The Theater of DionysusThe famous plays were performed here.
This should be more famous than the Globe theater in Britain, this should be the first pilgrimage site for
all who are drawn to drama. It's the Theater of Dionysus, on the south slope of the acropolis and to the east of the Odeion.
Here is where the plays of Aeschylus, Sophlocles, Euripides and Aristophanes were first performed during the classical period. (The
theater was extensively rebuilt in Hellenistic times by Lykourgous, nothing much is left of the classical construction)
It had seats for 17,000. In the first row are 67 more elaborate seats for officials.
In the first century CE, it was rebuilt again by the Romans.
Other events, not just plays, were also set in the theater.
One of the reserved seats for officials. Many were reserved for preisteses of major cults.
These slabs were taken from a 2nd cent. AD building and moved here in the 5th cent. AD. They depict events in the life of Dionysus.
Reader's theater: my students perform Aristophanes.