Close to the inner city walls on the east there lies a group of mounds which on account of their reddish colour are called “Homera” by the Arabs (Fig. 249). Of these we have examined a northern, a central, and a southern mound, somewhat carefully, and find that from top to bottom they all are artificial heaps of broken burnt brick. Of their origin we will speak later (p. 308 et seq.).
The southern of these mounds has been utilised as a foundation for the auditorium of a theatre. In the débris of the building there was found the Greek dedicatory inscription on an alabaster slab (Fig. 248), according to which one “Dioscurides (built) the theatre and a stage.”
Fig. 248.—Inscription from Greek theatre.
The building (Fig. 253) is constructed principally of crude brick, and only in some special places, such as the pillars and the bases of the pillars, brick rubble is used, laid with gypsum mortar (Fig. 250).
For the upper part of the auditorium the artificial mound was not sufficiently high, and therefore a retaining wall of mud brick supported the upper seats, which have now disappeared. On the three broad projections of the retaining wall on the north stairways were apparently constructed. Of the seats only the 5 lower ranges, which must have been up to the first diazoma, now remain; they consist of mud bricks on which are laid uniform courses of brick rubble. Every seat of 5 courses high has a footstool 2 courses high in front of it. Nine narrow stairs, with steps only 2 courses high, separate the kerkides from each other. The central stairway, with steps 3 courses high, is broader than the others, and led to a compartment which occupied an entire wedge from the orchestra to the diazoma, the proëdreia, intended for distinguished personages, probably the priests of Dionysos. The auditorium, the orchestra with its parodoi, and the stage at some later period, which it is not necessary to estimate as very remote from the first one, were raised by about 1 metre, which caused the rows of seats and apparently also the proscenium to intrude by about 60 to 90 centimetres into the orchestra.
Fig. 249.—Plan of the mounds, Homera.
Fig. 250.—General view of the Greek theatre.
Fig. 251.—Pedestals for statues in orchestra.
At the edge of the orchestra, which was rather more than a semicircle, near the lowest row of seats, there was a row of statues placed on brick postaments (Fig. 251), of which two at the lower level of the orchestra, with their coating of fine white plaster, are still in good condition. The statues have now disappeared, but they have left deep traces on the top of their pedestals. On the east there are remains of 8 other postaments of the same sort at the level of the second building period.
The stage exhibits between the versurae, in a similar external course, a row of 12 proscenium piers, small and rectangular in form, and bearing on their front face somewhat narrower semi-pillars. The intercolumnar spaces were roofed over with roughly hewn stone blocks, one of which has fallen over and lies immediately in front of the proscenium. All these portions of the building were originally covered with two washes of fine white plaster (Fig. 252).
Similar semi-columns stand on both sides of the door leading to the orchestra. They led through two-chambered parodoi into the open air. Of these chambers the one to the west, especially long and narrow, must have served as a waiting-room for the public or the chorus.
Fig. 252.—View of the proscenium pillars.
Of the back wall of the logeion, the “scaenae frons,” only the foundation walls of brick rubble remain in situ. This was as usual liberally decorated; many of the reliefs in gypsum plaster with which it was adorned have been found (Fig. 254). The two lengthy halls behind the scaenae frons must have been connected with each other in the upper floors by arched openings, as is taken for granted in our reconstructed plan. In the foundation—above which the building is in large measure ruined—the doorways are not arranged for, whereas in Babylonian houses, such as in those of Merkes, the door openings are almost without exception carried right down to the lowest course.
A large peristyle with adjoining and almost uniform chambers abuts on the stage at the south. The southern row of these chambers is very largely destroyed, but of the peristyle sufficient of the brick rubble foundations remain to enable us to judge of the main part. The peristyle had a double nave at the south side, as is often the case with palaestra-peristyles. Fairly numerous remains still exist of the columns that stood on these foundations; they are of burnt brick cut into circular forms, and some of them that were roughly shaped were undoubtedly covered with a fine whitewash that gave them a clearly cut outline.
Fig. 253.—Plan of Greek theatre, restored.
On the east, by the side of the peristyle hall, there opened out a long narrow exedra, which was also columned. Both stage and peristyle stand on ancient ruined dwellings, of which the mud-brick walls were brought to light in a cross-cut we made through the central axis.
The plan, therefore, represents on the whole a combination of a theatre and of a palaestra. In any case the Greek population of Babylon found here an indispensable centre for those amusements and intellectual interests which they would have been most unwilling to abandon in that remote metropolis of the East, on the development of which Alexander the Great had founded such far-seeing plans.
Fig. 254.—Gypsum decorations of Greek theatre.
The building, as it was first constructed, may well date back to the time of Alexander himself, even though the foundation inscription found here, which appears to refer to a restoration, belongs to a later period.