Beaufort, Francis: Karamania, or a brief description of the south coast of Asia-Minor and of the remains of antiquity: with plans, views, &c. ; collected during a survey of that coast, under the orders of the lords commissioners of the admiralty, in the years 1811 & 1812 (London, 1817)

SIDE. 145

raised an inch, so as to leave a free pas-
sage to each person's place, and also to
serve as a channel for the rain water.
Now supposing that the antients sat as
we do, with the legs pendent, and not
crossed under them like the modern
Greeks and Turks (as Dr. Chandler
seems to have thought), and therefore
taking eighteen inches as sufficient for
each person to occupy, this theatre would
contain 13,370 persons, when regularly
seated; but, in crowded exhibitions,
many could sit on the flights of small
steps, or could stand on the upper plat-
form, and at the back of the broad Dia-
zomatos without incommoding those be-
hind them; these may be estimated at
1,870 more, and would together make
the enormous aggregate of 15,240 spec-
tators. The area of the theatre is now
overgrown with bushes, and choked up
with stones and earth; in digging through
which, to ascertain the lower level, we
discovered some inscriptions and several

L