Theatre at Syracusa in Sicily (designed in the 5th century by the Greek architect Damacopos, and enlarged in 3rd and 2nd centuries; this is the largest theatre in Sicily). Aeschylus is said to have produced some of his works for the first time here. There are caves just barely visible on the top ridge of this photo, above the theatroi; these cave held shrines to heroes and gods.
To the left is the inside of one of these hero shrines at the theatre at Syracusa, now known as the Grotta del Museion (shrine of the muses) pictured here complete with modern-day hero-cult worshippers (scoff!).
In the top left of the picture to the right you can just make out the similar shrines at the back of the Theatre of Dionysus in Athens. These seem to be under repair at the moment.
This is the theatre at Taormina in Sicily (second largest in Sicily). Originally built in the 3rd century BC, it was rebuilt in the 2nd by the Romans. Taorminans boast that the skene is the best preserved in the world but it is clearly mostly Roman reconstruction.
To the right is the Roman theatre in Athens. You can see the similarity in the two skenes. The columns in the one at Taormina perhaps suggest the older Greek theatre.
Left is the theatre at Segesta (3rd Century BC), in the northwest of Sicily. Like many ancient theatres the theatroi [triangular segments of seating] have been refurbished and the theatre is used as an outdoor venue during summer evenings. Though in many ways unfortunate in terms of authenticity, the refurbishments do at least give a practical definition to the orchestra [semicircular performance surface] and to the paradoi [entrance / exit corridors to the side of the stage].
The same is again true of this theatre in Morgantina, central Sicily (4th century BC). Unfortunately what this does not show (my camera battery died) is the proximity to other religious shrines. Not at the back of the theatre as in Athens and Syracusa, but to the left of this picture in the greater city complex. The nearest building is the shrine comlex to Demeter and Persephone. What also becomes really clear in a small city like the one here at Morgantina is that the divide between business, politics, religion, and theatre barely exists in spatial terms with the three colonnades (housing shops and businesses) opening onto the agora (political forum) with the market building at its centre and the shrine to Demeter and Persephone and the Theatre building taking up the majority of the fourth side of the square. You really get a feel for how this blend of spheres was not just spatial.
An arial view of the Theatre of Dionysus, in Athens. The triangular theatroi are particularly apparent in this view.
The pictures above are of the theatre on the island of Delos (3rd century BC). The island was the birthplace of Apollo and Artemis and is like Delphi in that the site is largely dedicated to temples and there are few practical buildings. On the part of the island that the theatre is in there is a fairly large network of later Roman buildings many of which have mosaics that are in one way or another evocative of drama (e.g. Dionysus riding a leopard). As you can see this theatre has not been recently renovated to house performances (the island is in the middle of nowhere) and offers some glimpse of how the other ruins might have looked before reconstruction.
These pictures above are of the Roman Theatre in Fiesole in Tuscany.
In the Old Theatre, Fiesole (April, 1887)
by Thomas Hardy
I traced the Circus whose gray stones incline
by Thomas Hardy
I traced the Circus whose gray stones incline
Where Rome and dim Etruria interjoin,
Till came a child who showed an ancient coin
That bore the image of a Constantine.
She lightly passed; nor did she once opine
How, better than all books, she had raised for me
In swift perspective Europe's history
Through the vast years of Caesar's sceptred line.
For in my distant plot of English loam
'Twas but to delve, and straightway there to find
Coins of like impress. As with one half blind
Whom common simples cure, her act flashed home
In that mute moment to my opened mind
The power, the pride, the reach of perished Rome.
This is the an aerial view of the theatre at Delphi (originally built in the 4th century BC and enlarged in the 2nd, potentially in 159 BC). At the back left of the picture you can make out the remaining columns of the Temple of Apollo, where the Pythia breathed her criptic noises for the priests of Apollo to turn into hexameter, with the treasury building on the level below on the right hand side.
This is the Roman theatre (there may have been an earlier Greek theatre on the site but there is no real evidence to suggest it). What is interesting about this building is the way that the city has just ignored it as it built up all around it. It is not visible from the street.
