Roman theater of Cádiz
The Roman theater of Cádiz or Balbo Theatre (Theatrum Balbi in Latin) was discovered in in 1980 in some archaeological excavations aimed at locating the Castillo de la Villa. Until then, only some of its interior galleries had been seen without identifying which building they belonged to.
Since 1980 until now, the recovery performances of the Roman theater of Gades have been taking place. Currently, it has an interpretation center that can be accessed from Calle Mesón, 11-13 (Barrio de El Pópulo), in which different areas of the theater can be observed through wells dug into the ground, such as the stage, the orchestra or the stands of the proedria. In addition, the center offers visitors the chance to see the cavea of the theater through large windows, learn about its history through information panels, archaeological remains and an audiovisual showing what this building was like. You can access the gallery of the theater through one of its vomitorios, excavated under the ground of the Posada del Mesón, a building that is next to the interpretation center. Likewise, from the gallery it is possible to access a delimited area of the stands via a walkway. The theater was abandoned in the III century. On its ruins the Muslims built a citadel. In the XIII century, King Alfonso X El Sabio reconquered the city and expanded the Muslim fortress, giving rise to the medieval Castle or Castle of the Villa. Today, there are buildings that overlap the theater such as the Municipal Nursery, the Posada del Mesón, the Casa de Estopiñán and the Casa de Contaduría, constructions that make up part of the Pópulo neighborhood, which preserves the layout of the old neighborhood in its streets. medieval, the walls and three of its old gates.
The Cádiz Theater has certain characteristics that differentiate it from the rest of the Roman theaters found to date, such as:
- It is the second largest theater in Roman Hispania, surpassed only by Cordoba for a few meters. The diameter of the Caveof the Roman theater of Cadiz is 118 meters and its capacity would be about ten thousand spectators, enough if we take into account that its population would be around fifty thousand inhabitants.
- It is the oldest theater among the known so far of the Peninsula.
- It is from the few public buildings of the Roman Hispania to which characters as relevant as Cicero or the Greek historian Estrabón mention in their works. In a letter from Assynio Polión (then governor of the Bética) to Cicero, it is said that Balbo el Menor, founder of the Nepal (the new city), he represented in the theater of Gades a work written by the same, that he remembered his collaboration with Julio César and that in this same theater he once made the two-year elections, reserved fourteen grads of seats to the Cadiz knights, premised an actor with the ring of the knights and another actor ordered him to run for being very ugly.
History
Estrabón recounts that the people of Cádiz initially lived in a very small city; "plus Bálbos the Gaditanós, who achieved the honors of triumph, raised another one for them that they call Nueva; from both emerged Didyme, whose perimeter, although it does not exceed twenty stadia, is large enough not to feel cramped for space". And so began the construction of the Neapolis and that of a theater that is currently considered the oldest and the second largest in Hispania. A true example of the splendor that Gades experienced in classical antiquity.
The building was abandoned at the end of the III century and was looted from the following century, although in late Roman times, Islamic and Christian-medieval, the remains of its structure were used as warehouses, stables, part of houses, etc.
The Roman theater of Cádiz arose "within the urban plans of a family from Cádiz, the Balbos, in their intention to provide their city with important public buildings, in imitation of their capital, Rome&# 34;, says the archaeologist Ángel Muñoz Vicente. The Balbos planned to expand the old Phoenician settlement by building a new one next to it. This urban nucleus is known as Neapolis, and from it, in addition to the theater, numerous urban remains excavated in recent years are known. "We also have news of the existence of another important public building, the amphitheater, in the neighborhood adjacent to Pópulo, Santa María, near the current Puertas de Tierra", points out Muñoz, for whom the Roman theater is "one of the few ancient buildings on our Peninsula that has direct references from the important authors of the time. Thus, Cicero, referring to Balbo's political mandate in Cádiz, alludes to certain uses of the building by this character for his own benefit".
If the remains of the amphitheater were visible at least until the 16th century –its perimeter is represented in an engraving of that the time of Antón de las Viñas– the theater, on the contrary, was already covered, or its structures reused and integrated into the medieval town erected by Alfonso X the Wise in the XIII.
