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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 December 2013
Amongst the standing remains of Greco-roman Balboura in northern Lycia are those of two theatres (Fig. 1). The smaller and better preserved clings to the steep south slope of the acropolis hill close to the line of the Hellenistic city's defence wall. The reports of early travellers provide little useful information about the monument, concerned as they are more with Balboura's rich epigraphic material than with her architecture. Spratt and Forbes, who visited the site in 1842 during their archaeological survey of the area, wrote a brief account, and nearly half a century later Petersen and Von Luschan published without comment a single photograph of the stage building's fine retaining wall showing its heavily bossed polygonal stones and its buttresses of squared blocks. No detailed picture was available, however, until the appearance in 1969 of the second volume of de Bernardi Ferrero's monumental survey of the ancient theatres in Asia Minor.
The second theatre, located in a rocky bay in the hillside at the edge of the valley three hundred metres to the south, has attracted even less attention, and understandably so, for its remains consist of little more than the foundations for the stage building which lie half buried beneath earth and debris. De Bernardi Ferrero has published several photographs but no drawings. Her brief description concentrates on the system of arches supporting the pavement of the proscenium, an unusual feature for which she cites several parallels in the area.
* The present study of the theatre formed part of the survey of Balboura, conducted under the auspices of the British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara, and supported also by the British Academy, the Oxford University Craven Committee, and Merton College, Oxford. We are grateful to the Department for the Preservation of Cultural and National Heritage of the Turkish Ministry of Culture for permission to carry out the survey, and to Bay M. Güven Güler, Director of Fethiye Museum, and our Turkish Government representative, Bay Haluk Yalcinkaya of Milas Museum, for much practical assistance. I wish to thank Dr. J. J. Coulton for giving me the opportunity to work at Balboura and for his permission to publish this monument. His suggestions, both editorial and substantive, were a great help in the preparation of this article.
Fig. 1 was drawn by J. J. Coulton after a survey by L. Bier, P. Bowles, A. Greenland and G. Hollinshead. All other drawings and photographs are by L. Bier.
1 Spratt, T.A.B. and Forbes, E., Travels in Lycia, Milyas and the Cibyratis (1847) I, 269–70Google Scholar.
2 Petersen, E. and von Luschan, F., Reisen in Lykien, Milyas und Kibyratis (1889)Google Scholar pl. XXIX.
3 de Bernardi Ferrero, D., Teatri classici in Asia Minore II (1969) 79–86 and pl. XIIIGoogle Scholar.
4 Op. cit. IV, fig. 102–105.
5 Ibid. 72–74. This theatre was also mentioned by Spratt, op. cit. 269–70. Cf. also Bean, G. E., Lycian Turkey (1978) 168Google Scholar.
6 For recent work at Balboura see Coulton, J. J., “Balboura 1985,” Araştırma Sonuçları Toplantısı (T.C. Kultur ve Turizm Bakanlıǧı, Eski Eserler ve Müzeler Genel Müdürlüǧü) IV (Ankara, 1986) 171–78Google Scholar. Also, Coulton, J. J. et al. , “Balboura Survey: Onesimos and Meleager,” Anat. St. XXXVIII (1988) 121–45CrossRefGoogle Scholar, XXXIX (1989) 41–62.
7 The west face of the platform, accessible by crawling into the ruins of the hyposcenium, makes this certain.
8 The scene building could have been deeper if the arches originated from tongue walls on the east side.
9 The upper beds of the springers are too small to support such arches without bonding them into the platform's face (as was the case with the arches of the hyposcenium). There are no cuttings to suggest that this was ever done.
10 De Bernardi Ferrero, op. cit. II, pl. X and pp. 47–56.
11 For animal and gladiatorial combats in the Greek east see Robert, L., Gladiateurs dans l'orient grec (1940)Google Scholar. Such contests are attested for Oenoanda around 127 A.D. Cf. IGR III, nos. 492, 500. III. 32–42Google Scholar. Spratt suggested that the lower theatre might have been intended for animal combats. Cf. op. cit. 270.
12 De Bernardi Ferrero, op. cit. I, pl. XIX, XX and p. 60.
13 Ibid. pl. IV, VIII and p. 24.
14 Ibid. pl. VII, VIIIA and p.56, 57.
15 J. J. Coulton has pointed out that the cyma recta cornice is an unusual feature in Roman architecture but occurs with some frequency at Oenoanda. Cf. his “Oenoanda: The Agora,” Anat. St. XXXVI (1986) 86Google Scholar. See also Ling, R., “Building Mk 1 at Oenoanda,” Anat. St. XXXI (1981) 34 ffGoogle Scholar. and fig. 3(b). The cyma recta cornice cannot in itself be considered conclusive proof for a late Roman date as it occurs in early 2nd century contexts as well. See, for example, Strong, D., “Late Hadrianic Architectural Ornament in Rome,” Papers of the British School in Rome XXI (1953) 124 ff.Google Scholar and figs. 2,3,6.
16 The upper theatre at Balboura also seems to have been left unfinished although work may have progressed far enough for the monument to have been used. The assertions of Spratt, op. cit. 269 and de Bernardi Ferrero, op. cit. II, 81 f., that the mass of bedrock projecting from the upper part of the cavea was left intentionally to support a chair or throne is not borne out by an examination of the site. Its shape is not as regular as the published drawings suggest. Nor does it lie strictly on the central axis. In addition, the rock is much too steep to have contained a seat of any kind. The adjacent seating was not “closely and carefully adapted” to its irregularities, as Spratt claimed but ended abruptly at its base. Furthermore, deep vertical grooves spaced evenly in its rising face indicate that blocks 0·66 m. wide were being quarried from this rocky mass which was eventually to have been removed completely.