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Tyndale Open Bible Dictionary

THEATER*

A flat, semicircular orchestra surrounded by an open-air auditorium, a Greek creation in the sixth century BC. A chorus and actors performed in the orchestra, and the audience sat on the raised hillside before them. The earliest drama was tragedy, which celebrated the deeds of the god Dionysus and began with a sacrifice on the altar in the orchestra. Later, comedy developed.

The Golden Age of Athens (c. 450 BC) was also the golden age of Greek drama; Sophocles, Euripides, and Aeschylus wrote their dramas then. At that time audiences sat on the ground or on the wooden seats of the Theater of Dionysus in Athens, located on the south slope of the Acropolis. During the fourth century BC, theaters in Greece were equipped with stone seats arranged in concentric tiers against a concave hillside, and the orchestra was paved.

By the second and first centuries BC, great stone theaters were being built all over the Hellenistic East, and by that time a raised stage was constructed against the straight side of the semicircle of the orchestra. Action was now transferred to the stage. The auditorium of the typical theater consisted of three great bands of seats, which were divided into great wedges by the stairways that gave access to the seating. The elaborate stage was built in stone and had dressing and storage rooms. The orchestra was always paved.

Although initially the theater was intended for dramatic events, it came to be used for a variety of public meetings because it was one of the largest structures. For example, the great theater in Ephesus held about 25,000; the theater of Dionysus in Athens, about 17,000; and the south theater in Jerash of the Decapolis, about 5,000.

The theater should be distinguished from the odeum, which was shaped like a theater but was roofed. The odeum held only 1,000 or 2,000 people and was used primarily for musical events. It should also be distinguished from the amphitheater, which was a freestanding structure in stone, like the Colosseum of Rome and the arena of Verona, with an oval arena surrounded by concentric tiers of seats and used for gladiatorial combats, wild-beast hunts, and other such events. Only occasionally, as at Salamis in Cyprus and Caesarea in Palestine, were theaters free-standing stone structures; almost always they were built into the side of a hill.

By NT times, theaters were built in Greco-Roman towns all over the Mediterranean world. They even made their appearance in Palestine, as a result of the Hellenizing activities of Herod the Great, who constructed Greek-style theaters in Samaria, Caesarea, and Jerusalem.

Only one theater, that of Ephesus, figures specifically in the NT (Acts 19:29-41).