Nothing was known about the theater outside of the classical texts, among which some indications indicate that already in the year 44 a. C. plays had been represented in Gades such as Iter , an autobiography of Lucio Cornelio Balbo the Less, to commemorate his election as local magistrate and in which he narrated his intervention in the wars civilians; Later chronicles relate that the author himself wept when contemplating the representation and remembering Julius Caesar, who had been assassinated only a few months before. The theater is also mentioned in Cicero's Letters to relatives in 43 BC. C.: Asinio Pollio, in a letter to Cicero affirms that, in the games organized by Balbus in Gades, there were fourteen rows of seats reserved for knights in the theater.
And although since the 18th century there are references to undergrounds in the area – undoubtedly related to some of the galleries of the monument, and that speak of wells that allow access to a rotunda with marble seats– it was not until October 1980 that, unexpectedly and by chance, the remains of the theater surfaced.
In 1980, the archaeological surveys commissioned by the Ministry of Culture to the then director of the Cádiz museum, Ramón Corzo Sánchez, to delimit the expropriation zone to discover the medieval citadel, led to the discovery of the Roman monument. Subsequent tastings made it possible to locate the upper stands, and little by little, a section of the gallery and the stands were excavated.
Today, a good number of rows of tiers of the media cavea survive from the Roman theater and the lower tiers of the ima cavea and the proedria, as well as part of the orchestra. Oyster stone, marble and Roman concrete, lime mortar with stones and a lime coating are the materials with which the monument was built.
Ángel Muñoz indicates that the upper sector of the summa cavea has disappeared both due to the use of its materials to build buildings in medieval times and due to the action of the sea itself. But next to this undermined sector, a section of curved wall that corresponds to the rear façade of the theater has been preserved "exceptionally" within other constructions, "as well as part of the framework that it would support the stands and the beginning of a corridor or ambulatory behind the façade".
Between this area and the first line of preserved steps, there is also a course of oyster stone ashlars "that perhaps corresponds to the side wall with the largest radius of an upper gallery, most of which has been lost when starting it from the ground level that we walk on today". To the west, the stands enter under the apse of the Old Cathedral, the ecclesiastical Accounting House, the Posada del Mesón and the Casa de Estopiñán, which preserves remains on the ground floor. And at the eastern end, the stands enter under the Municipal Nursery and, consequently, under the foundations of the medieval castle.
In 1999, another survey allowed us to verify the existence of another symmetrical vault to the one documented in the Casa de Estopiñán and allowed us to establish the orientation of the monument and its diameter: 120 meters.
For Muñoz, the future of the theater "would involve a rethinking of the current urban planning of a group of buildings of little or no architectural and historical value" from the XIX century, "whose demolition would allow the rest of the building to be exposed, making it possible to fully visualize the orchestra, the rest of the stands and the stage of the oldest theater in Hispania".
A new rehabilitation project plans to recover the original access and the profile of its stands. From 2017 to 2020, the rehabilitation and restoration project, endowed with €4,908,618, will aim to improve access and strengthen the relationship and integration of the enclave with its urban environment. The objective is to give value to the site "from the cultural, patrimonial and tourist point of view".
Description
As was usual in Roman architecture, an unevenness of the land itself was used to build it on the hill that is still today the Campo del Sur area. The construction techniques are the characteristics of the Republican period, above all they used concrete (opus caementicium), lime mortar, oyster stone and sand with ashlar technique on it on the outside.
All Roman theaters were actually a representation of Roman society and its well-differentiated social classes sat separately in the different areas of the theater:
- The porticus in the Summa Cavea It was the most remote area on the stage, there were women and children.
- Summa caveaWhere were the liberties, slaves, beggars, transients...
- Media caveawhere the general public would be placed, free workers, citizens, public officials...
- La ima cavea for the equites, sector of the population with high economic capacity. There was a law that forced to reserve the first 14 rows of public show buildings for the equites. In the case of Gades it is mentioned that there were 500 equites, which gives an idea of the economic importance of the city.
- Proedria. Three rows of seats, the closest ones to the stage, located on the orchestra and destined for the highest social classes, such as senators, magistrates, priests...
