Theater at Bosra

The settlement of Bostra (later anglicized to Bosra) was first mentioned in ancient Egyptian documents of Akhenaten during the 14th century BC. Bostra was established as the first urban city in the Nabatean Kingdom in the 2nd century BC, and it shared a high status with the city of Petra as co-capitals. The Nabatean Kingdom was rich, fiercely independent, and flourished as a crossroads for trade routes and caravans. When the last king of Nabataea, Rabbel II Soter, died in 106 AD, the region was officially annexed by the Roman Emperor Trajan. This seems to have been a relatively bloodless action. The Romans had been slowly accumulating other eastern kingdoms nearby, and the eventual Roman acquisition of Nabataea must have been understood to be somewhat inevitable. The Romans renamed the area, calling it the province of Arabia Petraea.

Once under the direction of the Roman Empire, the city of Bostra was renamed Nova Trajana Bostra, and it was strategically chosen for development into a major city. As such, a substantial building program was undertaken to create a truly Roman city, with all the usual architectural markers of the day: a downtown district, paved roads, a bath, and a large amphitheater. The city was located at the juncture of several prime trade routes, principally the Via Traiana Nova, which connected the city of Damascus to the Red Sea.

Traditionally, when Rome annexed a new region, its city planners began to reshape the existing cities and build structures worthy of an empire. In Bostra and elsewhere, prompt action was taken to “Romanize” the newly acquired province, with grand investments in planning, design, raw materials, labor, and large sums of money to create the expected venues for public enjoyment. Culturally, Rome’s rulers used these building programs to promote Rome’s ascendancy in the area, to show superior power and strength, and to acculturate the locals to their new status as a Roman city.

Theater was essential to Roman culture, as a form of entertainment and as social commentary. Some of the earliest productions were dances performed to musical accompaniment. An important function of the theater was to perform plays from major Roman historical events, as a cultural touchstone. As a whole, the Roman populace appreciated theatrical events and spectacle. Roman theatrical productions served to reinforce the social standing of the leading sociopolitical elite, and to broadcast the shared values and culture of the wider Roman community.

Theater was important to the Romans. Given that the theater at Basra could seat 15,000 people, it was among the largest in the ancient Roman civilization. In fact, with 15,000 audience members, the theater is larger than many modern theaters today. The Orpheum, for example, seats around 2500. The city had at most around 80,000 inhabitants, which means either the owners of the theater expected to serve fully 19% of the entire population at one time, or people came from far around to experience the performances put on there.

This sort of theater was mainly used for artistic performances. There were few, if any, gladiatorial or combat performances put on here. Most likely it would have been Greek and Roman tragedies or comedies, many of which likely romanticized the region. The Romans are famous for absorbing the culture of the people they conquered into their own; their gladiatorial and theatrical performances show this.

Image: Roman mosaic depicting actors and an aulos player. House of the Tragic Poet, Pompeii.

In the nearly two thousand years since its construction, the theater has undergone significant changes. Aside from its use as a citadel, it was also re-purposed as an enclosure for a Muslim construction. The original orchestra was filled with sand to the height of about 10 feet, and a large stone structure was erected on top of the packed sand.

The interior of the Bosra theater was almost completely filled by this later Islamic structure, three stories tall, from the orchestra floor up through the second level of seating.

It was this reuse of the theater, which buried the original structure for hundreds of years, which helped to preserve the Roman theater.

From 1947 to 1970, the secondary structure was cleared away by hand in a long program to restore the Bosra theater to its original Roman design.

Move the slider from right to left to view the first stage of material removal in 1947.

Images credit: www.bosracity.com, originally published at www.madainproject.com.