Aspendos Theatre
Roman theatre of about AD 155 near Antalya, with its stage building standing almost intact.
The theatre of Aspendos stands at the edge of a Greco-Roman city on the Eurymedon river, some 45 kilometres east of Antalya. An inscription records that it was built during the reign of Marcus Aurelius, about AD 155, by the local architect Zenon, son of Theodorus, and paid for by two brothers of the city. Because the Seljuks later adapted the building as a caravanserai and kept it in repair, it survives more completely than almost any other Roman theatre in the Mediterranean.
The semicircular seating is cut partly into the hillside and partly carried on vaults, holding in the order of 7,000 spectators on rows divided by a broad walkway. Unusually for a Roman theatre, the stage building survives to its full height, retaining the doorways, niches and part of the decorative entablature that once framed the scaenae frons. The wider archaeological site includes a stadium, an agora, a basilica and a long aqueduct with two surviving pressure towers.
Highlights
- Among the best-preserved Roman theatres in the Mediterranean
- Stage building standing to its full height, with niches and doorways
- Built about AD 155 by the architect Zenon, son of Theodorus
- Aqueduct, stadium and agora of the ancient city close by
