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Modern Description: The ancient theatre hosted the singing and instrumental music contests of the Pythian Games. The first stone theatre was built of local limestone in the 4th c. BCE. In 160/159 BC, Eumenes II of Pergamon funded repairs to the theatre, which acquired a more monumental form. The modern form of the theatre dates to the early Roman period (1st c. AD). The cavea, with a total capacity of 5,000 spectators, is divided laterally into two zones of uneven size by a horizontal diazoma. Many seats bear incised letters, a form of seat numbering in Roman times. There are also official titles in the genitive case, such as amphictyonon (“belonging to the members of the amphictyonian council”) and symboulon (“belonging to the counsellors”), as well as proper names of distinguished individuals. The orchestra, 18.50 m in diameter, is encircled by a 2.20-metre-wide passageway. The horseshoe shape and paving of the orchestra floor with unevenly-sized slabs are modifications of the Roman period. Many inscriptions commemorating the emancipation of slaves were carved on the retaining walls of the parodoi between the 2nd c. BC and the 1st c. AD. Of the rectangular stage building only the foundations remain, at a level lower than that of the orchestra. To the north of the main stage rose the proscenium, a small stoa with columns or half-columns, facing the orchestra. In the 1st c. AD the proscenium façade was decorated with a marble frieze carved in relief. The first excavations were undertaken in 1895, by the French School of Archaeology at Athens under the directorship of T. Homolle. (from Diazoma)
Wikidata ID: Q10378966
Trismegistos Geo: 543

Info: ToposText editors

(JBK)

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