- Orchestra. It's the semicircular zone between the bleacher and the stage. While in the Greek theater this area was of scenic usefulness, in the Roman theatre it was reserved for seats of the highest social classes.
- Scaena. The stage, where the actors represented the works, mime, pantomime, tragedies, comedies...
- Scaenae frons. Cover of three floors, adorned with columns and statues of the emperor and of gods that closed the front of the theater. They used to have revolving screens to change decorators and mobile platforms, as well as other scenic resources, as headlines that moved the actors from top to bottom of the scene to represent the gods.
Construction technique
The excavation has only uncovered a portion of the building, part of the stands and the gallery that runs under it, but from it we can get an approximate idea of its characteristics. It was raised partially taking advantage of the slope of the land to support the stands on it. The ruins of the scene and the portico that would open behind the orchestra remain buried under the farmhouse in the Pópulo neighborhood.
The construction techniques are characteristic of the Republican era; Concrete, opus caementicium, lime mortar, pieces of oyster stone and sand predominate over the masonry and the isodome bonding (ashlars placed in equal courses). The entire stands were modeled with it and the seats were arranged on it, built with ashlars of oyster stone, while those from the orchestra were covered in marble, as was the entire stage front.
Structures
Entering the ruins, we see that the summa cavea probably disappeared due to the action of the sea, while the ashlars of the rest of the stands were reused in medieval buildings. The stands, or cavea, appear divided into three sectors. The summa cavea could be based on annular and radial walls and constituted by a framework of wooden beams, perhaps covered with an awning or velarium supported on wooden posts. Most of the rows corresponding to the media cavea, the ima cavea, the proedria and part of the orchestra survive; In addition to the vaulted gallery, which is in a very good state of conservation.
The Gallery
Another important sector excavated is a wide section of the gallery that channeled the movement of spectators to gain access from the outside to the seats in the lower area of the stands. It is of ample dimensions and is covered with an annular semicircular or barrel vault.
To build it, it was necessary to previously cut the natural rock and then, with ashlars perfectly carved in the same stone, the external wall was raised, while in the immediate part of the natural terrain a concrete wall of the same height was made. Wooden falsework was placed on both to form the vault also with concrete.
In the outer wall there are openings or vomitoria that communicate with the stands, as well as skylights to illuminate the gallery space. The four vomitories that the Gades theater had have been located. In these entrances we can see traces of a reform that must have been carried out when the building was still under construction.
The original design had a series of steps to overcome the difference in level between the gallery and the stands, but, for unknown reasons, possibly problems in the evacuation of rainwater, the pavement of the gallery had to be raised and consequently cancel part of the steps by covering them with a masonry ramp to save the new difference in level.
In the areas where the ramp has been destroyed, we can see that some steps were not even finished carving, work that had to be done once they were placed. Others, which are finished, do not present the logical wear caused by use. As a consequence of these transformations, it was also necessary to transform the upper area of the vomitoria, increasing their height.
This gallery remained almost completely filled up until the end of the XX century, as an old sewer emptied into it.
Decoration
Despite being also the oldest, what was the largest Roman theater in Hispania must have had a decoration in keeping with its dimensions. In the Cádiz museum, pieces of marble cornices with delicate plant decorations are preserved, as well as several fragments of friezes from the stage front and several drums of alabaster and African marble columns, also from the scene. Fragments of column capitals have also been recovered, featuring acanthus leaves and volutes.
Gades Roman Theater Interpretation Center
The Interpretation Center of Theatrum Balbi (Balbo Theatre) allows contextualizing the archaeological remains of the Roman building within the urban planning of the city of Gades, its importance in the formation of the medieval city and the current Barrio del Pópulo, through explanatory panels, images, models, archaeological wells and audiovisual resources.
- Address: Barrio del Pópulo. Calle Mesón, 11-13
- Telephone: 856 904 211
- Price: Free admission
- Hours:
- - From April 1 to September 30: Monday to Saturday from 11:00 to 17:00, Sundays from 10:00 to 14:00.
- - From 1 October to 31 March: Monday to Saturday from 10:00 to 16:30, Sundays from 10:00 to 14:00.