Description
Catania's Roman Theater is a 2nd-century theater that lay buried for centuries under houses and has been brought back to light since the late 19th century, in the historic center, between Via Vittorio Emanuele and Via Teatro Greco. Just steps away is the odeon, its little brother.
For the people of Catania it is still the "Tiatru grecu," and that is not just habit: ancient sources tell of a Greek theater where, in 415 BC, Alcibiades addressed the assembly to persuade the city to ally with Athens against Syracuse. Which one it was, archaeologists have been asking for over a century.
Under the Roman structure, sandstone blocks with Greek letters have turned up, perhaps the initials of Katane: Alcibiades' theater could well be right here. What you see today, however, is the Roman building, enlarged in the 2nd century with a semicircular cavea 98 meters in diameter.
The most spectacular part is the cavea in lava stone and sandstone, with stairs climbing between the corridors and the two side towers that supported the access to the upper levels. On the orchestra, often flooded by a spring, the ancient river Amenano is said to well up.
The theater was faced with marble, friezes, statues and columns. Little of all that remains, because in the 17th century many pieces were carried off to build Baroque Catania: some can also be found in the facade of the Cathedral of Sant'Agata.
The rest is a neighborhood story. Abandoned between the 5th and 7th centuries, the theater filled up with houses: oxen were slaughtered in the orchestra, little lanes and even a square sprang up on the cavea, and in the 18th century Via Grotte cut it in two. The arches of Via Grotte still stand above the orchestra.
At the end of the 19th century the Superintendency led by Paolo Orsi began to expropriate and clear the building.
The biggest clearances came in the 1950s, and something of the old neighborhood was kept on purpose: some houses became the Antiquarium, with reliefs from the theater and the remains of a 16th-century settlement. From the 1970s the theater hosted summer performances, until 1998.
Also worth a look is the Casa del Terremoto, a time capsule with the objects left behind on January 11, 1693, the day of the quake that changed the face of the city. It is one of the details most visitors forget to look for.
Don't miss
• The Casa del Terremoto.
• The arches of Via Grotte.
• The Antiquarium.
Did you know?
• The orchestra is often flooded by a spring: tradition links it to the river Amenano, which flows beneath the city.
• The theater has a little brother next to it, to the east: the odeon.
For the people of Catania it is still the "Tiatru grecu," and that is not just habit: ancient sources tell of a Greek theater where, in 415 BC, Alcibiades addressed the assembly to persuade the city to ally with Athens against Syracuse. Which one it was, archaeologists have been asking for over a century.
Under the Roman structure, sandstone blocks with Greek letters have turned up, perhaps the initials of Katane: Alcibiades' theater could well be right here. What you see today, however, is the Roman building, enlarged in the 2nd century with a semicircular cavea 98 meters in diameter.
The most spectacular part is the cavea in lava stone and sandstone, with stairs climbing between the corridors and the two side towers that supported the access to the upper levels. On the orchestra, often flooded by a spring, the ancient river Amenano is said to well up.
The theater was faced with marble, friezes, statues and columns. Little of all that remains, because in the 17th century many pieces were carried off to build Baroque Catania: some can also be found in the facade of the Cathedral of Sant'Agata.
The rest is a neighborhood story. Abandoned between the 5th and 7th centuries, the theater filled up with houses: oxen were slaughtered in the orchestra, little lanes and even a square sprang up on the cavea, and in the 18th century Via Grotte cut it in two. The arches of Via Grotte still stand above the orchestra.
At the end of the 19th century the Superintendency led by Paolo Orsi began to expropriate and clear the building.
The biggest clearances came in the 1950s, and something of the old neighborhood was kept on purpose: some houses became the Antiquarium, with reliefs from the theater and the remains of a 16th-century settlement. From the 1970s the theater hosted summer performances, until 1998.
Also worth a look is the Casa del Terremoto, a time capsule with the objects left behind on January 11, 1693, the day of the quake that changed the face of the city. It is one of the details most visitors forget to look for.
Don't miss
• The Casa del Terremoto.
• The arches of Via Grotte.
• The Antiquarium.
Did you know?
• The orchestra is often flooded by a spring: tradition links it to the river Amenano, which flows beneath the city.
• The theater has a little brother next to it, to the east: the odeon.