Le théâtre d’Aphrodisias: Les structures scéniques

By (author) Nathalie Chaisemartin By (author) Dinu Theodorescu With A. Lemaire With Y. Goubin

Book cover: Le théâtre d’Aphrodisias: Les structures scéniques

Extent: 368 pages

Publisher: Dr. Ludwig Reichert Verlag

Subjects: Architecture, Classical Studies, Mediterranean Archaeology

Series: Aphrodisias

Language: French

Hardback (Published)

(July 2017)

ISBN: 9783954901128

9.06 x 12.2 inches

Price: $118.50

Out of stock

PDF (Published)

(January 2017)

ISBN: 9783954908745

Price: $99.00

The book is dedicated to the Theatre building at Aphrodisias and in particular its stage building. Dated by its two inscriptions between 30 and 27 BC, the theatre’s original stage building stood until its collapse in the seventh century and almost all of the elements of the stage façade were conserved by its transformation into a Byzantine fort.  The volume presents a restoration made from long years of study of the architectural elements. The study is of value to architectural development in the Greco-Roman world and reflects patterns in urban development from the Hellenistic to the Byzantine periods.<br/>


The book is the full publication of the stage structures of the theatre in the Carian city of Aphrodisias. Dedicated by C. Julius Zoilos, freedman of Octavian, between 30 and 27 BC, the theatre’s original stage building was preserved unmodified until its collapse in the seventh century. Almost all of the elements of the stage facade were buried under a Byzantine fort and the modern village of Geyre, until the excavations of Prof. K.Erim in 1964-1971. No other theatre stage facade of the first century BC is preserved in the Mediterranean world. The book begins with an architectural analysis of the theatre’s main structures: a semicircular auditorium, divided into 11 cunei, an arena surrounded by a podium, a marble-paved stage floor resting on a pulpitum-wall and a rectangular stage building fronted in the west by a Doric portico. In 1988 and 1989 several sondages around the stage building and in the arena confirmed the chronology of the monument’s phases which J.M. Reynolds had established on the basis of epigraphic evidence. In the middle imperial period, the theatre was progressively transformed to accommodate gladiatorial games and wild beast hunts. The recording of all the architectural elements permitted a full restoration of the stage facade, its innovative design, and its original decoration. Contemporary with the treatise of Vitruvius, the Aphrodisias theatre allows a more precise evaluation of the relationship between Greek and Roman theatre designs.

  • By (author) Nathalie Chaisemartin
  • By (author) Dinu Theodorescu
  • With A. Lemaire
  • With Y. Goubin