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Allyson Schiller
The 381
Christian Wittwer
October 6, 2015
The Theatre of Epidaurus
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Epidaurus is the most beautiful and well preserved of the ancient Greek
theaters. It has a capacity of 14,000 spectators, set up in 2 sections. It was built by
Polykletios the Younger in 4th Century BC. Due to the well-preserved construction
and the incredible acoustics, an entire festival was created around the theater.
Entitled the Epidaurus Festival, it is “an institution that contributes to the cultural
revival of the theatre” (Great Theater of Epidaurus). The Theatre of Epidaurus is
located within a sacred Greek sanctuary. It is a part of the sanctuary of Asclepius,
who was the god of medicine, in the town of Epidaurus. It was an important sacred
center in both ancient Greek and Roman times.
The town of Epidaurus is home to a well-preserved sanctuary for the god
Asclepius that is still being excavated to this day. It was said to be a holy place, and
people from all over Greece hoping to find alleviation of their ailments visited it.
“Greek geographer Pausanias, of the second century C.E., wrote that at Epidaurus
‘there is the most remarkable theater of the ancient world. Although Roman
theaters are more magnificent and imperial, no architect can compete with the
beauty and the harmony of the Epidaurus Theater’.” (Awake! Correspondent)
The legend of Asclepius is that he was the son of Apollo, saved from his dying
mother’s womb in the first-ever recorded caesarian-section, and then sent to be
raised by a centaur. This centaur, Chiron, was famous for his skills with medicine,
which he taught to Asclepius. Once Asclepius grew up, he became a highly regarded
healer with exceptional skills. Along with the art of surgery, he had learned about
the effective use of drugs, incantations, aphrodisiacs and other aids to healing. It was
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also said that the goddess Athena gave him a small bottle of Gorgon blood with
magical properties that allowed him to raise people from the dead.
Asclepius was always portrayed as a man with a snake wrapped around a
rod, because snakebites were the hardest thing to cure, and he had the power to do
so. Non-poisonous snakes were also known to be lucky creatures. Since Asclepius
went around from town to town curing people of ailments and bringing them back
to life, Zeus got angry. He saw this happening and said that these people that were
supposed to have died were stolen from Hades, who was angry at Zeus for allowing
it. Because of this, Zeus struck Asclepius with his thunderbolt, killing him. Although
this had to happen to restore balance, Zeus realized that Asclepius was helping
humankind by curing them, so he decided to turn him into a constellation in the sky
to continue living among the gods.
After Asclepius’s death, people erected statues of him and he gained a large
following. People continued to visit Epidaurus, his birthplace, and soon after
sanctuary, to seek help from ailments. Others went to learn the art of medicine. To
find out the right treatment for them, a person would sleep in the sanctuary
overnight and Asclepius would come to them in their dreams. The sanctuary
allowed non-poisonous snakes to roam free around those suffering to give them
good luck. They would then go to a healer who would tell them what their dreams
meant. The theatre at Epidaurus was created as a place for entertainment for those
at the sanctuary, so there was activity for them while they were healing, and so that
there was a centralized place for everyone to go.
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The set up of the theatre at Epidaurus is extremely interesting in its
construction. It is distinguishable due to its architectural symmetry in every aspect
of the building, and by its acoustics that were well ahead of their time. The theatre
was created in 2 stages, originally built by the Greeks as a 34-row theater, and then
continued by the Romans by adding another set of rows. In its entirety, there is a
section of 21-rows of seats aimed for the citizens, and a section of 34-rows of seats
aimed for the priests and rulers (Epidaurus).
The theater at Epidaurus is one of many excavated ancient Greek theaters,
but it is also one of the only ones that were practically completely in tact when
discovered. The official discovery of Epidaurus was in 1881, by Panagís Kavadías
and the excavation continued under his lead until his death. It was then taken over
by the Archeological Society. Epidaurus was one of the few theaters that did not
have any major destruction, or reconstruction to it, because it had been buried
under almost twenty feet of soil up until it was discovered in 1881 (Ancient Theater
in Epidaurus).
