Epidaurus Theatre

healing, architecture

The best-preserved ancient Greek theatre, built within the sanctuary of Asclepius at Epidaurus, whose acoustics remain unmatched after 2,300 years.

Healing sanctuary of Asclepius

Epidaurus was the most famous healing sanctuary in Greece, sacred to Asclepius, where patients slept in the temple and received divine cures in their dreams.

Medicine, healing, physicians

Roman god of medicine and healing, adopted from the Greek Asclepius

Site of the Mysteries

Eleusis was a sacred city near Athens, home to the Eleusinian Mysteries — the most important secret religious rites in the ancient Greek world.

Site of the Olympic Games

Olympia was the sanctuary in the Peloponnese where the ancient Olympic Games were held every four years for over a thousand years — the most important athletic and religious festival in Greece.

Home of the greatest Mystery cult

The Telesterion at Eleusis was the great hall where thousands were simultaneously initiated into the Mysteries — one of antiquity's best-kept secrets.

Sacred geography

A Boeotian city near Mount Helicon famous for its cult of Eros and the sanctuary of the Muses

geography

The sanctuary of Apollo at Claros near Colophon in Ionia, one of the three great oracles of the Greek world.

soothing of pain, healing, comfort

Goddess of the soothing of pain, wife of Asclepius and mother of the healing deities who attended his cult at Epidaurus.

Language and performance

An English word for a place of dramatic performance, derived from the Greek theatron meaning "viewing place," invented at the festivals of Dionysus in Athens

God of medicine and healing

Asclepius began as a mortal hero trained by Chiron who became so skilled at medicine that he could raise the dead — Zeus struck him down, then deified him.

Paradise for the blessed dead

The paradise at the edge of the world where heroes and the virtuous spent eternity in perfect happiness. Also called the Elysian Fields or the Isles of the Blessed.