Theater 1

Theater 1

View looking east at the Theater in Syracuse.  It was originally built in the fifth–century B.C. and was refurbished in the third–century B.C. and in the Roman Period.  Much of the seating area is carved out of the Temenite Hill.  The blue in the distance is part of the harbor of ancient Syracuse.

The cavea had a diameter of  452 feet, one of the largest in the Greek world, and originally had 67 rows of seating, mostly cut into the living rock, and divided into nine sectors (cunei) by access stairs. A pathway (diazoma) runs around the theatre halfway up the cavea, dividing it in two.

Much of the facing stone was carried away (spoila) for the building of the Island of Ortygia in the late sixteenth–century.

For additional information see Wikipedia Here.