|
The auditorium of the Theatre of
Dionysos is the most important building on the Southern
Slope of the Acropolis. It was the place where the
famous tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides
and the comedies of Aristophanes were first performed in
the 5th century BC. Experts disagree on the exact form
of the auditorium at that time, but it is believed to
have been smaller and simpler, and perhaps not
semicircular. The auditorium only reached its present
size when it was rebuilt in stone in the following |
century. The ambitious rebuilding is
attributed to Lykourgos, who controlled public
investment in Athens from 338 to 324 BC.
The irregular overall shape of the auditorium is
a consequence of the restrictions of the site: on the south the retaining walls
of the parodoi (passages), on the east the Odeion of Perikles (5th century BC),
on the west and part of the north sides further retaining walls, and on the
north the katatome, the curve cut into the rock of the Acropolis. The auditorium
is divided into two parts by the Peripatos, a public road which also served as a
diazoma, a corridor through the Theatre.
Fourteen staircases in a radiating arrangement divide the auditorium into
thirteen cunei (segments). The rows of seats consist of large finely carved
blocksof limestone, quarried at the coast of Piraeus. The seats of the front row
are exquisite examples of marble carving. The most elaborate seat,in the middle,
was reserved for the priest of Dionysos, the god to whom the Theatre was
dedicated.
The Theatre of Dionysos became derelict following the fall of the Roman Empire
in the 5th century AD and its features gradually disappeared over the following
centuries. It was rediscovered by excavation between 1862 and 1895.
|