The Theatre at Miletus, Turkey
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The ancient port city of Miletus is located at the mouth of the Meander River on the Aegean coast of present-day Turkey. Due to the silting up of the ancient harbours, Miletus now lies 9 kilometers from the sea. Miletus' theatre was built on a hill by sea, overlooking what is known as the Theater Harbor. The theatre had four construction phases in the Hellenistic period and was also renovated under the Romans.- The theatre was first built ca. 300 BC. The one or two-story skene was built along the city wall and may have had a proscenium with Doric half-columns like the theatre at Priene. During the second construction phase, from c. 300-250 BC, the skene was lengthened and by this time definitely had two stories. Four doors were built in the lower story of the skene and three in the upper. At this point the proscenium was probably longer than the stage and had sixteen columns. During the third stage, sometime before 150 BC, extensions to either side of the skene (paraskenia) were added. A central door was built in the lower story of the skene, and five thyromata were added to the upper story in order to accommodate the demands of the "New Comedy."
- The largest Hellenistic theatre sat approximately 5300 spectators. The Romans vastly enlarged the theatre after 133 BC, building three stories of seats that reached a height of forty meters and sat 15,000 spectators. In the Roman period all but the central doorway in the lower story of the skene were bricked in, as they were below the stage and no longer needed. The Romans also built a podium (logeion or stage) in front of the proscenium in order to provide a raised performance space. Later, the orchestra was lowered so that it could better accommodate gladiatorial displays and animal hunts and baitings.
- In the Byzantine period, defensive walls were constructed across the theatre and destroyed the stage building. The theatre was further damaged in the 12th century when the upper tier of cavea seating was removed and recycled as construction material for a citadel. Long before this date, the theatre as well as the city of Miletus had ceased to function as a cultural center. The harbors had become increasingly inaccessible due to silt deposits; marsh swamps and malaria infested the city and the population diminished accordingly.
- The Milesian theatre as it survives is Greco-Roman, with a high but deep stage. The cavea is semicircular, with two diazomata. The first two tiers each had nineteen rows of seats. There were twenty rows in the third tier, which has been destroyed. Four columns, standing in place today in the center of the first story, held up a baldachin (ornate canopy) to shelter the Emperor and his family. The columns were erected in 164 AD for a visit of Empress Faustina, the wife of Marcus Aurelius. Barrel-vaulted passageways ran behind the second and third stories of seats, opening at each end of the diazomata. Regularly spaced exits (vomitoria or aditus) along the length of the praecinctiones allowed audience access to and from the various seating sections of the cavea. The praecinctiones ran parallel to and underneath the rows of seats and supported the upper levels of the cavea; the slope of the hillside supported the lower level. The western entrance has stairs, but stairs were not necessary at the eastern entrance due to the natural slope of the hillside.
- After the Roman addition of the podium (logeion), the stage was only thirteen feet from the center of the orchestra. The sceanae frons (stage house façade) intersects the Vitruvian "basic circle" of the orchestra by five and one-half feet, although this distance is mostly made up for by the reduction in orchestra diameter from the addition of a drain. The Roman scaenae frons had seven thyromata and was decorated with columns and statuary. Some decorative reliefs have survived including a hunting scene with Eros and a column base with relief carvings of a tripod cauldron and griffons. Several inscriptions from the theatre have also survived. One, from the Emperor Claudius in 48 AD, dedicates the theatre "to the sacred visitors and performers dedicated to Dionysus." Another from Commodus (161-192 AD) celebrates the victory of a lyre player at a contest in Didyma. The most unusual inscription records a dispute between workers and bosses during one phase of the construction of the theatre, which was resolved by the oracle of Apollo at Didyma. An inscription on the seats marks "the place of the goldsmiths of the Blues." The Blues and Greens are the infamous rival factions of the Byzantine world.
- The first excavations at Miletus were carried out under Theodore Weigand for the Berlin Museum. He was in charge of excavations until the First World War broke out. Excavations were resumed in 1938 and continued after Second World War by G. Klieiner. He was succeeded by Wolfgang Muller-Weiner. The excavations are currently under the direction of Volkmar von Grave for the German Institute of Archaeology. The German excavators removed the Byzantine wall that previously obscured the stage.
- - Author: Amanda Heffernan (student research assistant), Whitman College. 2003
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- Bibliography:
- Akurgal, Ekrem. Ancient Civilization and Ruins of Turkey. 9th ed. Istanbul: Net Turistik Yayinlar, 2001.
- Allsopp, Bruce. A History of Classical Architecture. London: Sir Isaac Pitman and Sons, 1965.
- Bean, George. Aegean Turkey: An Archaeological Guide. London: Earnest Benn Ltd., 1966.
- Cormack, Sarah. "Miletus, Theater." Perseus Digital Library Building Catalog. Accessed July 14, 2003. Available at: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/.
- Dinsmoor, William Bell. The Architecture of Ancient Greece: An Account of its Historic Development. Reprint of 1950 rev. ed. New York: W.W. Norton and Co., 1975.
- McDonagh, Bernard. Blue Guide Turkey. London: A&C Black, 2001.
- Milet Museum. "The Theater." Accessed July 15, 2003. Available at: http://www.geocities.com/miletmuseum/theatre.htm
- Republic of Turkey, Ministry of Culture - Miletus. "Miletus." Accessed November 21, 2003. Available at: www.kultur.gov.
- Türkoglu, Sabahattin. Pamukkale Hierapolis. 3rd ed. Istanbul: Net Turistik Yayinlar, 1996.
- Yamauchi, Edwin. The Archaeology of New Testament Cities in Western Asia Minor. Baker Studies in Biblical Archaeology. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1980.
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- Copyright © 2004 Thomas G. Hines, Whitman College. All Rights Reserved - Last Updade: 1/20/04