DOI Artikel:
Miller, Walter: The Theatre of Thoricus: preliminary report
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.8561#0017
THE THEATRE OF THORICUS.
tower, built in the same manner and of the same material as the
wall of the theatre. The whole character of the masonry marks it
as a work of the last quarter of the fifth century B.C.
Strabo mentions Thoricus several times,1 but without giving us
any information about it, while Pausanias does not notice the place
at all. Dodwell says : " Indeed, it was ruined before the time of
Mela, who says,2 Thoricus et Brauronia, olim urbes, jam tantum
nomina." 3
Modern writers and travellers have given little attention to the
ruins of the city. Dodwell4 visited the place, and made a drawing
of the theatre which is utterly untrustworthy. Neither the shape of
the structure nor the style of the masonry is accurately represented.
His remarks about it are equally far from being correct.
Then came Leake,5 whose plan is much out of proportion; and
the' dimensions which he gives could never have been taken from
actual measurements. See Plate I., Fig. 1.
What is given by Dr. Lolling in Badeker's Griechenland* is faith-
ful, and as good as the concealed state of the theatre permitted when
he wrote.
Material and Form. — The material of the fortifications and of
the theatre is a blue-gray marble, easily worked and very brittle,
which was quarried on the spot. All the parts of the theatre are
built of it, excepting a part of the lowest row of seats (from i to 2
on the plan), and three battlements at the back part.
The theatre, when seen from above, seems oblong, rounded at
one end and square at the other. That this unsymmetrical form was
necessitated or even suggested by the nature of the ground seems far
from the truth, for the slope of the hill is as well adapted to the
usual horseshoe shape of Greek theatres as to the form which this
one has. It is true that, owing to the insufficient inclination of the
ground, it was necessary to build the heavy retaining wall A A'A", and
fill in earth and rubbish, to support the upper rows of seats. But
there seems no real reason why both ends of the wall could not
1 IX. pp. 397-399. and X. p. 485.
2 De situ orbis, II. 3 (about 50 A.D.).
3 Dodwell, Travels in Greece, p. 534.
4 Ibid. pp. S34-5S6-
5 Topography of Athens, II.
c pp. 117, 11S.
tower, built in the same manner and of the same material as the
wall of the theatre. The whole character of the masonry marks it
as a work of the last quarter of the fifth century B.C.
Strabo mentions Thoricus several times,1 but without giving us
any information about it, while Pausanias does not notice the place
at all. Dodwell says : " Indeed, it was ruined before the time of
Mela, who says,2 Thoricus et Brauronia, olim urbes, jam tantum
nomina." 3
Modern writers and travellers have given little attention to the
ruins of the city. Dodwell4 visited the place, and made a drawing
of the theatre which is utterly untrustworthy. Neither the shape of
the structure nor the style of the masonry is accurately represented.
His remarks about it are equally far from being correct.
Then came Leake,5 whose plan is much out of proportion; and
the' dimensions which he gives could never have been taken from
actual measurements. See Plate I., Fig. 1.
What is given by Dr. Lolling in Badeker's Griechenland* is faith-
ful, and as good as the concealed state of the theatre permitted when
he wrote.
Material and Form. — The material of the fortifications and of
the theatre is a blue-gray marble, easily worked and very brittle,
which was quarried on the spot. All the parts of the theatre are
built of it, excepting a part of the lowest row of seats (from i to 2
on the plan), and three battlements at the back part.
The theatre, when seen from above, seems oblong, rounded at
one end and square at the other. That this unsymmetrical form was
necessitated or even suggested by the nature of the ground seems far
from the truth, for the slope of the hill is as well adapted to the
usual horseshoe shape of Greek theatres as to the form which this
one has. It is true that, owing to the insufficient inclination of the
ground, it was necessary to build the heavy retaining wall A A'A", and
fill in earth and rubbish, to support the upper rows of seats. But
there seems no real reason why both ends of the wall could not
1 IX. pp. 397-399. and X. p. 485.
2 De situ orbis, II. 3 (about 50 A.D.).
3 Dodwell, Travels in Greece, p. 534.
4 Ibid. pp. S34-5S6-
5 Topography of Athens, II.
c pp. 117, 11S.