generated, providing music and dramatic performances that the Greeks believed contributed to healing. Asclepius himself was understood as the most important healer god of antiquity, and his sanctuary at Epidaurus was the center of a network of healing centers that spread across the Greco-Roman world.

The sanctuary's prosperity lasted until the first century BC, when the Roman general Sulla sacked it during the First Mithridatic War, inflicting extensive damage. Recovery was slow. When the Emperor Hadrian visited in AD 124, his patronage helped revive the sanctuary's fortunes, and it enjoyed renewed activity in the following centuries. By then, Asclepius had become a figure of veneration across the Roman Empire, and Epidaurus was a pilgrimage destination in an empire-wide network.

The Goths raided the sanctuary in AD 395. Christianity brought new framing to healing and new competition to the old sanctuaries. Yet the site at Epidaurus was still functioning as a Christian healing center as late as the mid-fifth century, its curative reputation outlasting the cult that had generated it. The buildings deteriorated over subsequent centuries, and the site was eventually buried — a burial that, as at the nearby theatre, proved to be a form of preservation.

Of everything Epidaurus produced, it is the theatre that endures most vividly. Designed by Polykleitos the Younger in the fourth century BC, it originally had 34 rows of seating; Roman builders added 21 more, bringing capacity to approximately 14,000. Its acoustic properties have made it famous: sounds from the stage carry to every seat without amplification, though the full effect requires the kind of trained vocal projection at which Greek actors excelled.

Excavations beginning in 1881 revealed the theatre in near-complete condition, protected by the soil and vegetation that had accumulated over it. Restoration work in the early and mid-twentieth century brought it back to active use, and since 1955 the Epidaurus Festival has brought ancient drama back to the stage each summer. The UNESCO World Heritage listing in 1988 recognized both the theatre and the sanctuary for their architecture and their role in spreading the idea of healing institutions across the ancient world.

Today, performances take place on the same stones where Greek tragedies were first staged 2,400 years ago, in a landscape the ancient Greeks understood as inseparable from the experience of watching them.