Qualla: Roman Theatre of Philippopolis

Roman Theatre of Philippopolis: Introduction

Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Hans Birger Nilsen, CC BY-SA 2.0. A landslide on the southern slope of one of Plovdiv's three hills in 1972 exposed a piece of cut limestone that did not belong there. The Plovdiv archaeological museum's staff started digging, and what they unearthed over the next twelve years was nothing less than one of the best-preserved Roman theatres in the world. Built in the 1st century AD, probably during the reign of Domitian, the theatre had been swallowed by 4.5 meters of earth after an earthquake or fire collapsed it at the end of the 4th century. For sixteen centuries, the marble seats had waited under the soil, with the names of city quarters still legible on individual benches.

Image: Hans Birger Nilsen | CC BY-SA 2.0

Roman Theatre of Philippopolis: The View from Row Twenty-Eight

Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Hans Birger Nilsen, CC BY-SA 2.0. The cavea, the curved bowl of marble seating, holds twenty-eight concentric rows divided into two tiers by a horizontal walkway called the diazoma. Narrow radial stairways slice the bowl into wedge-shaped sectors. Built into the natural saddle between two of Plovdiv's three hills...

Image: Hans Birger Nilsen | CC BY-SA 2.0

Roman Theatre of Philippopolis: Who Sat Where

Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit BrankaVV, CC BY-SA 4.0. The marble benches carry inscriptions that read like an ancient seating chart. Honorary places were reserved for the city council, for visiting magistrates, for friends of the emperor. Other inscriptions identified the city quarters by name, so a citizen knew exactly which sectio...

Image: BrankaVV | CC BY-SA 4.0

Roman Theatre of Philippopolis: Attila and Anastylosis

Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Dennis G. Jarvis, CC BY-SA 2.0. Attila the Hun damaged the theatre in the 5th century during the wave of barbarian incursions that emptied the lower city. The structure was already weakened, and either an earthquake or a major fire finished the job before the century ended. Then came the slow burial, the soil c...

Image: Dennis G. Jarvis | CC BY-SA 2.0

Roman Theatre of Philippopolis: Live Tonight

Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Martijn.Munneke from Netherlands, CC BY 2.0. The acoustics still work. Every summer the theatre hosts performances, with around 3,500 seats now in active use during concerts and plays. The Opera Open festival fills the cavea with arias. The theatre has hosted, among other modern uses, the prize ceremony for the 21st Interna...

Image: Martijn.Munneke from Netherlands | CC BY 2.0

Roman Theatre of Philippopolis: Two Thousand Years of Audience

Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Edal Anton Lefterov, CC BY-SA 3.0. Stand in the orchestra and look up at the cavea. The marble benches have been worn smooth by Romans, then Byzantines, then nobody at all for sixteen centuries, then Bulgarians, then a steady international stream of tourists. The Greek inscriptions on the steles around the orchest...

Image: Edal Anton Lefterov | CC BY-SA 3.0