One very interesting fact about the theatre is that it is an acoustic marvel. It
was either a stroke of genius or an astounding accident that the theatre was set up
in the way that it was. The surprise to everyone that saw it was that the reasoning
behind the acoustics was not anything that you would expect. There was no specific
angle that the wind blew to carry the sound, like some ancient peoples thought, and
it had nothing to do with the angle of the seating itself. It was the actual material
used to build the theatre. The limestone seats were built in a way that filters out
low-frequency background noise, and reflects high-frequency noise, like what
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happens onstage (Georgia Institute of Technology). You can hear an actor’s voice
from the stage, even sitting in the back row.
The person that made this discovery, Nico Declercq, is an acoustician and
ultrasonics expert. Going into this project, he as well had the wrong idea about how
the acoustics were set up. “When I first tackled this problem, I thought that the
effect of the splendid acoustics was due to surface waves climbing the theater with
almost no damping,” Declercq said. “While the voices of the performers were being
carried, I didn’t anticipate that the low frequencies of speech were also filtered out
to some extent”(Georgia Institute of Technology). One of the fascinating things that
was found out about the setup of this theatre is that even though some low
frequencies of the actor’s voices are being blocked out as well, you as the audience
member do not notice this because the human brain has the ability to reconstruct
the missing frequencies through a phenomenon called virtual pitch. This is when
you do not hear the whole sound that is produced, but your brain finishes it for you.
Once the theatre was excavated along with all the grounds of the sanctuary, a
festival was created for performances in that theatre. In 1954, the Athens Epidaurus
Festival began, where plays both ancient and modern were performed. Originally,
the theatre was reserved for exclusive use of the National Theatre, but over the
years starting in 1975, the festival began hosting both Greek and modern art, calling
in international theatre companies and young new artists. “In the Epidaurus Festival
distinguished artists will take up the challenge of ancient tragedy, continuing, yet
also renewing, a modern-day tradition that is already six decades old” (Epidaurus
festival).
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Due to the misunderstanding of its acoustic system in the time of the Greeks,
Epidaurus could never be copied, and gradually that style of theater became less and
less produced. Due to it’s incredible reputation because of the seating and acoustics,
people travel from all over the world to come see events take place in this theatre. It
is described as one of the most beautiful and harmonious theaters in the ancient
times (Awake! Correspondent). They know that it is a spectacular phenomenon that
was created, and because of the festivals and events now hosted there, the
excitement of theater and the intrigue of this particular one’s setup can be enjoyed
by all people.
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Works Cited
"Ancient Theatre in Epidaurus - Greeka.com." Greeka. Greece, n.d. Web. 12 Oct. 2015.
"Asclepius the Healing God." About.com Education. About Education, n.d. Web. 12 Oct. 2015.
Awake! Correspondent in Greece. "The Theater of Epidaurus-Intact Throughout the
Centuries." Watchtower ONLINE LIBRARY. N.p., 2000. Web. 12 Oct. 2015.
Bagnall, Roger S. The Encyclopedia of Ancient History. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013.
Print
"Epidaurus." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 7 Oct. 2015. Web. 13 Oct. 2015.
Flickinger, Roy C. The Greek Theater and Its Drama. Chicago: U of Chicago, 1960. Print.
Georgia Institute of Technology. "Ancient Greek Amphitheater: Why You Can Hear From
Back Row." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 6 April 2007.
<www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/04/070404162237.htm>.
"The Great Theater of Epidaurus." Epidavros. Epidaurus Municipality, n.d. Web. 12 Oct. 2015.
"History." Athens & Epidaurus Festival 2015. Greek Festival S.A., n.d. Web. 12 Oct. 2015.
"Myth of Asclepius, the God of Medicine - Greeka.com." Greeka. Greece, n.d. Web. 12 Oct.
2015.