Designing the cavea of the theatre at Stobi

Abstract

The long history of excavation of the theatre at Stobi has yielded much information about the chronology, construction and usage of the building, as well as about post-theatre occupation of the area. Archaeological investigations in the 1970s and new excavations which began in 2009 have shown that construction of the theatre was initiated at the end of the 1st c. A.D. on the model of a western Roman theatre, as a building with a semicircular cavea and a scene building with an indented scaenae frons similar to the Augusta Emerita (Mérida) type. Construction was then interrupted for a certain period for unknown reasons. In the first half of the 2nd c. A.D. it was finished according to a different concept, one that resembled the Roman theatres of Asia Minor. In its final appearance the building included a cavea that exceeds a semicircle, a high podium around the orchestra, open parodoi, and a rectilinear scaenae frons (figs. 1-2); in its final form it incorporated the cavea from the first phase, whereas the scene building was completely remodeled.