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1 18 Travelling around Greece June 2022

T THE ANCIENT gatherings of the town the cultural and social life of built the second ancient the-
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T THEATRE which was called Agora. people in Larissa which be- atre of Larissa then.
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It is the biggest ancient
After a very strong earth-
comes quite obvious from

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O OF LARISSA theatre in Thessaly and it the findings around and n- quake during the 7th centu-
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can hold 10,000 spectators.
ear it and mainly from the in-
ry A.D. a big part of the ep-
It was built in the centre of scriptions and the sculp- itheatre and the second
The ancient theatre of the town when Filippos the tures found there. floor collapsed into the the-
Larissa lies in the centre of fifth was the king of Mace- The ancient inscriptions atre orchestra .
the town. It was built during donia. It had been in use for make it very accurate that The main theatre is divid-
the second half of the 3rd almost 6 centuries until the during the Roman period a- ed by ten climbing stairs in
century B.C. on the south end of the 3rd century A.D, long with the equestrian eleven stands, each one of
side of the Acropolis of when it stopped being used races in the hippodrome, them consisting of twenty-
Larissa and it constitutes very abruptly. poetry, dance and music five rows of seats. However,
the landmark of the town. Its construction is con- competitions were also held during the Roman years the
It was originally connect- nected with cultural happen- in the great Thessalian cele- theatre was reconstructed
ed with the worship of God ings such as musical or the- bration called “ELEFTHE- and nowadays it remains in
Dionysus but also with the- atrical performances as well RIA” (liberty). that form with twenty-one
atrical plays, musical per- as with municipal gather- During the 1st century rows of seats.
formances as well as the ings. B.C., it was turned into an Above all the seats there
governance and the public It had been the centre of arena and that’s why they are inscriptions with names
which are believed to be the
names of the representa-
tives of Thessalian people.
The first excavation start-
ed in 1910 when the antiqui-
ties curator Mr. Arvani-
topoulos discovered a part
of the theatre stage. Early in
the 20th century the theatre
was covered under the
earth. Back then, a street
was made on top of the the-
atre along with houses and
shops which of course
caused great damages to
the monument.
During our visit and our
guided tour by an archeolo-
gist from the antiquity serv-