The Roman Theatre – Trieste

The Roman Theater of Trieste is located in the city center where you can admire remains of the ancient Roman city of Tergeste represented by the Roman Theatre.

Its construction dates back to the 2nd century AD. and could accommodate up to 3,500 spectators. Events and performances still take place in the theater today, especially in summer. If you are in Trieste at this time of year, don’t miss the opportunity to attend one of them.

History

By the sea, in the lower end of the S. hill. Right, the Romans built a large theater capable of holding 6,000 spectators.
The slope of the hill was used as in the Greek theaters but only partially because it is almost entirely a wall opera. The highest part of the steps and the stage were wooden. Very little is left: only the base of the fixed part of the scene and the masonry bases of the porch pillars.
The steps were distributed in 14 steps (now there are 12) in the lower area and probably 7 in the upper one, where they were not rebuilt. Today you can see only the core of the brick steps, missing the external cladding that was of limestone slabs. Below the steps is ambulatory that allowed the entrance to the theater from above. The theater is bordered by a powerful wall with a semicircular trend in which three series of holes that were needed to support a wooden structure are visible: a double tunnel or a podium topped by loggia. At the base of the staircase opens the semicircular area of the stage, whose raised floor was composed of wooden planks.
The scene, made as a monumental facade, was soberly embellished with niches in which marble statues worked in the round were inserted.
At the Civic Museum of History and Art, ornamental statues are preserved.
In three inscriptions of the Trajan era appears the name of Q. Petronius Modestus, a character linked to the theater of the time and finds confirmation of the date of the construction of the theater around the second half of the second half of the second half of the century.
The theater with its size of just under 65 meters was able to accommodate a mass of spectators that can be valued in 3500 people.
As for the other Roman monuments, he suffered the dismantlement of the precious stones and ready for other uses. Thus became the solid foundation of the houses that were built on it. Pietro Nobile, a neoclassical architect and scholar of local antiquities, identified it in 1814 also led by the name of the place “Rena vecia” (old Arena).
Scavi (1980-86) were carried out in the area behind the theater, along Via Donota and its adjacities. They came to light under the probable course of the Augustan walls, hypothesized along the current Via Rota, imposing layers of clay soil interpretable as the result of terracing works, also due to the presence of a series of retaining walls.

Immediately downstream, close to the retaining wall of Via Donota, some handcrafted environments have appeared, whose intended use is not clear. The plant material constitutes the majority of finds; a particular wealth of fine pottery emerges from canteen imported from the micro-Asian area, datable between the middle of the first century and the beginning of the second, a fact that opens new perspectives for the study of the role of Tergeste in traffic with the Mediterranean East.

Source: www.archeocartafvg.it