Aydın, Güllübahçe

The amphitheatre’s stone benches were made in 330 BC. Approximately 80 years later, the marble stage building was renovated and part of this two-storey structure remains intact. The original theatre of one tier was enlarged to three levels to meet new requirements. The surviving first storey of the stage building and decorative seats with arm rests place it among the amphitheatres of Anatolia’s early period. The first level of the theatre was probably a wooden theatre built by the Ionian people of the Plasagian line, who were an indigenous pre-Hellenistic people of Anatolia. The reasoning for this is that the auditorium is built completely into the hill and that it has an angle of more than 180 degrees, and that it is a separate structure from the stage building. The benches are covered in marble in the same way as is seen in the amphitheatre of Aigai; the keystones of the marble sheets covering the front face of the benches in the two theatres are also similar. The altar stone at the edge of the orchestra used to make offerings to Dionysus resembles the one in the Bodrum amphitheatre. The seats with armrests for dignitaries arranged around the orchestra are worked with an interesting interpretation of lions’ feet.

In the first level of the amphitheatre there are 14 rows of seats and six radial walkways. The holes that housed the wooden poles over which canvas canopies were stretched above the benches to shield the audience from the sun are still intact. The second level has 21 rows of seats and 11 radial ways. On the third level five rows of seats can be counted. A section is reserved for distinguished members of the audience and their guests in the fifth row of the first level. This occurred in the second century BC when the performance area was elevated seven feet in the orchestral plain. The section reserved for notables must have been designated as the fifth row up to enable the distinguished guests to have a better view of the performance from the edge of the orchestra. This amphitheatre is on an incline of 30 degrees and the orchestra is 33 feet in radius. The orchestra plain is in the shape of a horseshoe. The stage area has 14 marble pillars seven feet tall set at intervals of 5 feet and five inches. The height of the stage building is approximately 44 feet.

The amphitheatre has a seating capacity of 5,500 people.