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Both the architecture of the theatre at Epidaurus and its status as a 'place of healing', have a significant place in the Dionysian vs. Apollonian dichotomy, particularly when the regular, mathematically precise architecture of this particular space is set against that of the more anarchic and irregular layout of the first Theatre of Dionysus in Athens.
The opposition of forces between a regularising and harmonious Hellenic deity (such as Apollo), and an irregular, disordered outsider (such as Dionysus) was first articulated by Friedrich Nietzsche in The Birth of Tragedy.
As theatre historians and critics such as David Wiles have recently shown however, it is not only the tragedies presented within the Theatre of Dionysus that pitted the Apollonian against the Dionysian, but that the debate has also figured in scholarly attempts to regularise the architecture of ancient theatrical spaces.
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