Epidaurus (Greek: Ἐπίδαυρος) was a small city (polis) in ancient Greece, on the Argolid Peninsula at the Saronic Gulf.

The cult of Asclepius at Epidaurus is attested in the 6th century BC, when the older hill-top sanctuary of Apollo Maleatas was no longer spacious enough.

It was the most celebrated healing centre of the Classical world, the place where ill people went in the hope of being cured.

Asclepius, the most important healer god of antiquity, brought prosperity to the sanctuary, which flourished until the first half of the first century BC, when it suffered extensive damage when it was sacked by Sulla during the First Mithridatic War.

The prosperity brought by the asclepeion enabled Epidaurus to construct civic monuments, including the huge theatre that delighted Pausanias for its symmetry and beauty, used again today for dramatic performances, the ceremonial hestiatoreion (banqueting hall), and a palaestra.

The theatre has long had a reputation for its exceptional acoustics, which reportedly allowed almost perfect intelligibility of unamplified spoken words from the proscenium or skēnē to all 14,000 spectators, regardless of their seating, a tale often recounted by tour guides.

[8] In-situ measurements, however, somewhat moderate these claims: although most sounds can indeed be noticed throughout, intelligibility is not guaranteed, particularly for voice, which requires good projection,[9] which might not have been a problem for Greek actors, who were reputed experts in this aspect.