The Roman Theatre
The most imposing monument of Roman Philadelphia, and the best preserved, is the theatre – according to an inscription it was built in the reign of Antoninus Pius (AD 13 8-61) to hold 6,000 people. The theatre and odeon (which held c. 500) were on two sides of a colonnaded forum, dated I 89, of which only part remains. These originally stood beside a stream and a major road, the Decumanus Maximus – the stream is now in an underground culvert and the road has long since been built over. The propylaeum (a triple-arched gate that once stood north of the forum, beyond the stream and road) has also disappeared; it was the entrance to the processional stairway up to the citadel and was mentioned by travelers as late as 1911.
