Teatro Romano and Odeon

Catania

The Roman Theatre was built around 415 BC, with a diameter of 102 meters, was home to about 7000 people. The coating of the cavea and the orchestra was marble, and stairs, steps and structures on which rested the arches were made of lava stone. In the eleventh century, at the behest of Count Roger, the theater was largely stripped of its marble facings, which were used for the construction of the Cathedral. In the second half of the eighteenth century Prince of Biscari began the excavation of the monument, recovering from the other inscriptions, marble decorations and fragments of statues, now on display in the Museum. In the foundations of the theater River Runs Amenano, once used for several aquatic shows. Today they are the most visible part of the cavea, the margin of the orchestra and a few remains of the stage. Next to the Roman Theatre, but at a level of superior construction, we find the Odeon, also built most of the structures in lava while the orchestra, ie the semicircular space between the auditorium and the stage, is paved marble. The Odeon which was probably used, as well as music and dance performances, including the evidence of events held in the nearby Roman theater has a semicircular shape and is made up of 18 walls that spread in long, narrow wedges within which were obtained 17 rooms covered in time and restored in the sixties, but whose destination is not yet clear.