Theater of Demetrias

 

It happens to me quite often, arriving to find a site closed to visitors. Sometimes it’s mentioned on the website, in which case I decide to take the risk anyway. In this instance, too, I knew the theater couldn’t be visited, but I still hoped to catch at least a glimpse of it. 

From the street, there isn’t all that much to see, but by way of an adjacent orchard, I was able to get a fairly close-up look and form an impression.


The theater was built when the city was founded by the Macedonian king Demetrios I Poliocetes or "the besieger of cities". Not a peace-loving fellow, then... He united the settlements of Magnesia to create Demetrias around 294-292 BC. It was located opposite the Palace of the Macedonian kings (also look at my post about Aigai), and below the hill crowned by the Heroon of the city's founders. So, a cult shrine honoring the city founders. 

Its cavea has a diameter of about 24 meters and it could hold over 2,500 spectators. Today only the front rows of seats are well preserved. 

As far as we know, the theater itself is not mentioned by any surviving classical author. It is known to us purely through archaeology: its remains were excavated from the late 19th century onward (by Arvanitopoulos, then Theocharis in 1956–1961 and Milojčić's German team in 1967–1981), and its date and four phases of repair come from the excavation of the cavea and stage building, not from literary testimony.

What ancient authors do mention is the city of Demetrias itself, frequently. It appears in Polybius and Livy as one of the "fetters of Greece" (alongside Chalcis and Corinth) and as the stage for key events, Antiochus III holding his war council there in 192 BC (with Hannibal reportedly present). Pliny the Elder notes that it was formerly called Pagasae, and Plutarch describes Antigonus carrying Demetrius' ashes to Demetrias. 

More of my pictures you can find here! 

Locatie: Volos, Griekenland

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